Suicide Archives | Page 3 of 5

It’s your last night on earth…again

It’s your last night on earth…again.

What’re you going to do with it?

This is a taster from Escape Velocity: a personalised email course that guides medics step-by-step in how to successfully make the transition from being stuck in medical school…to living a life of happiness, freedom and fulfilment. Admission is by invitation-only. Click here to apply for your FREE invite.

How does this story end?

How To Drop Out Of Medicine

I’d had enough.

It was 2003, and I was a medical student who’d spent the last three years being harassed, bullied and left being thoroughly disillusioned with the career I’d once been so enamoured with.

So one evening after lectures, I climbed the creaky stairs to the attic that I was renting, gently closed the door, walked under the skylight window to the desk in the corner, sat down, took out a sheet of foolscap and a blue Bic biro…and started to write.

I wrote for what seemed like over an hour.

And when I pressed the final full stop in the page, and read through what I’d written, I wasn’t happy.

You see, what I’d written was a detailed, thought through description of what my life would look like over the next 40 years if I continued on the path that I was currently on.

I wrote out what would happen after third year, fourth year, fifth year, graduation, internship, hours I’d be working, time and energy costs, social circles I’d be moving in, the type of person I’d be likely to marry given my circumstances, family expectations of continuing my family’s medical legacy…all the way up to retirement from the career path I was plodding along.

And what I read didn’t excite me, fill me with joy, or inspire me with hope for the future.

Instead it underscored for me a truth that I knew before I started writing:

Something has got to change.

I need to figure out how to escape from the gravity of this world that I’m currently stuck on.

I can’t keep going like this.

Within 6 months of writing those pages, I was suddenly kicked out of Medical School and launched on a 14-year Journey that led to me starting Bizarro School of Medicine, and helping Medics from around the world to find and achieve their personal Escape Velocity.

And it all started from deciding to figure out what would happen if I stayed on the path I was on without changing anything…and also deciding whether what I saw was acceptable to me or not.

It wasn’t. And the moment I declared that to myself, things changed.

If the story you’re living out doesn’t have an ending that you are willing to accept, the good news is that you can change it.

You don’t need to know how. Instead, you just need to decide that your story needs a better ending…and then the details of how will make themselves known.

3 pages that could save your life

How To Drop Out Of Medicine

When you get up in the morning, grab your notebook, and fill it with 3 pages of writing.

These are your Morning Pages, a simple idea that was shared by Julia Cameron.

And the habit of doing Morning Pages will save your life…if you’ll let them.

That’s because Morning Pages are an opportunity for you to clear away all the emotional and mental rubble that’s cluttering your soul, and find your way to the clear springs of water that lie underneath it all.

Morning Pages are a chance for you to dare to express how you really feel and what you really think, when nobody around gives you the space or the grace to do so.

Morning Pages are for your eyes only. They’re not to be shared, critiqued or corrected.

You can write them out by hand in a physical book that you can keep or burn when you’ve filled it.

You can even write them in a password protected folder in Google Docs, Evernote or any other writing app on your phone…if you’re feeling afraid of what will happen if anyone you know comes across them.

You can write them, where all you’re doing is writing 3 pages of “I don’t know what to write, I don’t know what to write, I don’t know…”

How you do it isn’t the point. That you do it…is everything.

Because the simple act of finding the courage to express how you really feel will spill over positively into every area of your life.

Also, the act of writing Morning Pages will help you gain clarity on what you really think and how you really feel.

Sometimes the best way to figure out both of these things is to sit down and just start writing.

Morning Pages are your new secret weapon in your Journey to living a life of joy and fulfilment.

UPDATE: a brilliant free resource that I’ve been testing since last month for doing morning pages is 750words.com Highly recommended.

Cutting off your right arm (to save your life)

How To Drop Out Of Medicine

That’s the premise of the movie 127 hours: the true story of how Aron Ralston had to cut off his own arm with a dull pocket knife after being trapped under a boulder in Blue John Canyon for 5 days and seven hours.

He then had to navigate his way out of the canyon, and then rappel down a 65-foot sheer cliff face to get to safety.

He made it…but only by being willing to cut his arm off.

You’re also going to make it. And maybe it won’t come down to actually cutting off your arm with a blunt pocketknife.

But maybe you’ll have to give up something that might feel just as painful and unimaginable as losing a limb.

Approval of your parents…socialising with your friends…binge-watching Game of Thrones…3 hours a day on Facebook…taking hot showers…your old identity…

And when the moment comes, where you have to decide between cutting off an attachment that’s keeping you from getting to your destiny: what will you do?

You’ve already made tremendous sacrifices in order to do something that’s killing you. Are you willing to do at least as much in order to pursue something that makes you feel alive?

Is there even one small thing that you’re willing to give up right now in order to pursue what you really want?

And even if you don’t end up having to cut off your arm to escape to freedom…are you at least willing?

Overdose through your ears (aka becoming an Audio junkie)

How To Drop Out Of Medicine

The Tim Ferriss Show. Mike Rowe’s The Way I Heard It. Brian Clark’s Unemployable. Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income Podcast. Starting From Nothing. School of Greatness. AWMI. WTF podcast. Jim Rohn. Darren Hardy. Krista Tippett’s On Being. Zig Ziglar. Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History. The James Altucher Show. The #AskGaryVee Podcast. Seth Godin’s Startup School. Creative Mornings. Save the Cat. Indie Film Hustle. Go Fork Yourself.

Load up your phone/ipod/mp3 player with thousands of hours of “good stuff”…just click and add it all.

Then hook up your earphones…and press play.

Keep your headphones attached to your ears.

Use an app like Rocketplayer that will automatically start playing the moment your earphones are plugged in.

And keep listening to the good stuff 24/7.

Stuff that inspires you, feeds your vision, provokes you to take action, paints a positive picture of life outside of Medical School.

How you turn that picture into reality isn’t the point.

Right now, you’re just trying to undo years of brainwashing that would keep you from even imagining another life where you don’t feel trapped and miserable.

In other words, we’re setting up an IV drip for your soul through your ears.

And we’re infusing you with stories, ideas and different voices who you may not agree 100% with.

But what these different voices will do is recharge your passions, revive your curiosity, joy and desire to be more than they say you are…and more importantly:

Give you different options and choices on how you can engage with the world.

So grab your headphones, subscribe to all those podcasts (and others)…and then click play.

As of now, you’re trading your addiction to misery, frustration, whining, helplessness, self-prescribed binging on alcohol/sex/drugs/Netflix…for an addiction to life transforming audio.

You are an Audio junkie.

But you’ve only got 1 year left

How To Drop Out Of Medicine

Just one more.

Those 3 words are the engine that powers every industry that’s built around addiction.

Slot machines in Las Vegas, Big Tobacco, soft porn, food porn, alcohol, drugs, social media, the job industry…

The goal isn’t to sell you on becoming an addict. Nobody would take that deal.

Instead, it’s to sell you on buying “just one more” ticket…”just one more” drink/cigarette/video/minute checking out your friends updates on Facebook.

Just one more.

And once you’ve bought enough “just one mores”…you end up with a habit where you stop counting the number of times…because it’s now part of your identity.

When you hear “but you’ve only got 1 year left”, the implication is that once you complete the year…that’s it. Game over. You’ve completed the course and you’re free to do whatever you want.

Sadly, that’s not the case.

Just one more year of medical school…followed by just one more year till you finish your residency…followed by just one more year to get your postgraduate…followed by just one more year till you save enough money to pay for your new baby…followed by just one more exam to gain a special certification…

Meanwhile, the elastic band of your sanity and emotional equilibrium is being stretched ever more…until one day you suddenly snap.

It’s the line from Hotel California:

You can check out anytime you like/But you can ne-ver leave.

The good news is that you can leave…and there are some really practical steps you can take to make your escape a reality.

But it starts by understanding what’s really going on when you hear the phrase “but you’ve only got 1 year left”.

Because even rubber bands have their breaking point. And when you sense you’ve reached yours…stop, and consider alternative options.

Don’t just quit, because there’s a smart way to do it.

But do understand that in Medicine (&Vegas et al)…there’s no such thing as “just one more”.