I know that I spend a lot of time here, postulating wildly unsupported speculations and theories. It’s fun and I will keep doing it. But, I have a piece of genuine, 100% certain to be correct, advice:

Do different things.

Yes, it’s underwhelming at first, but give me a moment to explain. Our strongest evolutionary ability, our trump card in the face of adversity, is our ability to adapt.  The variety of situations and challenges that we can suddenly rise to overcome is astounding: we went to space, for example.

And that adaptability is issued to each and every person at birth. The trick is, you won’t have any idea on what you can accomplish, or what you’re gifted at doing, until you get into the mix and experiment.

Over the last 30+ years, the popular culture ideal of life has been one of routine and predictability: decades spent in the job you were trained to do, with no alarming changes of course. And for many people, they will end up in that position. Fine, if that’s what you’re good at. But don’t settle into that rut without a doing a little personal exploration first. The thing you’re great at may not be anything that you have studied or practiced or planned to do at all.

I could give you a long list of examples , people who have followed their curiosity and ended up in a much different place than they expected, but I will focus on one remarkable fellow: Dr. Adrian Owen.  Dr. Owen started his academic career in psychology. Psychology led to psychiatry, which led to neuroscience, which led to a meeting with a woman named Kate. (Kate’s story). Because Adrian followed his curiosity, he found this woman. He connected to her, and he saved her from unending silence. Now, Dr. Owen is the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging at UWO, working with his team to expand our understanding of human brain function and awareness.

 

For the last couple of days, I have been agitated and ornery, ready to argue with everything I don’t agree with. And, as you would suspect, I tend to find A LOT of things disagreeable when I am in such a mood. I could have spent the entire fighting with people. I tried to vent my spleen harmlessly into the atmosphere by just tweeting my complaints to no one in particular, which felt like yelling at the clouds for being too fluffy.

It added to my frustration that I knew the people I wanted to argue with weren’t actually the source of my testiness. Oh, sure, they were all wrong and I was totally right in every way as I always am, but the arguments were symptoms, not the cause.

And after digging through the pile of sour emotions, I found the source: a busy week ahead of me. I’m working as a standardized patient (SP) next Saturday, a 12 hour marathon acting session where any factual detail I mess up could lead to a would-be doctor failing that question, which could cause him or her to fail the doctor certification exam. Stressful, but I’ve done it before and it’s not too big of a challenge. But then, on Thursday, I was offered another 3 days of SP work for the ‘introduction to interview skills’ class at the medical school. Being super short on money, I leapt at the chance right away. this additional SP work means I now have 4 character histories to memorize and keep straight this week. 4 different dudes with different illnesses, different families, etc… Sounds kind of hard. Plus, I don’t know the particular order or process of the intro class, and the lack of clear detail and instruction is amplifying my frustration.

And is that enough stress? Not for this guy! I’m going apple picking for the London Food bank today, which I’m looking forward to, don’t get me wrong, but it is another scheduled activity to juggle in my tiny brain. And, I’ve volunteered to schedule a tour of the GTA for a Liberal Party presidential candidate, and trying to coordinate these groups is like trying to herd cats via email. Tick tick tick, there’s only so much time before the GTA tour starts. But like any volunteer-driven organization (and make no mistake, political parties are volunteer-driven nonprofits) you can’t hurry or push the members too forcefully or they just won’t show up.

And I’m pitching an article to every newspaper and magazine I can think of, hoping to make a little cash when I go to the big Liberal convention in January, if I can find a way to get there on the ultra-cheap. And I want to write a newsletter for the riding association this week, and I’m going to an event on Wednesday night, and I need to exercise before my pants explode at the seams from my increasing bulk. Oh, and somebody told me a long time ago that I’m also working on a novel. Wonder how that’s going?

The real question for me is, have I always hated being busy and therefore avoided it with all of my energy, or am I getting re-acclimitized to busyness after spending the last 2 years running at a leisurely kid speed? Either way, I’m going to put a concerted effort into transforming this displeasure into a positive sensation. If the future works out the way I want it to, I’m going to be increasingly busy: I need to develop the organizational and coping skills to handle it. But I still reserve my right to shout at passing cars or mutter at other drivers on the road about their poor driving choices.

On Tuesday while we were hanging up his coat, the lad was scrutinizing the nametags above the coat hooks near his own at preschool. He asked if the name tag beside his said “Madelynne” and I told him it didn’t (it said ‘Maddie’) but the name tag next to that one did, in fact, belong to Madelynne. A look of great relief and satisfaction spread across his face, even more so when he noticed that her coat and shoes were already there. I asked him if this made him happy, and he replied “Yes. We decided a few days ago that we were in love.” Hmm.  I ‘m going to keep an eye on this young lady. They better not be spending all of their class time trying to smooch each other (though I’d understand if they were-he is remarkably smoochable).

In other school-related news: they’ve started working on learning to read, and Max is doing astoundingly well. When asked for words that begin with the letter ‘A’, my tiny genius answered ‘Antarctica’. The teachers were quite impressed.Oh and did I mention that he has been happily working away with the wife and I to complete an activity book designed to prepare kids for grade 1? That’s right, the grade he will enter in 3 years. Yikes! I’ll be honest, I’m a little bit frightened by his giant brain. A brain that size needs a constant supply of stimulation and challenge, and he’s going to start outgrowing some of my old educational standbys like the children’s museum and playgroup. Lazy dad better keep researching new activities.  Maybe it’s time for French class? I could benefit from it as much as he would.