Relationships in med school pt 4: When doing less is doing more.

700 pg behemoth

"The secret of basketball

is that it's not about basketball."

- Isaiah Thomas

One of my favorite all-time books is Bill Simmons' The Book of Basketball.  BS endlessly analyzes and ranks the top basketball players.  My favorite idea is that the secret of basketball is about a conscious choice a player has to make everyday - he has to fight off the pressures of the world and avoid thinking the world revolves around him. It's about LeBron James deciding that it might be better to pass to a wide open Shane Battier than trying to take on another double team for the highlight reel. It's about Chris Bosh deciding he'd rather be a glorified role player in Miami than being the man in Toronto.  

--

Like all med students - I'm a born and bred overachiever.  In third grade I got in trouble once for bad handwriting - so I had to write a cursive f twenty times.  I sat in a corner and filled three double sided pieces of paper with a cursive f.  It was a third grade version of eff-you mode.  

Similarly, in my marraige I'm the kind of guy that wants to be a super husband. Washes the dishes.  Makes the bed. Does sweet things. Listens to all the logical complaints my wife has. Cleans the bathroom. I want all the gold stars.  

But being in med school where the top resource is time, it's been a challenge. I feel like I'm always scrambling for time, or walking around ragged tired.  

ironing the shit out of that shirt

As I got busier Katie started being really helpful and willing to take care of more stuff around the house. I help out with the chores a little bit on Sunday, when I take a day off from studying to focus on my more important pursuits of blogging and watching basketball.  But other than that one day Katie wants to be super domestic - making home made christmas presents, home made cookies on a weekly basis, and making sure my stock of ironed shirts is always ready to go. 

Since then, there's been a lot more sitting around and watching league pass in my life.  Time that used to be filled with doing the dishes, cleaning the bathroom, and other fun chores.  But by giving up my need to be super husband - it's kept me a lot more sane and more pleasant to be around, so the time katie and I do have to spend together ends up being high quality.  We have a lot more fun.  

We make a good team.  ..Or at least I make a lazy husband.

See you on the other side,

from ken