🚶🏻‍♂️One Step at a Time

📝 Doctor Kenji's Notes

Author

kenji tomita
March 12, 2024

Hey guys, I hope you're all having a fantastic week!

Before we start, I wanted to do a quick thought experiment:

I've been thinking for a while about starting a Patreon account, where people can support the channel for as little £1/ month. It'll help pay for the team (editors etc), upgrade our equipment and generally help us keep putting out free quality content. There'd be channel perks like joining a private discord, live Q&A hangouts and in person meetups 😁

Would you consider joining?

And now for today’s article….

For the last 10 days I've been on annual leave from work, which has been fantastic. I've really enjoyed a slower pace of life, including waking up and having a nice coffee whilst doing a bit of reading before getting on with the day's goals. I've also taken walks in the countryside with my partner and dog, and I've really enjoyed that.

While this has been great, I've definitely had more time to think about my future. As many of you know, in about 4 months, I will no longer be on a permanent training contract as a doctor, which means that I'll be taking an alternative route in finding part-time work whilst also pursuing other endeavours. These thoughts about the future made me feel quite overwhelmed at times with fears of not finding a job, how to save for my future goals, as well as other aims that I have in life. As always, I turned to philosophy for an answer about how to manage future worries or concerns and I came across this amazing video by the School of Life that made me see my concerns in a different light.

You see, if someone gets hit by a car and ends up in a hospital, they may end up with broken bones and many bruises to their body. If a friend visits them in hospital and asks how they're doing, their answer may probably be "I'm taking it one step at a time". Similarly, if a 95-year-old lady is taking her first trip to the supermarket in a long time, one might automatically consider that she's taking that journey one step at a time. But oftentimes in our lives, when there are things that we're all chasing and striving towards, we can sometimes forget apply the same logic and kindness to ourselves. It's this analogy from this video that was a great reminder to me. Although I have all of these things that I'm planning for in the future and also looking forward to, sometimes there is not much that we can do in the present moment to get us closer to that point. Where you want to live, what job you want to do and who you want to be with are extremely difficult existential decisions to make, which often require months to years to work towards. Putting an unrealistic expectation that these are things that we can work on every single day, and every single minute of the day can often be quite overwhelming and counterintuitive to our goal. Of course, if you want to have a six-pack, you definitely should be working out every single day. But these other examples have a time preference more than anything.

It's in these moments I'm reminded that we should take things one step at a time, and sometimes only work towards getting to the end of the day without anxiety, stress etc. If you get to the end of the day and no one has died, no one has been harmed, there have been no further arguments, or you haven't made a big financial loss, then that is a win in itself. And at these moments when we may feel overwhelmed, we should remind ourselves to be kind and take every journey one step at a time.

So I leave you with this question this week. What have you been overthinking about regarding your future, and how can you aim towards taking this journey one step at a time today?

Have a fantastic week and see you on the next one.

Doctor Kenji.

👍🏾 Things I’ve enjoyed this week

📹 The latest video in case you missed it:

📚 Highlight of the week

 3-2-1: The Power of Imperfection, the Secret to a Good Morning, and More

"The secret to waking up is to wake up way earlier than you have to. When you have 1-2 hours where you can just sit there calmly, drinking coffee, and not be rushed, you feel ten times better. Later on, you can work on being productive in the morning too, if you please."

3-2-1: Making Small Bets, How to Do Great Work, How to Support the People You Love

"It's not that hard on any given day, but the trick is you can't skip days. Your workouts can be reasonable and still deliver results—if you don't skip days. Your writing sessions can be short and the work will still accumulate—if you don't skip days. As long as you're working, you'll get there."

 3-2-1: Excitement Over Discipline, Outliving Yourself, and How to Make Important Life Choices

What small step can you take today that will put you on the path toward something wonderful?

Resurfaced to me by Readwise

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