Inquiry

What's Inside:

• 🤔 Inquiry
• 🩺 Med-Diaries
• ✏️ Insights - This week's podcasts, movies, books and other cool things

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Inquiry

I’ve been meditating a lot in the last few months, almost daily (for once). Spending more time doing nothing has given me a lot of time to just think. About anything and everything.

I tend to meditate on how I feel, my future, the direction I’m headed and so on. You know, deep stuff. Naturally, that sort of thinking evokes a lot of questioning, which demands answers. But when you think that deeply the questions that arise tend to be unanswerable.

If a person asks you how you feel, you tend to say fine or good. What does that even mean? Can you even accurately describe how you feel at one given moment? I would argue that we always feel slightly different. My happiness today is different to my happiness yesterday. I don’t even think enough words exist to give my thoughts and feelings justice.

While I’ve been delving into meditation and deep thinking, I’ve been reading possibly the best book about meditation that I’ve read in a long time. It’s called Wherever you go, there you are.

This book is amazing to read alongside meditation. It really goes deep into the whole practice of non-doing and some of the quotes from the book are so deep I’ve found myself frequently closing the book to ponder. Re-reading pages over and over just to gain somewhat of an understanding of what meditation actually is.

I’m almost finished with the book (my first read → I will be re-reading it in the future). This quote was towards the end of the book when my interest was starting to fade. I don’t think I’ve ever considered this perspective on inquiry and thought before, so I’m just going to end this week’s post with that very extract.

Not all questions need answers.

The quote:

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🩺 Med-Diaries

I finished my second year of med school!! 🥳

Alhamdulillah, it ended on a high. The exams went well and I feel like I really refined my study techniques this year. This year I lived both sides of university - the enjoy your time don’t take exams too seriously and the work your ass off lifestyle. I can confidently say that working hard and sacrificing a little of your leisure time feels SO much better than living the carpe diem life.

I managed to feel comfortable in my exams, maintain a healthy diet and exercise routine along with some great memories. Let me be the first to tell you that IT IS POSSIBLE TO LIVE A GOOD LIFE AND DO WELL IN EXAMS. It just takes a little time to find the right balance. For me, this is the 5th year of university (I’m a post-graduate) so it has literally taken me 5 years to reach this stage, but it’s doable for sure.

I’ve got 3 months off now which is great for my creative outlets like this blog! I’m spending my summer building a system that allows me to continue all my non-medicine pursuits alongside university. I’m also not stopping the study grind. I’ve definitely toned it down from exam season but I think in medicine if you take too much time off you fall off rhythm. Then you restart the next year and it takes a while to get back into a routine. Plus you kinda need to remember everything for the next year's exams anyway.

I’m not going to go into it much in today’s post but I’m starting to look into the USMLE too. That’s all I’ll say for now.

Exciting things lie ahead 😆

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✏️Insights

📚 Book: Wherever you go, there you are​

• I spoke about this above, it’s taken me a good few months to get through this book simply because of how much there is to ponder on. Highly recommend this to anyone looking into mindfulness.

🎥 Movie/TV Show: Stranger Things​

• I’m not a huge series person. I much prefer movies so I don’t have to commit weeks of my time but I had too many friends suggesting this series to me. I’m on season 2 and I am LOVING this show. The Sci-Fi and Fantasy aspect is great. It’s nice watching these sorts of shows because it’s like escaping to a different world - sort of like reading fiction. So far it’s definitely worth a watch!! I imagine most people have probably already seen it. Btw it’s an 8.7/10 on iMDB..