When I hear about people who are not vaccinated against COVID,
Personally, I reserve hatred for people I know.
It’s too much energy to expend on a stranger.
“Between these two reactions lies the “neutral” box. Here we place the experiences that are neither good nor bad. They are tepid, neutral, uninteresting.” 1/3
“We pack experience away in the neutral box so that we can ignore it and thus return our attention to where the action is, namely, our endless round of desire and aversion. So this “neutral” category of experience gets robbed of its fair share of our attention.” 2/3
From one of my favorite books Mindfulness in Plain English.
This book taught me not to make judgments on this that don’t need to be judged. Things that are not my concern. Things that are none of my business. All the million things I’m not responsible for. 3/3
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Like most doctors of my vintage, I was taught to be two doctors.
Doctor One was for innocent victims of their disease. Good, respectable people who took their medicine and had a ride home at discharge. 1/20
Doctor One was textbook perfect. He took everyone at their word. Two beers a week meant 2/wk. Complaints of pain were taken at face value and met with concern and treatment. Intentions were never questioned. Extra time was given. 2/20
Doctor Two was for bad people. These patients had made themselves sick with character flaws and bad judgment. This doctor was a skeptic and doubted ever word. 2 beers per week meant 6 per day. “Pain” meant “drug seeking.” Visits were quick. And painful. 3/20
If you set your mind to it, and you really want to hate your job and the patients you care for, you can blame almost every patient who comes in the hospital for making your day worse by making you work hard to take care of them. 1/10
If you want to get burned out and quit in disgust, look hard for patients who
- don’t take their medicines
- make bad life choices
- engage in high risk behaviors
- don’t invest the time and effort to exercise
- take dangerous jobs
- run with dangerous crowds 2/
If you want to be sad and hurt at the end of the day, think of all the hard work you put into people who “won’t put the work into caring for themselves.” 3/
The answer to both questions depend on a lot of factors.
- What water/mask are we talking about?
- What’s the alternative?
- What else do you have to drink/what else can you do to mitigate your risks?
- How thirsty/immunocompromised are you? 2/10
If the choices are wear a cloth mask that doesn’t work into a crowded indoor space or avoid the space altogether, I’d skip the crowd. 3/10