the grass Is always greener if you water it

My next appointment will be early Tuesday afternoon. I won't be allowed to return to work until after that appointment at the very earliest. I want to get back to work as soon as possible. I don't like being stuck here with so little to do. I'm reading and watching many videos to distract myself. It's better than nothing. Back in the olden days, I would be limited to whatever books I could talk someone into buying or checking out from a library for me. Now all I have to do is to click once on amazon to purchase the book and once to open it in my kindle reader. I'm not a huge fan of much of today's social media, but I'm not against the information age as a whole. The instant  access to any book available on kindle is mind-blowing. 

I really don't mean to be a whiner. People exist who are so overworked that they would love to have almost a week to lie around reading and watching whatever suited them even if they had to suffer broken bones and a torn ACL to get the much-needed rest. Please humor me as i attempt to view my circumstances through a more rose-tinted lens. I wouldn't willingly break bones and tear a ligament to have a few days off, but others toil away day after day at jobs so demeaning or oppressive that this enforced rest would seem like veritable paradise to them. I'm fortunate enough to have a job. And, since I'm not being paid to do the job even when I'm there, I'm not losing out on any income by not showing up. I am endeavoring to be a glass-is-half-full sort of person as I make ludicrous assertions in trying to convince myself of just how great things are for me right now.

The job I have is not exactly a proper job, as instead of being paid to do it, I'm paying a university a whole lot of money for the privilege of doing it, yet it is my work for now. It is the culmination of eighteen years of study if I count preschool, which (counting preschool)is probably a bit preposterous. Still, I've studied for a long time to be prepared to come into contact with real and living patients who are not just pretending to be patients. It's virtually impossible not to be excited when the opportunity has finally arrived.  

Children and adolescents grow so weary of hearing adults tell them that they need to study and learn the very best they can in school in order that their career options may be as limitless as possible. As much as they get tired of hearing it, it is, nonetheless, true. Regardless of our diligence as students, some professional and vocational limits are a reality for most of us. I could have studied and/or practiced for every waking hour that I wasn't in school or eating, but I still could not have been a professional athlete. I lack the physical prowess needed for any professional sport.  Furthermore, at least one area of specialty in medicine is not available to me because I lack the physicality to perform some aspects of the job.  

Because I have reasonable intelligence and because I studied diligently in school, however, my career aspirations were limited by only physical constraints. There probably wasn't a career option that was unavailable to me by virtue of any lack of cognition. Nuclear physics, for example, would have been a stretch for me, and I would have struggled in completing the required education for the field more than would much of the competition in the field of study, though I would have been accepted for training into that or virtually any other similarly cognitively demanding field and, with sufficient focus and effort on my part, could have completed the program of study.  I'm certainly not stupid**, though neither am I all that much brighter than have been my classmates. What I am is a very hard worker who developed excellent study skills. 

Some students may have more limitations than most of us have, but almost any student who studies diligently and effectively enough should be able to find a career that would hold his or her interest and would provide adequate financial support for him or her provided that he doesn't spawn babies with almost every female residing within his zip code. And admittedly, some individuals, usually through no fault of their own,  struggle with physical, cognitive, or learning deficits that close off all but the most basic and menial of career options for them.  Be that as it may, such is not the case for the vast majority of us.  Most of us are limited primarily either by past efforts or by  the efforts we're willing to put forth now and in the future, and not so much by any inherent weaknesses we may possess. 

Even finances are not an insurmountable impediment to the fulfillment of the education of our own choosing. If we're willing to take on the burden of incurring some debt, and if we use the funds we've acquired through student loans wisely and devote the time and attention to our studies that would need to be given, lack of funds isn't really a reason why we cannot complete the course of education we would choose for ourselves. It's absolutely dispiriting to have to rely on debt and to have to take on  extra employment to get through through university while seeing others receiving generous grants and scholarships or whose parents foot the bill for their educational costs. 

A person would probably be abnormal if he or she were not at least a bit disgruntled by the imbalance and unfairness of it all. It's best, nevertheless,  not to dwell too ponderously on the un-levelness of the playing field, because, to quote a rather trite [but still true] aphorism, it is what it is.   Or, if it sounds better coming from the mouth of Bruce Hornsby, "That's just the way it is. Some things will never change." The Trump children have a cushier path to success than do the Rousseau children. The path undertaken by the Rousseau kids is likewise far less embedded with figurative booby traps than is the path traveled by the progeny of the Jutes and Kallikaks, for entirely different reasons. Whatever the path that anyone's particular circumstances have carved out, the person can see both those who have it easier and those for whom things are far more challenging. Read or even memorize the Desiderata for help in maintaining perspective in this regard.

In relation to a matter about which I cannot, at the present, share specifics, I'm facing ethical and legal challenges at the present. My instincts tell me  that I'm not the person who faces any serious peril in this situation, but there is tremendous potential for my superiors to be angry with me. Instincts notwithstanding , I will feel much more at ease if or when I hear from my superiors that I face no dire consequences and do not have to rely solely upon my instincts to tell me this. I'll be more specific when I can.

The turmoil in D.C., Virginia, North Korea, and wherever the next disaster strikes is more than sufficient to fuel my anxiety.  I would gladly abdicate the drama of my personal life, and will be greatly relieved when someone in power tells me I no longer have cause for concern.

On that note, have an awesome week, everyone!