Studies show that doctors who report signs of burnout have enlarged amygdalas, the area in the brain that regulates fear and aggression. 

But burnout isn't an academic exercise. It's an all-consuming, systemic condition. It's your entire body sending you one clear message. Something has to change and it has to change now.

 Put simply, burnout comes from a deep imbalance. Too much stress with too few rewards.

 You're exhausted. Depleted. You no longer have patience, pleasure, or serotonin. 

This is the end. 

Unless you turn it into something else and find your path to recovery. 

Pick the pieces you want from your life and find a new way forward.

 

No matter how remote you are or isolated you feel, there's hope. 

And help is usually closer than you think.

It's not always easy to ask. 

But with a little courage, if you look, you'll find what you need.

 Your family, your friends, your community, lifting you up.

 

Before the 20th century, drug safety studies were not required. 

Narcotics were sold under the counter. 

Teething babies were given serums laced with morphine. 

A medicine for strep was made with anti-freeze. 

No one was responsible for distinguishing between medicine that heals and medicine that harmed. 

No one studied side effects or adverse reactions. 

All you could do was roll the dice. 

Recommendations, rules, guidelines. 

Ideally, they exist to save you from unnecessary pain. 

Have fun and stay safe while doing it. 

But rules only work if you follow them. 

But sometimes the rules you've been following turn out to be flawed.

 All bets are off. 

You're completely on your own.

 

In the 1940s, while stuck in bed with tuberculosis, biochemist Karl Link read a book on rodent control.  

Karl created a rat poison from an anticoagulant he'd discovered while trying, but failing, to treat sick cows.

 Later, a soldier trying to end his life ate Karl's rat poison, which, unexpectedly, helped lead to its use as a blood thinner in humans. 

From multiple failures, the compound warfarin was born, and it's been used to treat and save millions of people. 

Whether in science or life, the road to discovery is rarely a straight line. 

We take two steps forward, then fall three steps back. 

We veer off course and have to find our way back. 

Surprise detours lead us to unsuspected places. 

Places we never imagined were possible.

 

James Harrison, an Australian blood donor, was nicknamed the "Man with the Golden Arm." 

His blood contained the rare antibody necessary to make a life-saving medication: anti-D. 

Anti-D injections were given to pregnant mothers whose blood was incompatible with their unborn baby's. 

James donated over 1,000 times. 

What he could survive without saved over 2 million lives.

 What we find important to keep in our lives changes over time. 

Things break, hobbies age, and dreams evolve. 

You learn from experience to narrow down what really matters.

 And who you want standing by your side at all times. 

And once you do, you hold on as tightly as you can.

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”

 

if you hold its head underwater long enough, 

it will drink

 

When patients leave the hospital, they're often taking home a brand new regimen of medication, physical therapy, and aftercare. 

Ideally, every patient would do exactly as they're told. 

But reality has a different story.

 Too often medication costs, memory lapses, and poor health literacy impede patients' recovery.

 For the doctors, there's not a whole lot you can do about it.

In other words, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

 

 It's easy to judge people for their actions but you don't always know what's driving them.

 You don't know what they're born into, the struggles they faced. 

Sometimes we make rash decisions with no idea why. 

But often it's fear pulling the strings behind the curtain.

 Fear of failure, of being let down, or, one of the old favorites: fear of happiness.

 It's all too easy to be your own worst enemy. 

And the damage we inflict can take a lifetime to undo.

 

At all costs, we avoid negative experiences. 

We ignore pain. We steer clear of the unfamiliar. 

We lie when asked about how we feel

 A recent study found that marriage actually has health benefits. 

Married people live longer, have fewer strokes, and fewer heart attacks than people who are single. 

Happily, there are other studies that tell us the real truth about the health benefits of marriage, which is that the benefits have nothing to do with marriage at all. 

Because those studies have shown that staying in an unhappy marriage is the worst thing you can do for your health and your children. 

So better health is a direct result of healthy relationships. 

You don't need a spouse, you just need someone you can trust. You need someone you can talk to. You need someone who will celebrate your wins and grieve your losses. You need someone who can forgive you. 

You need someone who will show up, no questions asked, and walk with you through every unexpected twist and turn life throws your way.

 We define ourselves by our actions, 

but it doesn't mean we have to live by that definition. 

We can change our own story. 

We can refuse to accept the way people define us. 

We can work like hell to escape a bad reputation, only to wonder if we succeeded. 

It can be hard to shake the mistakes of the past. They'll always come back to haunt us.

 But one thing we never do. We don't stop. We don't quit. 

We get up and rejoin the fight

 

What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. 

It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance

 A great tree develops over time and can tell stories not only those of happiness, but also those that contain pain from what it has seen over the years, and as a result is the wise ancient tree that it is today. 

As the seasons change, the tree naturally goes through changes as well: 

where the leaves turn yellow and orange in the fall, 

falling by the Winter,

 returning in the Spring, 

and with full set of new leafs by the Summer. 

Love is no different in that there will be times when we are fully naked in the Winter, and left to wonder about Spring when it seemed so easy to love, 

yet the wise tree knows that no winter will last forever 

no matter how cold it may be.

 An ignorant person is inclined to blame others for his own misfortune. 

To blame oneself is proof of progress. 

But the wise man never has to blame another or himself.

 If you want to make progress, put up with being perceived as ignorant or niaive in worldly matters, 

don't aspire to a reputation for sagacity. 

If you do impress others as somebody, don't altogether believe it. 

You have to realize, it isn't easy to keep your will in agreement with nature, as well as externals.

 Caring about the one inevitably means you are going to shortchange the other

 People wanted security. 

They couldn't bear the idea of death being a big black nothing, 

couldn't bear the thought of their loved ones not existing, 

and couldn't even imagine themselves not existing. 

 people believed in an afterlife because they couldn't bear not to.

Epicurus

 

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? 

Then he is not omnipotent. 

Is he able, but not willing? 

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?

 Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

 Then why call him God?”

In the wild you don’t see old animals
because as soon as they age,
animals die.

If they get sick or slow down,
something stronger kills them.

Animals aren’t meant to get old.


Our culture has made death something wrong.

Old animals should be an unnatural exception.

 

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. 

We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

 

There are just some kind of men 

who're so busy worrying about the next world

 they've never learned to live in this one,

 

Years go by, if I'm stripped of my beauty

When I wore a younger man's clothes

we all lose our charms in the end

Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not

 

Tori Amos

Years go by, will I still be waiting
For somebody else to understand
Years go by, if I'm stripped of my beauty
And the orange clouds raining in my head
Years go by, will I choke on my tears
'Til, finally there is nothing left

 

Billy Joel 

He says, "Son can you play me a memory?
I'm not really sure how it goes
But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man's clothes"

Marilyn 

Men grow cold
As girls grow old
And we all lose our charms in the end

Bucks Fizz 

Youth, 

it passes,

while age is collected

 

Time takes it all, 

whether you want it to or not

 

A med school professor once said, the hardest decision in surgery is knowing when to abandon a repair and just remove the whole organ. 

If a spleen is shattered, we'll take it out to protect the rest of the body. Same with a section of colon or small bowel. 

The human body can survive a fair amount of loss. 

People live without an appendix, a kidney, tonsils, and more. 

The body finds ways to compensate for what it's missing but it will eventually reach a breaking point. The body can only give up so much before it no longer works at all. 

Much like with surgery, life is full of calculated risks. 

We often make sacrifices in hopes of better outcomes. Not every gamble pays off the way we hoped. 

So we ask ourselves, "What are we willing to give up? 

What can we leave behind? 

What do we need to live? 

What makes life worth living? 

What are we willing to put on the line when a life is at stake? 

How much are we ready to lose if things don't break our way?"

 a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, 

and his punishment is that he sees the dawn 

before the rest of the world

Jesus

 

 prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 

I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. 

He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. 

You must make your choice. 

Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, 

or else a madman 

or something worse.

 You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, 

but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. 

He has not left that open to us. 

He did not intend to

Make your own Bible

 

 Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet

 Research suggests that up to 40% of our day is spent acting out existing habits rather than making new decisions. 

From sleep to personal hygiene to diet and exercise. 

Some of our habits serve us well. 

Others can be more complicating. 

If you want to change a habit, behavioural scientists suggests starting small. Make one minor adjustment over time, it creates a domino effect that helps us make bigger chances down the line. 

Make a radical change and you've set yourself up for failure. 

The principle of the domino effect is a double-edged sword. It can help us build healthy habits but it can lead to destructive tendencies as well. One small misstep becomes one bad habit. 

Of course, none of us is perfect and so much is out of our control. 

All you can do is make the best choices available to you and hope they don't come back to bite you.

 What you have done is out there. 

And what you have done remembers. 

October

 

 October is its sunset sky; 

November the later twilight

Night in the Lonesome October

 The skies they were ashen and sober;

The leaves they were crisped and sere --

The leaves they were withering and sere;

It was night in the lonesome October

Of my most immemorial year:

October again

 

https://vassago-vassago.blogspot.com/2010/04/ulalume.html

Ulalume

https://vassago-vassago.blogspot.com/search?q=october

October

https://vassago-vassago.blogspot.com/2023/10/night-in-lonesome-october.html

Night in the lonesome October

https://vassago-vassago.blogspot.com/search?q=poe

Edgar Allen Poe 

October

  October 

My ornaments are fruits; my garments leaves, 
Woven like cloth of gold, and crimson dyed; 
I do no boast the harvesting of sheaves, 
O'er orchards and o'er vineyards I preside.
 
Though on the frigid Scorpion I ride, 
The dreamy air is full, and overflows 
With tender memories of the summer-tide, 
And mingled voices of the doves and crows.
 

 things to love about October

Crystal clear sky
Fallen leaves
Horror movies
Pumpkin spice latte
Halloween
Trick or Treat

Ulalume

 Edgar Allan Poe

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere --
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year:
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir: --
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul --
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
There were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll --
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek,
In the ultimate climes of the Pole --
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the Boreal Pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere --
Our memories were treacherous and sere;
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year --
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
We noted not the dim lake of Auber,
(Though once we had journeyed down here)
We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent,
And star-dials pointed to morn --
As the star-dials hinted of morn --
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn --
Astarte's bediamonded crescent,
Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said -- "She is warmer than Dian:
She rolls through an ether of sighs --
She revels in a region of sighs.
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion,
To point us the path to the skies --
To the Lethean peace of the skies --
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes --
Come up, through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said -- "Sadly this star I mistrust --
Her pallor I strangely mistrust --
Ah, hasten! -- ah, let us not linger!
Ah, fly! -- let us fly! -- for we must."
In terror she spoke; letting sink her
Wings till they trailed in the dust --
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust --
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied -- "This is nothing but dreaming.
Let us on, by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybillic splendor is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty to-night --
See! -- it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright --
We safely may trust to a gleaming
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom --
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista --
But were stopped by the door of a tomb --
By the door of a legended tomb: --
And I said -- "What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied -- "Ulalume -- Ulalume --
'T is the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere --
As the leaves that were withering and sere --
And I cried -- "It was surely October
On _this_ very night of last year,
That I journeyed -- I journeyed down here! --
That I brought a dread burden down here --
On this night, of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon has tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber --
This misty mid region of Weir: --
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber --
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

 There is no season 

when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, 

and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings 

as now in October

 

The skies they were ashen and sober;

The leaves they were crisped and sere --

The leaves they were withering and sere;

It was night in the lonesome October

Of my most immemorial year:

 

the heady aroma of the frost-kissed apples,

 the winey smell of ripened grapes, 

the wild-as-the-wind smell of hickory nuts,

 and the nostalgic whiff of that first wood smoke.

 October arrives in a swirl of fragrant blue leaf smoke, 

the sweetness of slightly frosted MacIntosh apples, 

and little hard acorns falling

 

the wind is rising, 

and the air is wild with leaves, 

we have had our summer evenings,

 now for October eves!

 

Pale amber sunlight falls across
The reddening October trees,
That hardly sway before a breeze
As soft as summer: summer's loss
Seems little, dear! on days like these.

Let misty autumn be our part!
The twilight of the year is sweet:
Where shadow and the darkness meet
Our love, a twilight of the heart
Eludes a little time's deceit.

Are we not better and at home
In dreamful Autumn, we who deem
No harvest joy is worth a dream?
A little while and night shall come,
A little while, then, let us dream.

Beyond the pearled horizons lie
Winter and night: awaiting these
We garner this poor hour of ease,
Until love turn from us and die
Beneath the drear November trees

October

 

 

a swirl of fragrant blue leaf smoke, 

the sweetness of slightly frosted MacIntosh apples,

 and little hard acorns falling.

October

 

In the ancient Roman calendar, October was the name of the eighth month of the year. Its name comes from octo, the Latin word for “eight.” When the Romans converted to a 12-month calendar, they tried to rename this month after various Roman emperors, but October's name stuck 

October's birthstones are the tourmaline and opal.

 Its birth flower is the calendula.

 The zodiac signs are Libra (until October 22) and Scorpio (from October 23 onward)

 

October is its sunset sky; 

November the later twilight.

October

 

I have been younger in October than in all the months of spring.

There is no season as vibrant as fall. The sky, the leaves, and the landscape together create a symphony of colors. When you appreciate the things around you, you will find that you already have the most precious things in the world. A grateful heart will guide you to discover more wonders in life.

October is the fallen leaf, but it is also a wider horizon more clearly seen.

In the entire circle of the year there are no days so delightful as those of a fine October… – no days so calm, so tenderly solemn, and with such a reverent meekness in the air.

Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, we have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!

October, here’s to you. Here’s to the heady aroma of the frost-kissed apples, the winey smell of ripened grapes, the wild-as-the-wind smell of hickory nuts, and the nostalgic whiff of that first wood smoke.

October is the month for painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world. As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a bright tint just before they fall, so the year near its setting. 

October is its sunset sky; 

November the later twilight.

October arrives in a swirl of fragrant blue leaf smoke, the sweetness of slightly frosted MacIntosh apples, and little hard acorns falling.

There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings as now in October.

things to love about October

Crystal clear sky
Fallen leaves
Horror movies
Pumpkin spice latte
Halloween
Trick or Treat