i. Acting 'out of character': Who am I ?!

Something happened this week which upset me terribly and made me wonder 'who' I really am.

Then, by chance, I read about a psychological phenomena which put the world right again for me and reassured me that I am who I think I am … most of the time. 

Let me explain:

We all have personalities which across time are fairly stable and persistent.  So, in any given situations and when relating to other people we tend to behave in a fairly predictable and consistent way.

'Trait psychology' defines five dimensions of personality in which people are distributed along a continuum so that a 'bell shaped curve' results (one of those graphs where most people are somewhere in the middle but a few people are positioned at the low or the high extremes).

These dimensions can be put in order of the mnemonic OCEAN':

O - Openness to experiences vs closed
C - conscientiousness vs unconscientious
E - extroversion vs introversion
A - agreeable individuals vs not agreeable individuals
N - neurotic individuals vs more stable emotionally individuals

So, for me I think that I’m middling range in the traits - open to experiences, conscientious, extroverted, agreeable, and unfortunately I’m a bit neurotic - I have had mild-moderate general anxiety. I’ve worried about things for as long as I can remember. And, as part of my anxiety, I’ve suffered with both anorexia nervosa in my teens (as has one of my daughters - the genes she inherited from me) and perfectionism; although I’ve now ‘learned’ to overcome the eating disorder, my perfectionistic traits and my anxiety almost completely (it flares only occasionally).

My dad suffered with anxiety, as did his mother (my paternal grandmother), so from my father I was able to model some of his adaptive coping mechanisms to deal with my anxiety: jogging (my father taught me), distraction (listening to music and watching television), exposure (just get out there and do things … and see that you’re OK and you’re still breathing) and finally - things my father never learned - talking to people about my worries, ‘problem-solving (listing my worries/problems and writing alternative possible solutions for each one)’, and ‘cognitive behavioural therapy’ (CBT) where I learned to see (interpret) the world in a less scary way and allow myself to stop trying to be ‘perfect’ and accept ‘average’ and ‘failing’ as just part of learning and life.

Fortunately, I never turned to ‘maladaptive' coping mechanisms for my anxiety: alcohol, drugs, self-destructive behaviour.

And so, like all of us, my genes have determined many of my personality traits some of which have made my life easier (my strengths) and some  have made my life more difficult and challenging (my weaknesses). The latter ones I’ve needed to work on.

We all have personality strengths and weaknesses. 

We can learn to work to our strengths - if we learn what they are That usually means following the things which come more easily and naturally to us. For example, I would never try to be a fighter-pilot or a neurosurgeon - as I’m not calm enough for those jobs.  But engaged in work where I get to talk with people, help people, and use my analytic skills - I tend to flourish and enjoy myself.

You often know the things you can do fairly well - because they seem to come more easily to you and you’ll often find that you enjoy those things most.  You might even be passionate about them.

Psychologists acknowledge that we are obviously more than just a bunch of psychological traits mapped along continuum graphs. And, while we might share our traits with many other people, we are still unique and different to every other person on the planet. 

So personality traits cannot explain all of who we are.

The determinants of our personalities are basically a product of three main things:

- Biogenic (nature/genes): neurophysiology
- Sociogenic - related to the cultural and social aspects of our lives.
- Idiosyncratic - the things which make us all uniquely ‘ourselves,’ different to anyone else.

The idiosyncratic qualities - which make each of us unique - are the qualities which determine how other people see us, know us, and love us. 

And so what things make up the ‘idiosyncratic’ part of our personality?

The answer to that is ‘we don’t know specifically’. It could be just chance  how the 100 billion neurones in our brains make random connections during our lives - before and after birth - with between 100 trillion and 1000 trillions connections forming. This is the cause for our brains being completely unique from each other.

However, it may also be less simply just ‘chance’ and more related to our ‘souls’.  As I’ve mentioned many times, I’ve become quite spiritual in recent years (although I’m not religious) as have many doctors who deal constantly with life and death. We see so many ‘coincidences’ and ‘miracles’ which we cannot explain - it does make some of us wonder if there’s more to the story than chance.

And, if we have souls and there is a spiritual side to life - then maybe our differences as people are linked to our individual souls (maybe we’re souls with bodies, rather than bodies with souls) and our life journeys (destinies) which we can choose, or not, to follow during our lives - are about learning life lessons (love, compassion, helping, tolerance, patience), and helping other people with their journeys. (I think we all, to varying extents, help each other during our lives - which is lovely).

Whatever the cause, it is the idiosyncratic parts of our personalities which determine our ‘Free traits’: That is the ways we choose to live: Our passions and our projects - activities, causes and people - which we decide are most important to us during our lives.

These projects, priorities and passions can sometimes even cause us to drastically change our ‘personality traits’ - act ‘out of character’ for periods of time - to pursue or achieve them.

For example, an introverted woman who hates arguing with authority figures and is usually very agreeable and easy-going might, for a period of time, argue with doctors and nursing staff in a major hospital - raising her voice and become very disagreeable and extroverted - if her dying mother is suffering in a hospital bed - inadequately medicated for pain relief, shivering with cold, and lying for hours in soiled sheets. She might act contrary to her usual mild mannered ways because of her passionate concern for her beloved mother whom she feels she must protect.

Following such an outburst of ‘out of character’ behaviour - although necessary, possibly, to get the help her mother needs - this woman would probably feel exhausted and upset.

The ‘core projects’ we have in our lives - including caring for our families, caring for our patients (if you’re in the health profession), pursuing our hobbies and passions - are the things which matter so much to us that we might sometimes force ourselves to behave very differently from our usual trait personalities.

And that is what happened to me this week. 

I felt awful afterwards, although - if I were in the same situation again - I would behave very similarly. In fact, now I think about it,  I’ve behaved ‘out of character’ on many occasions during my life - especially when someone I love needs me to fight for them.

In the situation this week I realised, from the way I behaved, how passionately I care about my patients.  And, I know I’m not unique in caring about, and fighting for, other people in this way.

But this week the situation happened as follows:

Walking into the waiting room to call in my next patient I noticed a tall woman, aged around 40, standing at the reception desk staring at me. I didn’t know her and I didn’t know why she was looking at me so intently.

She then spoke loudly, ‘You sell patient’s books here, do you’? She gestured towards a little table in a corner with a small book stand on it in which I have a few novels written by friends who are authors.  The book stand in my waiting room is just a way I’m helping my friends - we make no money from it. The woman continued, ‘I’m a patient at this clinic and I want you to sell my cook book too!’

I was taken off guard as no-one has ever made such a demand of me. It was also a busy morning in my clinic and my focus was on medicine and my patients.

However, a part of me also loved the idea of helping someone - especially in the shared passion of writing. But there was much to consider: Stocking this woman’s book would mean that I’d need to buy a bigger book-stand.

So, I began to explain to the woman - in my usual agreeable and polite way -  that stocking her book (completely as a favour to her with no profits to us - as for the other two novelists who are my friends) would be possible … but I’d need to purchase a bigger book-rack first.

As I was thinking of the logistics of helping this woman she spoke again: ‘My books are cookbooks for people with coeliac disease.’

That changed everything!  Her books were effectively ‘medical books’ as coeliac disease is a medical condition treated with diet. If the dietary advice is incorrect people with coeliac disease can get very sick.

‘Are you a dietician?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘But I have a science degree.’

And that’s when I started to change my mind about stocking her book. I didn’t think that I could put my patients at risk with dietary advice by someone who was not a dietician.  I wouldn’t even give such advice to them.  In the hospitals in Australia even the specialist physicians have to defer this sort of advice to qualified dieticians.

The woman then began to push me to sell her book … and I began to argue that I thought a dietician was necessary for such a book. The woman’s anger grew and I became disagreeable and assertive and annoyed …

I began to act in a way very different from my usual helpful and agreeable self. I hated behaving that way. It upset me and exhausted me. It made me so miserable as I felt like I was hurting the feelings of the woman who obviously loved her book and she’d put so much work into it.

Still, more important than her feelings was the safety and health of my patients. I have a duty of care to them. That comes ahead of me acting in a way I prefer to act - helpful, agreeable.

Finally, when I had had enough of the arguing about the necessity of a dietician for such a book I turned and left saying, ‘I won’t stock your book. Goodbye.’

The woman then stormed off leaving us both upset.

I called in my next patient and I felt completely awful all afternoon… and that night … and for days in fact.

I hate arguing.

I hate asserting myself to dominating people.  I avoid those situations like  the plague. I generally manage to avoid confrontations with aggressively assertive and pushy people by surrounding myself with quieter more agreeable people. The other personality traits of my friends and associates can be whatever you like - but I hate to fight. Fighting of any kind upsets me for days. I’ll do it if I have to - but I hate it. I think ‘disagreeable types’ - especially when they are pushing me to do something I don’t want to do - are my worst nightmare.

I grew up in a violent house with daily screaming and police and fighting.  My parents were physically and verbally abusive so maybe that’s the reason for my aversion to fighting. Maybe it’s a result of social factor’s in my childhood.  Maybe it’s also genetic.  I recall that even when I was very little I used to give my toys away to other people and try to make other people happy. Probably, like most physical and psychological conditions, it’s a mixture of both: nature and nurture.

But part of the reason I did argue in this case - and I’ve done so before and I’ll do it again if I must - is that I realise from my behaviour that one of my life ‘passions’ is taking care of people:  My patients, my children, my husband, my friends, and anyone I think is being bullied.  I think most people would do the same. Maybe some people, however, would find it all easier than me. Their personality traits would be more suited to confrontations. Maybe those people would enjoy work as social workers or lawyers or police officers. 

But, I did what anxious people like me do when we feel upset about something:  I discussed the episode with every person I know - friends and family, I went swimming to ‘de-stress’, I ‘problem solved’ so I’ll be more ready if I’m confronted again in a similar way by people making demands on me on the spot at work: I’ll say, ‘I’ll think about it.’ I also distracted myself from my worries with a few comedies and lovely music … and I wrote a blog (and you’re reading it) … then I let it go. 

For anyone reading this who finds confrontations easy - then you probably can’t understand how I find them so hard.  Obviously, that is your strength and my weakness. I don’t think it will ever be my strength - but with practice and reflection I can improve - then go back to avoiding confrontation as much as I can.

In your own case, acting ‘out of character’ may not mean of course arguing with anyone.  It might mean behaving as a ‘pseudo-extrovert’, if you’re naturally an introvert, to promote your book or apply for the job you’d love or stand in front of a class if you love teaching.  Then, after that period of time where you’ve behaved in a way not natural for you, you can relax and repair yourself.  Protracted ‘acting out of character’ can be exhausting, however, and not good for your health.

For me this experience can be classed as practice in asserting myself - hopefully in a polite way - for when I need to do so in the future. Hopefully next time I can be assertive but less upset and defensive.

Since reading about the psychology of ‘acting out of character’ over and above our natural personality traits to pursue and achieve a core project/passion - I’ve also come to understand why my disagreeable and more extroverted behaviour felt so uncomfortable and exhausting for me. However, I also surprised myself a little to see how passionately I care about my patient’s health and safety.  I care about them as I do my own family.

Maybe, therefore, my personality traits are well matched to the life path I chose as a doctor and a wife and a mother. Or, maybe, that was my destiny and I was given personality traits needed to follow that path.  Who knows.


Last thing:

A little psychology test to see if someone’s behaviour is ‘out of character’ for them and likely to be the result by external causes or that is who they really are:
 
Look at how a person behaves at different times with:
- different situations,
- different places
- different people

If that individual behaves differently in only ONE situation or place or with a single person - they are likely ‘acting out of character’ and the external event/place or person is triggering the aberrant behaviour in them.

However, if across different situations, places and with different people the individual behaves in the same way (ie rude, abusive, angry, impatient) then it likely that it is not external events causing the behaviour (ie. the individual may say these different situations and people ‘cause’ them to behave that way) but this is actually who they really are:  their personality traits - constant and persistent over time.

This may be a good thing or a bad thing - depending on their behaviour and how that suits your personality.

Vita Brevis (Life’s short):  Make the most of it while you can.

This afternoon I drove past the twisted metal remains of a car accident. 

A white sedan had been pushed up onto the footpath off a busy arterial road. Its driver-door was punched inwards, its bonnet was torn up towards the windscreen, and its engine was exposed and buckled. The early evening traffic inched around it like water trickling passed a rocky obstruction in a creek bed.

A fire-engine and a police car remained at the scene. However, I could see that the driver, and any passengers present, were gone. As was the ambulance. I assumed the occupant, or occupants, of the car would be at the local hospital, at that moment, in the Casualty department undergoing assessment and treatment of probably minor injuries.

I doubted that the accident had resulted in major trauma or death. You see, while the car had been damaged beyond repair, I could see that the cabin of the car had remained completely intact. The twisted and torn metal of the car’s periphery didn’t encroach on any part of the car’s interior. Like the eye of a violent destructive storm the cabin had remained unscathed while all about it was in ruin. The occupants, therefore, were likely to have remained fairly safe I thought.

Well, I certainly hoped that was the case.

As I drove away my mind drifted back to the many times, during my life, when I’ve nearly died. There have been many. Probably many more that I’m even aware.

I’ve also seen hundreds of cases of amazing survival stories following ‘near-death’ accidents in patients during the 25 years that I’ve worked as a doctor. Also amazing are the cases when patients have ‘luckily’ presented for medical screens ‘just in time’ - when any further delay, even a few weeks, might have resulted in death. Or, when patients have survived incredibly serious illnesses and medical emergencies due to amazing ‘coincidences’ and against all the odds.

I cannot explain how this works. No doctor can. And virtually all medical professionals have seen these situations and heard these stories many times. We learn to accept that we can’t explain everything. Many medical people become spiritual as a result of our experiences (Not necessarily ‘religious.’ We learn to accept, though, that maybe some people are ‘helped’ somehow - beyond the help we can give them).

Sadly, sometimes the opposite is true. Sometimes people die early and it just seems so unfair and cruel and unexpected.

In my own case, I have no idea how I’ve survived each of my many near-death experiences. Or why. I’ve asked my self numerous times: Why me? Why am I still here? Why not others in the same situation? So many other people -so much more deserving than me. It seems so unfair.

I don’t know the answer to that.  Maybe the work I was destined to do in my life isn’t yet complete. Maybe I have more lessons still to learn. Maybe I need to be here to help someone else.

I don’t know. No-one does.

However, driving away from the car accident today, I recalled a similar accident in which my own driver door was smashed inward, like the car on the footpath this afternoon, and I almost died:

The accident occurred in the late afternoon of a day similar to this one. I was then around 30 and I was travelling home from the hospital in Adelaide where I was working as a senior paediatrics registrar.

The clouds hung low and grey over-head as the darkness of the evening encroached. The street lights appeared hazy through the drizzling rain and my windscreen wipers were making a regular thud thud thud sound - like a metronome out of time with the music which played softly on my car-radio.

I was locked in by traffic on three sides. We were stationary at an intersection where the lights were red. And, on the footpath adjacent to the passenger side of my car, a steel reinforced concrete stobie pole hemmed me in on the final side.

Suddenly, as my thoughts were drifting into the near future - imagining myself picking up my baby daughter from childcare and then getting home to set the fire and put on the dinner - I became aware of the sound of metal buckling and twisting under incredible force adjacent to my right arm. Confusion and shock overwhelmed me. My car door was folding inward onto my arm and the right side of my body. My car was being crumpled by something incredibly powerful.  

It all seemed to happen in slow-motion.

It was as if time - during this potentially life-and-death experience - had become expanded: A single second seemed to extend into minutes.

I had time to think about about so many things during that moment between life and death: I considered what was happening to me. What were my options for escape and survival. Which one of those options would most likely work.  Which ones must I eliminate as impossible or impractical.

 All of these thoughts occurred in the space of only one or two seconds.  It felt like everything had slowed down - except my mind. Contrasting everything else, my mind had became incredibly focused, alert, unemotive, and logical.

I had no time to turn my head to see what was ploughing into me - but with my peripheral vision I could see that a massive wheel on a giant semi-trailer was the cause. The semi-trailer was so high above my car that only the massive wheel could be seen along with the side-mirror which hung down below the cabin-door.
 
I considered accelerating forward or reversing backwards - but stationary traffic blocked both of these options. I considered driving up onto the footpath - but the stobie pole was in the way. I considered undoing my seat-belt and climbing into the passenger seat to escape the crushing wheel - but there was no time for that. Beeping my horn was useless. That would rely on so many things beyond my control: the driver hearing it, the driver knowing what it meant, the driver responding to my signal. And the driver was so far from me that I couldn’t even see him. The semi-trailer was the largest one I had ever seen.

I didn’t even have time to pray.

Then, just as suddenly as the accident had begun the groaning of buckling metal and the pressure of the door pressing down onto my right side … stopped. The truck pulled back into the lane on my right from where it had originated.

Time returned to normal. My focus became less intense. The traffic began to move forward. The intersection light had turned green. The truck moved off with them.

I was safe.


However, my heart was still racing and I realised that my hands shaking. A single thought then came to me: I needed to pull over the semi-trailer and let the driver know what he’d done to my car. I needed to get his insurance details and make him aware of how dangerous his driving had been.

I put my foot down on the accelerator and I drove in front of the truck - which was only slowly accelerating due to its massive size.  I indicated, with my arm out of the window, for the driver to pull over.  He did.

Shaking I got out of my car and walked back to the semi-trailer pulled alongside the road. I looked up to the window, six foot above the ground from which a tired looking middle-aged man was peering down at me seemingly confused.

‘What?!’ he said.

‘You ran into me back there!’ I called up to him.

‘I saw you at the last minute … and I pulled out,’ he replied.

‘I think you’ll find, if you look at my car, it was a few moments after the last minute! My door is buckled. I could hardly open it!’

‘Oh,’ he replied.

He opened his door and climbed down. He walked up to my car to take a look and shook his head. ‘I saw your lights … just at the last minute,’ he said again. We exchanged insurance details and then he walked away, drove off, and I never saw him again. 

I don’t remember much about the truck driver. I don’t remember the features of his face. I don’t remember what he wore.  But I do remember him repeating that he saw my lights ‘at the last minute’. And he did, really.  He saw the lights of my car - warning him not to continue to drive into my lane - just before he crushed me to death with his semi-trailer. At the last minute something made him aware of my car lights driving alongside his truck far below his own visual field and out of the range of his rear mirror displaying cars behind him.  I was alongside. Also the darkness and the rain and his own weariness at the end of a long day.

Later, after my daughter was in bed and the were dishes done and I was sitting by the fire reflecting on the accident, I realised that I had so nearly been killed. As I was busy and going about my life in my usual automatic routine - I had had come to an unexpected junction in my life: To live or to die. I had no control over it; not in preventing the accident nor in saving myself during it.

Life can be over in a second. We never know when that will be.

I’ve heard it said that it is amusing when people say ‘if I die’ because it is never a matter of ‘if’ but when.

Vita brevis.  Life is short.  None of us know how much time we have. But life is precious.  Life is not easy. It can be tiring and disappointing and sad … but, it can also be beautiful and loving and wonderful and happy.  And, to a large extent, how we experience it and how we enjoy it is based on the choices we make.  One of those choices is whether we choose to see the cup half empty or half full.

When I was younger and working 60 hours each week, six to seven days each week in the hospital system as a paediatric registrar - I once read a questionnaire in a magazine:
 
It asked the reader to list their life priorities in order from one to five.  I wrote: Family, healthy, friends, leisure, work. In that order.

The questionnaire then asked the reader to list in order from one to five again how they spent their time each week.  I wrote: Work. Work, Work. Work. Family/friends. 

Back then, I had almost no leisure time. And, even when I was at home I was studying for my specialty exams, or write up papers and talks. My ‘free’ time for all of my top four listed priorities amounted to only about 30 minutes each day. Especially once the housework was done (more work).

I felt so sad when I realised that the life I chose to live was in no way matching my stated life priorities. I considered how the years pass by so fast and they can never be retrieved. Later, after I had the first two of my four children, I felt even worse living a life so far from the one I wanted: I had no time for myself or my family or my own leisure or my health. I lived to work - not the other way around like I really wanted.

Soon after, at the age of only 33 - when my eldest child was still only four and my second child was one - I left the hospital and my higher status job. Instead, I chose to live to my priorities. Even though I’d put years of hard work and study in to pass my specialty exams - they didn’t make me happy.   So, instead, I chose to find medical work which allowed me the time to be a mother, wife, friend, relaxed and happy person again. Work would come at the end of my list (I earn enough to pay my bills and save a bit for retirement eventually) - just like in my list of stated priorities.

And on my death bed, whenever that comes, I will never regret not having spent more time at work.

Finally, a question for you:  If you knew that you had only a short time left to live - are there any things which you would regret not doing, not saying, not experiencing, not having lived?

h. Life is full of 'Plan B' situations

While driving my seven year old son, Ollie, to school today I got to explain to him the concept of 'Plan B situations'.

You see today is Sports Day and as a special treat the school arranged 'special lunches' for the children whose mothers were organised enough to fill out the special forms requesting said lunches ... weeks ago ... and motivated enough to go to the school and line up for many many minutes (whose got that sort of time) to pay for them at the school pay office.

Unfortunately, for young Ollie, he doesn’t have such an organised and motivated mother - so as we drove to school today he was lamenting the fact that his lunch would not be very special at all.  Just the ‘same old’: Vegemite sandwich, apple, two shop-bought biscuits, and a bottle of water.

The children who had the other kind of mothers would have for their lunch today: Hot sausage roll with tomato sauce, flavoured milk or juice, and - most sorely missed by Ollie - a cupcake!

Ollie repeated the word ‘cup cake’ a few times as he listed off the items in the ‘special lunch’ which he would never get to eat because I never got to fill out the necessary paperwork or pay.

I could feel the depth of his disappointment as we drove along with the  morning traffic. I had let my child down. I considered how important such a thing would be for a seven year old boy whose friends all got to eat cupcakes while he ate boring shop-biscuits. It could ruin the entire Sports Day for him! I recalled being seven years old.  It would have ruined my day … because I certainly loved cupcakes as much as Ollie.

Then I remembered the answer to such problems which I have used in my life during many similar, or equally disastrous, situations. I have also taught the concept to my three older children. 

The answer is to find a ‘Plan B’ solution: An alternative plan.

“Ollie,’ I said attempting to lift his spirits. ‘What we could do is work out a Plan B here.’

‘A what?’ he asked.

‘A Plan B,’ I repeated. ‘In fact there is a movie production company called Plan B.  Life is filled with Plan B situations and sometimes the Plan B’s are better than the Plan A’s.’

Ollie remained silent.  He clearly had no idea what I was talking about.

‘So, in this situation … I know I should have got that ‘special lunch’ form sorted … but we didn’t … and we can’t change that now.  But, how about we stop by at the Bakery near your school on the way and you can buy any cupcake you like.  We could buy all the things in the Special Lunch - or - you could choose whatever you like for a special lunch instead.’

‘Yes!’ Ollie cried with delight as he bounced in his seat. I looked into my rear-view mirror and he was smiling back at me giving me the thumbs up. ‘That would be great, Mum!’

I considered how easily Ollie forgave me for being such an imperfect mum.  Although, I’ve always thought that through modelling being average in pretty much everything I do - including mothering - my children will never grow up to feel that they need to be perfect.

Actually, I had a friend who had a ‘perfect’ mother growing up: Her mother’s house was always spotless; the evening meals always consisted of at least two courses; she cared for her seven children and helped in her husband’s business; she never bought ‘shop-cake’ or ‘shop-biscuits’ but made every item of food in the house herself; she even milked a cow on their property and made her own butter from the milk and baked her own bread … and she was also a professional artist as well - in case all of the other stuff wasn’t quite enough! 

Her 'perfection' as a mother and as a person overwhelms me now when I think about it. Although, she was, I might add, also a really lovely woman who was very kind to me as I grew up. And her children and her husband all loved her dearly, as did her many friends and all the people she helped at her local church.

However, when my friend became a wife and mother, years later, the 'bar' that her mother had set for her in this role was so incredibly high that my friend struggled to feel ‘good enough’ for many years.  She told me that she used to feel that she should  try to be ‘perfect’ as a mother especially.

Meanwhile, my mother had been pretty ‘average’ as a mother:  She bought shop-biscuits and shop-cake mostly - only occasionally cooking some as well.  She had a tidy house which was fairly clean - but never ever was it spotless. She joined many craft groups and she studied at university from when I was at primary school - so being busy she often asked my siblings and me to help her to get the tea ready, or even do it without her. And, at least once a week we had an ‘easy tea', as she called it, which consisted of shop bought pies and pasties and cakes. Yum! we all thought.

But I was happy enough, as were my siblings, and when I grew up the bar set for me in the role of wife and mother was so low that I never felt any pressure to be perfect. ‘Good enough’ was good enough for me. So, unlike my friend in this area, I just cruised along as a Mum ... and I still do. The ‘special lunch’ oversight is just another example in a very very long list of ‘average-mothering’ examples.  But my kids are still breathing … and smiling … and so am I.

But, for my friend, her early years as a wife and mother were exhausting as she tried so hard to be as ‘perfect’ as she could: In addition to caring for her three children, she worked four days a week as a doctor (necessary these days to pay the high mortgages in Australia and the high cost of living now); she planned two- or three-course evening meal menus in a book one month in advance; she planned her housework in another book one month in advance (the book listed all the rooms which needed cleaning and which room would be the priority for each week); she sewed many of her children’s clothes; and her fridge was incredibly organised with different lists on cardboard charts of all of her children’s activities and library days and so many other things - so she never forgot special lunches or anything else.  And she volunteered  on school boards and she taught Sunday school as well. 

When her children were young she also planned and catered the most amazing birthday parties:  For one ‘pirate birthday,’ when one of her sons was four, she filled the house with balloon fish hanging from the ceiling along with blue and green paper seaweed and paper boats and pirate outfits which she made for all the invited children, and pirate games she planned and created, and - the piece de resistance - she also made an entire three meter long wooden boat  in the backyard so that the children could play pirates and fish for balloon fish - using the fishing rods she'd made - on the lawn!

Seriously!  The wooden pirate boat had a mast and a sail! 

Meanwhile, my children were lucky to get a party at McDonalds because I didn’t want to cook and clean up any the mess! I just sat and drank coffee and read a newspaper while the Mc Donalds staff looked after the kids.
 
Finally, for my friend - after many years, when her children were in their late teens - she realised that she didn’t need to be the ‘perfect’ in her role as a wife and a mother.  It wasn't possible or necessary to be perfect ... ever!  Her children and her husband and all of her many friends loved her because she was such a dear, sweet, loving  person - not because she had a spotless house or because she made tasty meals and threw great birthday parties.  Those things were very nice  but all of us would have preferred her to rest a little more and do things for herself some of the time. 

My friend has now discovered her own Plan B fortunately.  

She still has a house more tidy than mine will ever be; she is still a better cook than I will ever be … but she’s slowed down and she now loves to tell me how great it is to just be ‘average’ and forget things like 'special lunches,' and not join committees, and allow herself to accept that ‘good enough’ is good enough!

But, back to Ollie and his imperfect mum who didn’t order the 'special lunch' for Sports Day today but instead opted for a ‘Plan B’ solution and took him to the bakery on the way to school.
 
How did that all turn out?

Well, Ollie bought a chocolate donut for his 'Plan B special lunch' as he decided that he quite liked vegemite sandwiches and he didn’t really want a sausage roll anyway. However, as an extra treat I bought him a chocolate eclair, for after school, as well.

‘Do you understand 'Plan B’s' now Ollie?’ I asked him as we drove on to school from the bakery.

‘I think so,’ he said. ‘It’s like when I keep going … and I don’t give up … and I just keep trying.’

‘Do you mean 'persevering' ? 

‘Yes, I don’t give up and I keep trying and then I get there.’

‘Yes, that is what making a Plan B is about, Ollie. It’s when we don’t give up and we just think of new ideas and keep going when the first idea didn’t work. Sometimes we don’t get to where we thought we wanted to go.  But sometimes we get to where we need to be instead … and sometimes we get to somewhere even better than anything we could have hoped for.’

Driving from the bakery meant that I had to take a detour from the usual route we take when we drive directly to school from home - however, driving along the new streets today we found ourselves surrounded by the most beautiful white blossom trees.  The blossom wafted across the road and the footpath, with each gust of wind, creating the impression of snow falling from the sky and covering the ground. It’s spring in Australia and flowers are starting to fill our gardens again. However, the street we drove down today  was especially lovely.

‘Sometimes when you do a Plan B, Mum, things work out lovely.’ Ollie said staring at the blossom trees. ‘My favourite blossom is white.’

‘I know it is Ollie.’
 
‘And I know these streets from Christmas - when we 'drived'  here to see Christmas lights.’

He was silent for a while and then I heard him speak again: ‘Memories’ he said wistfully, ‘Memories.'  

And I knew that he was thinking back to when he had last seen the blossom-filled street ablaze with Christmas lights last year.

However, I think it’s equally likely that he was also creating new memories of today when a 'Plan B' took us to a lovely place which we might never have seen in its white-blossom glory had we not taken the detour that the new plan forced us to make.

Sometimes Plan B’s can be even better than Plan A’s. I think today was an example of that for Ollie and me.

g. A ‘word picture’: Fitzroy island (far north Queensland Australia)

David and I recently escaped winter in South Australia for ten days when we took our four children (aged 6 - 19) to Fitzroy Island for a holiday.

Fitzroy Island is a beautiful tropical island off the coast of Cairns in far north Queensland. The island is covered with garden-like rainforest; the beach is covered with dazzling white coral; and the ocean is filled with tropical fish and a coral reef as part of the Great Barrier Reef. There’s also a trampoline from which you can bounce into the sea!

Bliss. Warm summery bliss.

David and I have elderly patients in our medical clinic who migrate north during the South Australian winter - every year! ‘Grey nomads’ they’re called. They wave ‘goodbye’ to us and say, ‘Your time will come’. Then they get into their camper-vans and drive north, with all the other grey nomads from the southern Australian cities, leaving us younger workers to shiver and catch colds and dream of warm weather.

Well, finally David and I could wait for ‘our time’ no longer. We joined our grey nomad patients and escaped to the tropics during the coldest and most miserable part of South Australia’s winter this year. Also, it was during the school holidays so the kids could escape with us.

When I go on holidays, I don’t tend to take many photos.  Actually, I rarely take photos these days at all.

In the past I took stacks of photos and home-movies.  David took hardly any - and he still doesn’t - so given that I’m always behind the camera, looking at our photo-albums it appears that our kids have no mother. 

However, gradually it dawned on me that I while I was taking my photos and filming - I was separate to the events I was observing. I was excluded from all the laughter, the hugs, the playing … the fun. I became just a distant  observer behind a lens.

Eventually, I decided that I needed to choose between the quality of my photography or my memories.  Focusing more on one would diminish the other.  Although, it wasn’t completely an either/or situation. (I only ever considered reducing my photos - not eliminating them altogether).

So, after minimal consideration (as I’d mostly made up my mind one Christmas morning when I felt disappointed that I missed most of the fun by standing behind a movie-camera for half the day) - I chose to improve the quality of my memories and put my camera aside to a large extent.

I now take very few photos.

I snap a few shots - mainly of my family (I can buy professional photos of the scenery in the souvenir booklets and postcards) - then I ditch the camera and dive into the fun.

For me this is better.

And I never take any ‘selfies’!  And I never take any photos just to ‘impress’ anyone.  My friends don’t need impressing - and anyone who does need impressing is not my friend.

This year I did decide to take pictures of my time in the tropics, although my ‘pictures’ were not taken with a camera (other than just a couple of photos of the kids and David). Images of the island and the reef can be easily Googled or purchased in tourist booklets and post-cards - and those pictures are far better than anything I could take.

No, this time my ‘pictures’ were mostly taken using words. As I sat on the coral beach looking out to sea, or in the shade of the giant palm-trees of the rainforest, I took ‘pictures’ with my pen and notebook.

So here are a few of my ‘pictures’. Maybe something you could do sometime.  Through writing what you see and feel - you get to experience the event at a deeper level. You become more aware of everything around you. More engaged in it all. And, with that, whenever you read your words again the lovely memories will feel even more vivid and powerful and happy:

So, here’s my ‘word picture’ capturing memories of one time period on the island:




The island:

The breeze is warm and soothing.  It carries with it the regular sound of tinkling - like pieces of porcelain knocking together - as each wave rolls over the masses of coral covering the beach.

Small boats bob and roll on the shimmering water; they’re anchored but seem restless to sail away on some great adventure.

I walk along the beach.  The coral is hard and sharp like broken pieces of plastic - so sandals or thongs are essential. The water is clear and calm. I watch people all around me having fun:  Children and teenagers are jumping into the ocean from a trampoline situated 50 meters from the shore. Others are gliding across the water in kayaks, or standing on paddle boards (which remind me of gondolas) pulling at the water with a long single oar, or snorkelling in the reef.

I decide to join them.  My husband, David, and our children are all out enjoying the ocean activities already. I notice two of my children yelping as they jump off the trampoline and, with their knees folded up to their chests and wrapped in their arms, they do ‘bombs’ into the water creating the biggest splash they can.

I throw my towel onto the dazzling white coral and sit down to push my feet into my flippers and attach my face mask and snorkel.  I then waddle backwards into the sea feeling incredible clumsy and awkward. However, walking backwards is easier than trying to walk forward.

The water is refreshing and cool. It’s perfect on this humid 28C day. I lean into the water and stretch forward … and now I’m gliding. I’m graceful as a fish, unlike the awkward duck waddle on the shore.

I notice the tropical fish. There are so many swimming around me. Green. Blue. Red. All different sizes; some as large as a shoe-box while others are tiny. And they’re so trusting and tame. They swim right up to my hands and I can move through schools of them. 

As I swim across the reef, my arms outstretched before me and my legs kicking behind, I feel like I’m flying high above a coral landscape. Its a beautiful garden filled with so many different shapes and patterns of coral; some even move like a shaggy coat to-and-fro with the water. In other areas,  the garden falls away steeply into dark valleys filled with boulders and larger fish darting in and out.

Moving through this strange new environment I feel both thrilled and a little anxious. I wonder whether there might be sharks here. I also worry about accidentally swimming too far out to sea; distracted by this wonderful world below the surface I might forget to keep track of time and the distance I’ve swum.

I decide to stop swimming and I lift my face out of the water.  It’s a little windy and the waves are choppier out here - 100 meters or so from the shore. Another snorkeller calls out to me and waves, ‘Alice!’ he shouts. He’s pointing to the sea floor. ‘Alice! Here!’ I stare at him unmoving. He then realizes his mistake. I’m not his ‘Alice’. He apologises and asks if I would like to look at his finding anyway. I swim over and try to see what he’s pointing at. I can’t. Whatever it is, it’s camouflaged.  I can only see tan boulders. I thank him and swim over to the other members of my family all snorkelling about 50 meters from me.

‘I’m going in,’ I call and signal with my arms. My teenage daughter nods and gives me the thumbs up.

I kick back to shore dodging boulders like a hang-glider avoiding cliffs and hills; soaring over the coral sea-bed and deep valleys like I’m flying above a strange landscape of forests and hills; and swimming among schools of fish like I’m flying with flocks of colourful birds. It feels liberating and exciting.

I soon arrive at the beach. I trip and stumble as the waves throw me forward onto the coral. I manage to stand up again and walk from the water.  I feel so clumsy on the land wearing flippers. I can’t remove them yet because the coral is sharp and painful to walk on with bare feet. So I turn around and walk backwards to my towel.

I enjoy the warmth of the late afternoon sun. I’m not at all cold. I don’t need my towel to get dry - so I just sit on it. It’s toasty-warm like it’s fresh from a dryer.

I look out to sea.  The sunlight is shimmering and dancing across the rough water. My gaze extends further out to the distant islands which rise steeply from the ocean, blue mountains across the horizon.

The sky is empty and azure. I enjoy the moment. I soak it all up. The joy. Living in that very moment.
Eventually, I pick up my snorkel, face-mask, flippers, and towel and I leave the beach.

As I walk back through the resort, I marvel at the beauty of dozens of candles casting a flickering yellow light onto each white linen table-cloth on the many tables scattered about the Pacific Islands bar.

The bar is situated on the beach front behind a thin line of palm trees and tropical flowering bushes. The dwelling has no walls - which is so obviously a tropical thing. In the southern towns and cities of Australia - in the temperate climates - a building with no walls would be completely impractical; it would be far too cold for many months of the year. Yet here, in the tropics, it’s perfect. The temperature varies little and it is almost always warm. So, the only elements from which a building is required to give protection are the sun and the rain. A roof is therefore all that is needed. 

So, the bar is comprised of simply large wooden beams supporting an expansive dark polished-wood roof stretching across the restaurant, the pool tables, the dance floor, and the surrounding verandahs. Ceiling fans add to the ambience and move the humid air refreshing the patrons scattered about enjoying drinks, food, conversation and laughter.

Music is playing on the sound system: It’s Nirvana singing ‘Teen Spirit’. It’s not too loud - people can easily hear each other chat, but it’s loud enough to allow the melody, the beat, and the words to sweep through me and immerse my soul in the pleasure of this place.

Further along, at the resort centre, blue lights wash over the water of the swimming pool. The marbled light shimmers and moves in the water and reflects off smooth white walls containing it. A waterfall gushes at one end.

Couples, young families, middle-aged groups - sigh and relax and soak in the beauty all around: the ocean; the last moments of the day before the sun finally disappears below the horizon; the moon and a faint canopy of stars in the darkening navy sky which heralds the arrival of the evening.

I become aware that I am existing in a part of my brain in which I rarely linger: My right brain. 

This tropical paradise has pulled me away from my busy life filled with logic and lists and words and time … into one where words and lists are not necessary; time is irrelevant; and I am acutely aware of existing in the moment mindful of the world around me:

The soft caress of the breeze on my skin; the aromas of cooking - bar-b-ques, spices, roasting meats; the sweet scents of flowers and the salty smell of the ocean; the sounds of birds and music and people laughing and talking; the beautiful colours of the sea and the forest and the sky; a deep appreciation of the peace and happiness I feel in my quiet self.

I walk back to my holiday cottage from the beach. I notice the bright cheerful summer clothes of the other holiday-makers and the resort staff.  They saunter about in shorts, t-shirts, mini-dresses, straw hats, thongs and sandals. It is all so different from the raincoats and scarves and dark dreary colours of Adelaide before we flew here days earlier.
 
It’s a short walk to the cottage, about 100 meters, from the resort bar along a dirt trail through the rainforest. Along the way I cross a wooden bridge which stretches across a meandering river.  The river has originated high in the mountains behind the resort and it is travelling into the ocean nearby.  As I lean over the smooth railing my gaze follows the tropical fish which swim just below the surface. I look up and, through the foliage, I can see the ocean.

I continue on. The rainforest is lush and green. The canopy of leaves high above filter most of the light leaving the trail dark and cool. Giant butterflies waft across my path. I deviate from the main path and walk through a small gate to the forest path leading to our cottage. I climb the few stairs to the decking which looks out across the sea out to the islands and the sunset.  I decide to make coffee and come out here directly. 

There is no rush. 

I have no watch. I don’t know the time - other than the fact that it’s nearly ‘dinner time’ and David and the kids will be returning soon. That’s all I need to know. Who cares about the ‘actual’ time in hours and minutes. What difference does that make here? 

Already I feel at home and part of this timeless and peaceful island.

I decide that I must return to this place next winter - like my patients who migrate north every year - I will come back and remember again how it feels to leave my busy life.

I can see now why my patients smile with delight as they say ‘goodbye’ before they head north. But my time has finally come to join them.


                                               *


So, that’s my little ‘word picture’ of  Fitzroy island 'taken' on my recent holiday there.  

I bought a tourist book filled with actual photos of the place:  the rainforest, the resort, the coral reef.  And, I took a few photos of the kids and David.  But most importantly I had a wonderful time and it wasn’t so that I could show anyone what it looked like - it was to enjoy. 

I stepped out from behind my camera and lived it all!

f. Vita Brevis (Life’s short): Make the most of it while you can.

This afternoon I drove past the twisted metal remains of a car accident. 

A white sedan had been pushed up onto the footpath off a busy arterial road. Its driver-door was punched inwards, its bonnet was torn up towards the windscreen, and its engine was exposed and buckled. The early evening traffic inched around it like water trickling passed a rocky obstruction in a creek bed.

A fire-engine and a police car remained at the scene. However, I could see that the driver, and any passengers present, were gone. As was the ambulance. I assumed the occupant, or occupants, of the car would be at the local hospital, at that moment, in the Casualty department undergoing assessment and treatment of probably minor injuries.

I doubted that the accident had resulted in major trauma or death. You see, while the car had been damaged beyond repair, I could see that the cabin of the car had remained completely intact. The twisted and torn metal of the car’s periphery didn’t encroach on any part of the car’s interior. Like the eye of a violent destructive storm the cabin had remained unscathed while all about it was in ruin. The occupants, therefore, were likely to have remained fairly safe.

Well, I certainly hoped that was the case.

As I drove away my mind drifted back to the many times, during my life, when I’ve nearly died. There have been many. Probably many more that I’m even aware.

I’ve also seen hundreds of cases of amazing survival stories following ‘near-death’ accidents in patients during the 25 years that I’ve worked as a doctor. Also amazing are the cases when patients have ‘luckily’ presented for medical screens ‘just in time’ - when any further delay, even a few weeks, might have resulted in death. Or, when patients have survived incredibly serious illnesses and medical emergencies due to amazing ‘coincidences’ and against all the odds.

I cannot explain how this works. No doctor can. And virtually all medical professionals have seen these situations and heard these stories many times. We learn to accept that we can’t explain everything. Many medical people become spiritual as a result of our experiences (Not necessarily ‘religious.’ We learn to accept, though, that maybe some people are ‘helped’ somehow - beyond the help we can give them).

Sadly, sometimes the opposite is true. Sometimes people die early and it just seems so unfair and cruel and unexpected.

In my own case, I have no idea how I’ve survived each of my many near-death experiences. Or why. I’ve asked my self numerous times: Why me? Why am I still here? Why not others in the same situation? So many other people -so much more deserving than me. It seems so unfair.

I don’t know the answer to that.  Maybe the work I was destined to do in my life isn’t yet complete. Maybe I have more lessons still to learn. Maybe I need to be here to help someone else.

I don’t know. No-one does.

However, driving away from the car accident today, I recalled a similar accident in which my own driver door was smashed inward, like the car on the footpath this afternoon, and I almost died:

The accident occurred in the late afternoon of a day similar to this one. I was then around 30 and I was travelling home from the hospital in Adelaide where I was working as a senior paediatrics registrar.

The clouds hung low and grey over-head as the darkness of the evening extinguished the remains of the day. The street lights appeared hazy through the drizzling rain and my windscreen wipers were making a regular thud thud thud sound - like a metronome out of time with the music which played softly on my car-radio.

I was locked in by traffic on three sides. We were stationary at an intersection where the lights were red. And, on the footpath adjacent to the passenger side of my car, a steel reinforced concrete stobie pole hemmed me in on the fourth side.

Suddenly - as my thoughts were drifting into the near future imagining myself picking up my baby daughter from childcare and then getting home to set the fire and put on the dinner - I became aware of the sound of metal buckling and twisting under incredible force adjacent to my right arm. Confusion and shock overwhelmed me. My car door was folding inward onto my arm and the right side of my body. My car was being crumpled by something incredibly powerful.  

It all seemed to happen in slow-motion.

It was as if time - during this potentially life-and-death experience - had become expanded: A single second seemed to extend into minutes.

I had time to think about about so many things: I considered what was happening to me. What were my options for escape and survival. Which one of those options would most likely work.  Which ones must I eliminate as impossible or impractical.

 All of these thoughts occurred in the space of only one or two seconds.  It was as if everything had slowed down - except my mind. My mind had became incredibly focused, alert, unemotive, and logical.

I had no time to turn my head to see what was ploughing into me - but with my peripheral vision I could see that a massive wheel on a giant semi-trailer was the cause. The semi-trailer was so high above my car that only the giant wheel could be seen, along with the side-mirror which hung down below the cabin-door.
 
I considered accelerating forward or reversing backwards - but stationary traffic blocked both of these options. I considered driving up onto the footpath - but the stobie pole was in the way. I considered undoing my seat-belt and climbing into the passenger seat to escape the crushing wheel - but there was no time for that. Beeping my horn was useless. That would rely on so many things beyond my control: the driver hearing it, the driver knowing what it meant, the driver responding to my signal. And the driver was so far from me that I couldn’t even see him. The semi-trailer was the largest one I had ever seen.

I didn’t even have time to pray.

Then, just as suddenly as the accident had begun ... the groaning of buckling metal and the pressure of the door pushing down onto my right side ... stopped. The truck pulled away into the lane, on my right, from where it had originated.

Time then returned to normal. My focus became less intense. The traffic began to move forward, as the intersection light had turned green, and the truck moved off with them.

I was safe.

However, my heart was still racing and I realised that my hands were shaking. A single thought then came to me: I needed to pull over the semi-trailer and let the driver know what he’d done to my car. I needed to get his insurance details and make him aware of how dangerous his driving had been.

I put my foot down on the accelerator and I drove in front of the truck - which was only slowly accelerating due to its massive size.  I indicated, with my arm out of the window, for the driver to pull over.  He did.

Shaking I got out of my car and walked back to the semi-trailer pulled alongside the road. I looked up to the window, six foot above the ground, from which a tired looking middle-aged man was peering down at me seemingly confused.

‘What?!’ he said.

‘You ran into me back there!’ I called up to him.

‘I saw you at the last minute … and I pulled out,’ he replied.

‘I think you’ll find - if you look at my car - it was a few moments after the last minute! My door is buckled. I could hardly open it!’

‘Oh!’ he replied.

He then opened his door and climbed down. He walked up to my car to take a look and shook his head. ‘I saw your lights … at the last minute,’ he said again. We exchanged insurance details and then he walked away, drove off, and I never saw him again. 

I don’t remember much about the truck driver. I don’t remember the features of his face. I don’t remember what clothes he wore.  But I do remember him repeating that he saw my lights ‘at the last minute’. 

And he did, really.  

He saw the lights of my car - warning him not to continue to drive into my lane - just before he crushed me to death with his giant semi-trailer. At the last minute something made him aware of my car lights driving alongside his truck, far below his own visual field, and out of the range of his rear mirror - which displayed only the cars behind him.  I was situated alongside and far below his truck. Virtually out of his sight while we were stationary at the lights. Also, the darkness and the rain and his own weariness at the end of a long day made seeing my car even more difficult for him.

Later, after my daughter was in bed and the dishes were done and I was sitting by the fire reflecting on the accident, I realised that I had so nearly been killed. While I had been busy going about my daily tasks in an automatic way - I had come to a sudden and unexpected  junction in my life: To live or to die. I had no control over the accident. Not in preventing it nor in saving myself during it.

Life can be over in a second. Sometimes unexpectedly.

I’ve heard it said that it's amusing when people say ‘if' I die because it is never a matter of ‘if’ but when.

Vita brevis.  Life is short.  None of us know how much time we have. But life is precious.  It is not easy. It can be tiring and disappointing and sad … but, it can also be beautiful and loving and wonderful and happy.  And, to a large extent, how we experience it and how we enjoy it is based on the choices we make.  One of those choices is whether we choose to see the cup half empty or half full.

When I was younger and working 60 hours or more each week in the hospital system as a paediatric registrar - I  read a questionnaire in a magazine:
 
It asked the reader to list their life priorities in order from one to five.  I wrote: Family, health, friends, leisure, work. In that order.

The questionnaire then asked the reader to list in order from one to five again how they spent their time each week.  I wrote: Work. Work, Work. Work. Family/friends. 

Back then, I had almost no leisure time. And, even when I was at home I was studying for my specialty exams, or writing up papers and talks. My ‘free’ time for all of my top four listed priorities amounted to only about 30 minutes each day. Especially once the housework was done (more work). Work filled the rest of my waking hours.  With study and housework - that amounted to 90 hours or more each week.

I felt so sad when I realised that the life I chose to live was in no way matching my stated life priorities. I considered how the years pass by so fast and they can never be retrieved. Later, after I had the first two of my four children, I felt even worse living a life so far from the one I really wanted to live: I had no time for myself or my family or my leisure or my health. I lived to work - not the other way around like I really wanted.

Soon after that, at the age of only 33 - when my eldest child was still just four and my second child was one - I left the hospital and my higher status job. Instead of working as a paediatrician I chose to live according to my life-priorities. Despite the fact that I’d put years of hard work and study into passing my specialty exams they didn’t make me happy.  They took away almost all of my time and my life. 

So, instead, I chose to find medical work which allowed me the time to be the mother, wife, friend, relaxed and happy person that I wanted to be. Work would come at the end of my list - just like in my list of stated priorities (I now work just enough to be able to pay my bills and save some money for a financially secure retirement).

And on my death bed, whenever that comes, I will never regret not having spent more time at work.

Finally, a couple of questions for you:  

* If you knew that you had only a short time to live - are there any things which you would regret not doing, not saying, not experiencing, not having lived?

* And, with regards to your life’s priorities, do you spend your time in a way which reflects this?

Put another way: 
- List, in order, the top five things you value in your life.  
- Now list, in order, the top five things that fill your time. 

Do the lists match?  
- If they don't match - how do you feel about that?  
- If you are disappointed by any mismatch in these lists - can you make any changes in your life which might make the lists more similar (ie. you get to spend your time - your life - as you really want to.  Spending time on the things you love and value).

Any little changes might help bring happiness and contentment into your life. It did for me.  Now I get to enjoy medical work and my family and friends and time for myself.  Yay!

Vita brevis. Life is short. I hope you get to live a life which is full and happy and leaves you with no regrets.