Monthly Archives: November 2022

Grief Bacon

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What are your favorite words or phrases, in any language?

Daughter taught me Kummerspeck recently–literally grief bacon. It’s the German compound noun for the weight one gains from emotional eating.

How awesome is that?

I posted the word on Facebook the other day, and a loving friend of German descent commented, “I hope you are reveling in the bizarre household-nature of German compound words, and not suffering from Kummerspeck.” I replied that I have indeed experienced Kummerspeck before (possibly also now, not sure), and that “I *love* German precisely because by having words for such mundane and yet significant experiences, the language, and thus the culture, validate them and make us feel not alone for having them.”

In med school we learned Mittelschmerz–middle pain–the pain women feel from ovulation, which happens 14 days prior to menstruation (the middle of a typical 28 day cycle). Now I also love Drachenfutter–dragon fodder–‘apology gift (given to a spouse)’. And everybody knows Schadenfreude–joy in others’ misery; but I like Freudenfreude–joy in others’ joy.

In Chinese I particularly love shang nao jin, 傷腦筋, which literally means to wound (shang) the mind (nao jin–‘brain nerve’). It’s used to express when one is exhaustingly vexed by a problem. Similarly, when we say someone is dong nao jin, 動腦筋, moving the mind, we mean they are actively, even agilely, thinking. I also love shuai, 帥, which is usually translated simply as handsome. But the connotation encompasses more than just physical appearance. There is something attractive, masculine, strong, graceful, respectable, and maybe even alpha, all included in the one word, one syllable expression. Chinese language is extremely efficient.

Here are some British expressions I love, which really make me want to live there for a while someday:

Barmy, barking mad, and off your head — crazy

Fiddly — fussy, requiring an annoying amount of close attention

Faff — to make a fuss over nothing

Cheeky — amusingly irreverent (I also love irreverent itself–the word and the way of being)

Dodgy — dishonest, unreliable, potentially dangerous, low quality, or just ‘off’ in some way

Loo — the best word in the whole world for bathroom

Isn’t this fun?? Won’t it be fantastic if everybody writes about their favorite phrases in the comments below? C’mon, it’ll only take a minute!! 😀

Bring It: Embrace the Suck

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“Short-term easy is long term hard. Short-term hard is long-term easy.” –Shane Parrish, The Knowledge Project

If you know it’s going to be painful, and it cannot be avoided, just do it. Start. Do the work.

This does not mean take an impulsive running leap off a cliff with no parachute.

Study the problem. Understand the challenge. Know what skills, tools, and support you need. Line them up, sharpen them, check the list.

But stop ruminating, overanalyzing, making excuses.

Get honest about your avoidance, see what it costs you. Calculate the value: Is the false, needling ‘comfort’ of procrastinating now worth the payment(s) you will inevitably make later?

It’s all so much easier said than done.

What do we need to get to, “Bring it!”? How can we overcome fear, discomfort, pain, perfectionism, and failure, to suck it up and move? Embracing the suck means facing the challenge with full frontal, dead on acknowledgement of the whole problem and all of its implications–and accepting it. That is the first step to changing anything, counterintuitive as it seems.

After that, ‘just do it’ means simply taking one step toward change, toward resolution, toward peace. No leaping, no parachutes. One step, then another, then another. Paced, thoughtful, informed, intentional, and, in the best cases, communal.

‘The only way out is through. The best way through is together.’ We can be with things the way they are, including how we feel about them, without judgment. Just be. Then act. When I think back at my ‘Bring It’ and ‘Embrace the Suck’ moments, I recall feelings of confidence, power to, and connection to my tribe. I feel strong, my posture straightens, I get taller. I trust myself to engage and grapple, and I know without a doubt that I have people who will be there for me when I need them. Turns out, when I really think it through, that last part is crucial.

So there it is again, my friends!! Relationship and connection! I had no idea that’s where this post would end. How fascinating, can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow!

Range

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One of my favorite books of 2019; read to see how NASA crowdsourced solutions to their most vexing problems, and other amazing true stories of the value of meandering.

I am a doctor. I do medicine. This is my identity.

Yes, and no.

“Did you always want to be a doctor?” Hell no. I resisted mightily the Chinese-American pre-med stereotype. And no, my parents never pressured me. But then sophomore year of college, I became a dorm health aide. I got a tackle box filled with cold medicine, cough syrup, ibupofen, bandages, scissors, tweezers, rubbing alcohol, etc. Dormmates sought out my fellow aides and me for help with hangovers, food poisoning, splinters, and colds. I taped condom packets to my door. Every month we convened in the student health service basement for case review and didactic education, led by the physician and nurse who ran the program. I was hooked. After that, I could not not be a doctor. Damn.

So I did all the things: Went straight through, taking all the classes and exams, following the well-trodden, traditional path to today. I regret nothing that I did to get here. I also wish I had meandered a little more, taken some more time, maybe… travelled more, seen more, and done more, before committing at age 19 to the rest of this professional life.

So I encourage my kids to study abroad, to take strange, interesting jobs, gap years, to suck all the learning out of every divergent experience they can get, all in service of becoming more of who they are. I want their range to be wider and deeper than mine was at their age, and then to expand further. Son is a sailor and world traveler, and Daughter explores widely in art, fashion, literature, history, and their intersections. They both feel the freedom to make things more than I ever did growing up. Score!

As for myself, it’s not too late! Yes, I’m a doctor. I could not love it more. I’m also a speaker, a writer, a counselor, a dreamer–and who knows what else yet!?

Oh, I’m a book club member! That may be one of the best things I have ever done–exposed myself to smart, diverse women who read fiction, omg. I always thought I had nothing to learn from and could not understand the point of novels. Now I’m slowing getting it. [The Midnight Library, Remarkably Bright Creatures, Portrait of a Thief–highly recommend these, if you have not already read.] Amazingly, I’m currently binging romance audiobook #41–more on that in a future post. 😉 Through fiction I can live vicariously, explore my own inner world from different angles, and just wonder, not to mention connect with others whose experiences of the books diverge acutely from my own. It fosters empathy–how fascinating!

In the end, why expand our range–of experience, perspective, thought, and relationships?

Range allows us to reframe, to expand how we understand things, to realize how much more we have yet to learn. It stimulates curiosity, which fosters both earnest humility and audacious creativity. If we pay attention, really observe and witness the range of diversity around us, we inevitably, paradoxically, come back around, over and over again, to how those differences actually bind us together, and point us to our shared humanity, in the grand scheme of things.

By living and learning widely, paying attention generously and openly, even frivolously, we connect–to one another, and simultaneously more deeply to our true selves, in the fellowship of all of humanity. Wow.

Why, then, live any other way?