I am at work, and on my lunch break, it has been a nice morning, steady pace, and no crazy surprises. In my world of family practice medicine I consider this to be a good thing. Although this will depend on whom you talk to.. Maybe this is a reflection of my personality, because in general I am not that fond of surprises (unless of course they are always good ones). I just finished reading my dad’s blog and it is nice to see him writing in it more, he had some nice quotes. He did say there are two kinds of people in this world, those who have found God and those who are looking for her, although he left out the other group of people, those who think they are him.. And I am sure we can all name a few of those people.
I don’t have a lot to say today, I am generally happy, which is now something that I have considered to be a good thing. I was listening to NPR’s "This American Life" and one of the gals being interviewed had plotted her sex life on an x/y axis to make a graph over 10 years (how fascinating).. I am sure if I did that it would be a pretty flat line, or one in which the slope is steadily approaching zero (smile) But it did get me thinking about other things I could graph in my life… that way I could see that things are changing, especially goals that I may have.. I figure maybe this will help me to get motivated and get off my butt. I started to make a list in my head… my guitar skills, my photographs, my artwork, my happiness, the number of times I say I love you in a day, time spent at home, time spent away, time with family, time with self, time on computer blogging, time on computer staring blankly at screen, time sad, time frustrated, time sleepy, time sleeping, time with patients, time charting, time talking, time listening… and then boom your dead!!!
Is it then not the goal I wonder that we maintain a constant slope upward in life when we plot ourselves (and the numerous variables) on an axis. Do many of us find ourselves flat lining, is this ok? are we more of a bear or a bull market? Do we have a goal, is it to be like the stock market, average the ups and the downs with a hope of looking back on life and having a positive overall "gain"? I wonder….. Anyway I am intrigued by this thought and may get back in the next couple weeks with a graphical analysis of my life "the Stephen Pasquini Growth Curve" and I challenge you to do the same, pick some variables, important to you, chart them over time and see what you come up with.. Maybe I could include this as part of the next screening health physical… "Well" I will say to Mr. Brown.. "you’ve lost 10 pounds over the last 6 months congratulations" "your height has stayed the same, your cholesterol… hmmm too many chips I think but here this is not good Your life growth curve" You appear to be flat lining……!
I meant to say that economists say the economy is doing well if it grows 3% a year. So maybe we can say that our life is good if we grow 3% a year. That amounts to a lot over the years.
The secret to life is to look at it over the long view rather than the short one. Like I said to my son many years ago when he was in college. Golf is 18 holes, but we play one hole at a time and each hole requires a number of shots just to get to each hole. So Life is like that. We have 18 holes to play, we can only play one hole at a time, and the one thing we must always do is keep our eye on the ball. That means living in the present while knowing that their are 18 holes to be played and a final score at the end. So we look into the future for what our lives should be like and then play it one day at a time without taking our eye off the ultimate goal which is to finish the 18 holes. We miss a shot now and then and make mistakes, but that’s life. That’s golf. In the end all that matters is that we finish the game and give it our best.
The other thing I loved was that you said there are three types of people rather than two. Those who have found God, those who are looking for Him, and those that think they’re god. How true. I think they call those people Republicans.