Why Does It Feel Like You Have to Be Your Own Doctor?

Merry May 20, 2024

Should you be your own doctor? (Do you even want to be your own doctor?) A celiac’s stories from the dermatologist, allergist, and (yay) the gynecologist.

Coming at you in the aftermath of a panic-spiral during which there was much Googling and worst-case-scenario-ing of everything that can go wrong with my body.

Hi, it’s me—your friendly neighborhood celiac.

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To date, I’ve only met one other person with celiac disease (other than my dad (Thanks, Dad, for passing on the faulty genes. Love you.)). She was a fellow American I met by chance at a gluten-free perogi restaurant in Wrocław. (In case the stars align and someone with celiac disease who also happens to be visiting Wrocław reads this, the magical restaurant in question is called Manufaktura Bezglutenowa. You’re welcome.)

Celiac disease is an auto-immune disease from which an estimated 1% of the world’s population suffers (Source: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases).

And ICYMI, it’s not just the hipsters upsetting the Boomers by asking for gluten-free bagels1 at their local delis; diagnoses of celiac disease are on the rise with incidences increasing year over year by 7.5% for the last several decades (Source: The American Journal of Gastroenterology).

Experts don’t really know why yet.

Don’t worry—this is not a post about celiac disease. It’s a me problem, and I don’t expect other people to care. But if you’d like to learn more about celiac disease (or if you’d just like to add to your internal encyclopedia of random facts to (attempt) to dazzle people at dinner parties), you can begin your Internet research spiral here with 20 Things You Might Not Know About Celiac Disease. (All the cool kids are reading it these days.)

So what’s my point?

I’ve had celiac disease my whole life, but I didn’t get a diagnosis until I was 23—I had to figure it out basically on my own.

For anyone who’s ever spent time worrying about their health, stories like these aren’t unfamiliar.

In fact, an updated 2023 report issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality confirmed that ~5.7% of patients receive an incorrect diagnosis.

Now certainly, medicine is not an exact science, and it’s natural that there is a margin of error. Still, it doesn’t make the plight of those who suffer from these incorrect diagnoses any less.

But incorrect diagnoses are only one part of the problem.

Dissecting the problems of life, together. Join the Merry Loners.

It is not the error in diagnosis that grinds my gears so much but the lack of one.

Every since I was a teeny-bopper, I regularly visited the dermatologist. It was pretty much an annual pilgrimage to try to find a solution (or even the proper name) for the rash that has long plagued me.

A solution was never found, though the attempted explanations were aplenty—and often ridiculous.

  • “The bumps on your knees? It’s just irritated skin from shaving.”
  • “The bumps on your spine? It’s just friction from moving because you’re so thin.”
  • “The bumps everywhere and anywhere else? It’s because you’re very fair-skinned. Just put some hydrocortisone cream on it.”

I’ll refrain from regaling the many other symptoms I experienced from childhood to adulthood because:

  1. kind of irrelevant
  2. gross

I will, however, highlight one other symptom because I find it the appropriate mix of relevant, infuriating, and comical:

For background, one of the more dire consequences of celiac disease (which can then lead to its own litany of negative consequences) is malnutrition. TLDR: If you have celiac disease, your intestines get damaged when you consume gluten (or gluten-contaminated food), which means they can no longer adequately absorb nutrients from the food you eat.

(So despite having the good fortune to have been raised by a mother who cooked three square meals a day every day in our charming house with the white picket fence, I was woefully malnourished as child (which, in hindsight, is quite obvious since I was always so freakishly thin no matter how much food I ate)).

I digress.

This absurd skinniness was always waved away by doctors.

  • “You’re a late bloomer.”
  • “You’ll have a growth spurt soon.”
  • “You just have a fast metabolism.”

All of this seemed fine. Until I was about 21. I told my general practitioner:

I don’t understand. I’m hungry ALL the time. I eat more than everyone else I know. You said I just have a fast metabolism—but I’m not a teenager anymore. I feel like there’s something wrong. Shouldn’t I start gaining weight by now?

The response:

“Oh, lucky you—you’re so tall and thin and can eat whatever you want. You’re like a model!”

…

…

…

(That’s the sound of my eyes rolling back into my head.)

Please consider: My intention is not in any way to villainize the doctors I consulted. I actually liked my general practitioner a lot, and I’m certain they were all trying to help.

But that doesn’t take away from the fact that all my calls for more information were largely cast aside.

A similar experience followed at the gynecologist.

Despite a history of frustrating appointments, I have always retained a lot of confidence in doctors.

I respect their profession. I believe that we rely on them as a society. And I definitely don’t think my rudimentary research online can yield better results than their many years of study.

That’s why I always ask for their help. I just wish it was answered more.

For example, when I needed birth control and my regular gynecologist was booked for awhile, I headed to Planned Parenthood. I wanted to try a different method—one more invasive than the pill I’d previously used. And as I believe anyone would be and/or should be when a physical object is going to be implanted into their body for years on end, I was nervous and wanted to learn more about the insertion, removal, and side effects before proceeding.

How did they help? The bored-looking nurse handed me a couple of brochures and then pretty much immediately asked if I was ready to proceed, even though there had clearly been no more than a few minutes for me to read the brochures and develop any questions.

I’m not going to lie—this annoyed me. But, as I always had, I trusted the medical professional and proceeded. After she inserted the implant, she gave me a little piece of paper telling me when I would need to replace it, which I promptly stashed in my wallet for safekeeping behind my driver’s license and then recorded the date in my calendar with a reminder three months in advance to make an appointment.

“Easy!” I thought. “How great!” (How wrong, I know now that was.)

Fast-forward almost three years later and I was at the gynecologist for a routine visit.

“Yes, yes,” the doctor read my chart, ticking off the regular what-have-yous. “Looks like you’re coming up on getting the implant out soon.”

“What?!”

I’ll spare you from reading a detailed account of the stressful events I’m now reliving. But here’s the skinny:

  • Planned Parenthood verbally told me the Nexplanon implant is good for five years.
  • Planned Parenthood gave me written literature that says the Nexplanon implant is good for five years.
  • Planned Parenthood (to this day) proclaims on their website that the Nexplanon implant is good for five years.
  • My gynecologist told me (in time, fortunately) that the Nexplanon implant is, in fact, only good for three years.
  • Nexplanon’s own website says it is, in fact, only good for three years.

According to Nexplanon:

Source: Nexplanon

According to Planned Parenthood (*shakes fist*):

Source: Planned Parenthood

My visit to the gynecologist ended in a stressed panic as I tried to figure out what to do since I had a one-way ticket for international travel in a matter of days and didn’t have an immediate chance to get the implant removed.

It all ended up okay, but my disappointment in and anger towards Planned Parenthood endures.

I believe in supporting women’s right to healthcare. I have donated money to Planned Parenthood in the past. Their whole message is:

  • “We’re here to help.”
  • “Ask us anything.”
  • “Trusted care, every step of the way.”

Not only did they fail to deliver the guidance I asked for (beyond handing me a few brochures in a rather bored way), but they told me inaccurate information and—worse—published that inaccurate information on their website.

Now, to be fair, it is worth noting that studies have shown continued efficacy of the implant into years four and five (Source: Human Reproduction from Oxford University Press).

However this, to me, is irrelevant. If Planned Parenthood wants to fulfill their mission “to protect and expand access to sexual and reproductive health care and education” and empower women to make their own choices about their medical care, then they should allow them to make their own choices about their medical care. Provide us with all the literature regarding the efficacy of the implant, and let us make our own informed decision.

I’ll stop here because the point of this piece is not to blaspheme Planned Parenthood.

But I will die on this hill.

M

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Before, during, and after, my worries about the side effects of hormonal birth control were ignored.

That was only one among many of my sagas using hormonal birth control, and it says nothing of the symptoms I experienced, my difficulty in identifying those symptoms, and the gaslighting that ensued.

I won’t stay here long, either.

There are already many stories recounting the troubles women face in receiving adequate attention for their health concerns. If you want to go down that rabbit hole, here’s a particularly good read on the subject from Maya Dusenberry for BBC: ‘Everybody was telling me there was nothing wrong.’

Why do I raise these points? Why am I TMI-ing about celiac disease and rashes and hormonal birth control? (Believe it or not, I’ve actually withheld the more colorful details.)

Because:

Too often, we have to figure out our medical problems on our own.

This is not the kind of Merry Loner I want to be. But it seems it’s the one I have to be.

  • It took literally decades of persistence to get someone to diagnosis me with celiac disease. (Finally, a creeping-up-on-retirement allergist2 set the wheels in motion, for whom I am forever grateful.) I knew there something wrong with me—but nobody seemed to want to listen.
  • It took Planned Parenthood essentially lying to me for me to realize you need to do your own homework instead of trusting your doctor.
  • I now face issues with my thyroid (likely another repercussion of celiac disease), and so far it’s been an uphill battle to get the answers, appointments, and treatment I need. (Source: Clinical Medicine & Research)

I, unfortunately, know people close to me who have faced similar experiences, and it makes me ponder the question:

How much of an active role should we be expected to take in our own healthcare? (Do you really have to be your own doctor?)

As with anything, it’s important to not drive blindly. I believe we’re all responsible for educating ourselves, making our own choices, and generally being the masters of our own ships. (After all, it’s all about creating happiness, no matter what life is like.)

But when it comes to medicine … yeah, I tend to defer to the (very educated) professionals and trust that they know more than I do about the detailed workings of immunology, endocrinology, and gynecology.

Is this the right thing to do? Up until now, I thought, “Most certainly.”

But I’m starting to have my doubts …

Just me? Or do you feel like you have to be your own doctor nowadays, too?

As I touched on earlier, there’s growing attention being paid to the newly-coined phrase medical gaslighting, with patients (you guessed it: largely women) reporting their symptoms and calls for help are ignored and/or devalued by doctors. Consider:

  • In a 2023 MITRE-Harris poll, 52% of respondents said they “feel their symptoms are ‘ignored, dismissed, or not believed’ when seeking medical treatment.”
  • In a 2023 survey from HealthCentral, over 94% of respondents said “their doctors have ignored or dismissed their symptoms.”

Why do so many people feel like they need to fight to get medical help? Why does it seem like our concerns are easily dismissed? And why do we increasingly feel the need to act like our own doctors, trying to problem-solve in despair from a glowing screen late at night?

I’m all for independence and advocating for yourself. But there’s a difference between being independent and being left all on your own. 

Recommended Reading:

  1. Well, it IS just the hipster asking for gluten-free bagels—because people who have celiac disease also need these gluten-free bagels to be cross-contamination-free, i.e., toasted on a separate, 100% gluten-free (i.e., crumb-free) toaster. ↩︎
  2. When he couldn’t immediately think of the cause for the rash I was describing (I didn’t even have a flare-up at the time of my appointment to show him), he didn’t just prescribe me hydrocortisone cream and send me on my way. He went into his office for 20 minutes and (I kid you not) returned with a four-inch-thick book full of different pictures of rashes, one of which he pointed to and said, “I think this is what you have: dermatitis herpetiformis” (AKA the celiac rash). (And I’m happy to say he was training a younger doctor during my appointment, so there is hope his methods will continue on!) ↩︎

Did This French Writer Just Reveal the Secret to Happiness?

Merry May 14, 2024

I think I may have stumbled on the secret to happiness … Plus artful delights from a weekend in Cannes et Le Cannet

Last week I took a few days off to go visit a friend in Cannes. On my train ride back home to Toulouse, I spent my time chatting with the guy in the coffee cart (Sure, I have an anglophone’s accent, but if you tell me I sound like Jane Birkin when I speak French, I’ll take it), staring wistfully out the window at the languid, blue-green landscape, and reading the latest issue of L’Express from back to front.

Why back to front?

I can’t say why, really. This is always how I saw my mom reading magazines and catalogues when I was a kid—back when print still reigned supreme (i.e., it ran at all) and I was inducted into the hobby of magazine-reading via teeny-bopper starter subscriptions like Girls Life and Seventeen. But the habit stuck.

Plus, the artsy stuff is always in the back.

Related Posts:

First, I flipped past the closing column by Christophe Donner. (Sorry, dude, I wasn’t that interested this week.) I overlooked the next two pages of advertisements and word puzzles. (I’m terrible at crossword puzzles in English and couldn’t possibly imagine trying them in French (though I would say I’m fairly skilled at Sudoku).)

Then I stumbled on it: this week’s book review on Monique s’évade, by Édouard Louis.

I like to read book reviews, but they’re not always exactly works of literary marvel all on their own. This review, however, gave me pause (and maybe the secret to happiness?).

It wasn’t a review so much as it was a brief interview with the author, who had me rereading his words again and again.

Here’s a scan of part of the page:

Scan from L’Express N°3800

Here’s the original quote (highlighted above):

Je vois souvent dans la bourgeoisie des individus qui cultive leur blessure, qui y reviennent sans cesse, notamment en faisant de la psychanalyse, des thérapies collective. Je sais que cela peut aider certaines personnes, mais je me demande aussi à quel point cette culture de sa propre blessure empêche d’en sortir.

And here’s an English translation of that quote (provided by DeepL):

I often see bourgeois individuals who cultivate their wounds, who return to them again and again, particularly through psychoanalysis and group therapy. I know that this can help some people, but I also wonder to what extent this culture of one’s own wound prevents one from getting out of it.

(It’s not a great translation, but my translator (i.e., my husband) isn’t at home right now, so we’ve got to make do with the robots.)

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Let’s focus on what the Frenchman is trying to say.

In this interview, he talks about his latest book, in which he details the story of his mother (Monique) who, at age 55, left the alcoholic and all-around rather boorish man she was living with to start a new life for herself in Paris. Louis says (again, via poor translation):

My mother has lived through extremely violent situations in her life, but when she manages to extricate herself from them, the incredible thing is that the trace of this violence suddenly disappears within her. She never maintains the wound.

This is likely a very moving story—one which I’ve yet to read since I only just discovered it a week ago and it’s currently living at the top of my reading list (a rather ephemeral place since I’m constantly finding new subjects that catch my interest). But what spoke to me most immediately were Louis’s words on “bourgeois individuals who cultivate their wounds” and whether or not “this culture of one’s own wound prevents one from getting out of it.”

This was the part where I started staring wistfully out the train window.

I asked myself: Is the secret to happiness just about being able to move on?

What if, instead of

  • licking our wounds
  • journaling about it ad nauseam
  • talking to our therapists
  • talking to our moms
  • talking to our friends as if they were our therapists or our moms
  • and generally living life in a metaphorical fetal position where we render ourselves completely inept and unable to keep going because we are so traumatized, offended, and insulted by one or more major and/or minor event(s) from our past

… what if you just decided to move on?

Ruminating is killing your chance to be happy.

I’m a big ruminator, myself. I’ve spent many sleepless nights reliving old memories, playing coulda-shoulda-woulda; going on long, aimless walks alone; and scribbling in my journal like the whacked-out girl from Gone Girl.

Or I should say: I WAS a big ruminator. Because I got tired of all those sleepless nights reliving old memories; my feet started to hurt from prowling the streets alone looking for answers; and I ran out of ink attempting to decode where it all went wrong in my journal.

I decided I wanted to be happy instead.

It would be very poetic and quotable and Instagram-worthy to follow that line with an uplifting, “So I did.”

But you’re not a child and neither am I, so we know life doesn’t march ahead in such a neat, straight line as that.

What life does do, is go on. You can either decide to move along with it and leave behind the past (however horrendous, joyful, or ripple-causing it might have been) or isolate yourself in your own tower of tortured memories.

I used to do the latter, but I’ve learned that the former is a lot more fun.

Life is sad, and it will hurt you and disappoint you. But you’ll hurt yourself more by choosing to live in that hurt forever.

Or you can do as this Frenchman suggests: Let the wounds heal, the scars fade, and keep on living.

Need a release from ruminating?

My favorite way to destress is with a book.

If you want to rediscover (or discover) your love of reading, I’m here to support you. Sign up for A Merry Loner’s 30-Day Reading Challenge and you’ll get:

  • Daily accountability emails
  • A free reading tracker
  • Book recommendations
  • Hand-selected author quotes to get you in the literary spirit

In lighter news, let’s look at some French art together:

Before landing on the article about Édouard Louis, I also read: Ann Temkin : « L’Atelier rouge a conduit Matisse vers l’imprévu » (Ann Temkin: “‘L’Atelier rouge’ led Matisse into the unexpected”).

If you’re into art (or not into art but you at least know the name Matisse (like me)), then this might be an interesting one for you. I was a little gobsmacked by the aggressively red paintings from Matisse that in my very uneducated opinion look very un-Matisse-like:

Scan from L’Express N°3800 of Grand Intérieur Rouge by Matisse
Scan from L’Express N°3800 L’Atelier Rouge by Matisse

All of the above was discovered on my tiny, little siège westbound to Toulouse. So what did I actually see in Cannes and Le Cannet (besides the secret to happiness)?

Well, on one walk (that was neither aimless nor lonely) I found this mural, Le Mur des Amoureux de Peynets, or Peynet’s Lovers’ Wall.

My photo of Le Mur des Amoureux de Peynets
My photo of the sign describing Le Mur des Amoureux de Peynet

According to the sign (pictured above):

This fresco was painted jointly with Guy Ceppa in 1990 and it represents a metaphor of love, symbolized by a bride and groom flying over the Garden of Eden, inspired by the village of Le Cannet. Raymond Peynet, a citizen of honor of Le Cannet, painted this scene in honor of all young brides and grooms, to whom he offered a poetic interlude in their honeymoon. It was in 1942, in front of the bandstand in Valence that Raymond Peynet dreamt up his famous couple. In homage to lovers, hi friend Georges Brassens wrote the famous song, “Bancs Publics.”

A pretty enchanting sight to see while wandering around your friend’s neighborhood, no?

Recommended Reading:

How to Stop Wanting Things

Merry May 6, 2024

It’s not easy to figure out how to stop wanting things when the Internet has you in a chokehold.

“Everyone lives by selling something,” said Robert Louis Stevenson, whom Wikipedia calls “a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer.”

But did Stevenson (who died in 1894, by the way) know that the Instagram girlies and the Twitter bros would be selling their asses and their biceps (excuse me—their green juices and their protein shakes) from morning ‘til night with no respite in sight?

I’m going to guess probably not.

All hypocritical finger-pointing aside (I, too, am a flawed beast), the dude had a point … and I agree with him. I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with trying to make a sale. After all, we’re all just trying to make a living without selling (too much of) our souls to the mega-corporation-algorithm-overlords we’ve let fester and swell for the past 50-odd years. (Heck, I’m also selling something by way of writing services. ✌️)

But even though I’d like to scream from the rooftops how fed up I am with the advertising, the marketing, and the pushing, jamming, and ramming of materialism down our throats, that would be complete and utter whinging.

Because they can sell, sell, sell as much as they want—but I’m the one responsible for whether or not I decide to buy.

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So a couple of years ago, I called my own BS and set out to figure out how to stop wanting things.

I don’t think I’m a particularly materialistic person, but I like a new lipstick as much as the next gal, and anyone who knows me knows I only buy expensive (usually leather) shoes because they put a spring in your step (and last!) like no other.

I used to:

  • read fashion magazines during high school physics class
  • watch Fashion Police (RIP Joan Rivers) with my mom and wonder what it’s like to wear couture (I believe my exact words were: “I would never want to be famous, but my only regret is that I’ll probably never get to wear haute couture…”)
  • and stare longingly at buttery leather shoes from Cole Haan and sniff Dooney & Bourke leather handbags like they were coke (no, just me?) window-shop with my sister

And then somewhere along the line … I just stopped. I don’t know why.

I traded InStyle for The Economist, gave up TV almost cold turkey (except for sci-fi because I’m a loser), and told my sister I didn’t want to go to the store anymore. I still treat myself to a new lipstick about once a year (and you’ll pry my leather and/or suede high heels from my cold, dead hands), but I no longer give a shit about acquiring new ones until those in my closet become so old that the cobbler refuses to keep re-heeling them. (Yeah, he really did play me like that.)

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So what happened? How did I learn how to stop wanting things?

In the end, learning how to stop wanting things was pretty simple.

I just stopped looking.

Looking at Instagram. Looking at TV. Looking at magazines.

And TBH, it’s a lot easier said than done. Just yesterday I was visually assaulted as I waited patiently like a Good Samaritan for the tram.

BOOM! Enormous advertisement for Volkswagen slithering around the side of every tram car when we could have just had nice, clear windows (but this is why we can’t have nice things).

BOOM! Mega poster with a pair of Photoshopped t*ts that’s pretending to sell women’s underwear when it’s really selling eating disorders, low self-esteem, and the normalization of hyper-sexualization to teenage girls who think they need to look like that to be worth something to someone.

Boom.

Even when you’re trying to live in your hand-me-down-clothing, using-an-old-jam-jar-instead-of-a-water-bottle life, the presence of advertisements is downright suffocating.

But once you cut ads out of your life off, they just don’t work anymore.

It’s like upgrading to Spotify and then suddenly going back to free Pandora radio (and 2010 where it belongs). You think, “What the f*** was I doing back then?”

What was I doing when I felt it necessary to scroll through Instagram because I had to wait in the grocery line for 10 minutes and simply needed to fill that time with stimulation?

What was I doing when I turned on the TV—not because there was something I wanted to watch but just to “see what was on”?

Things that had once seemed so commonplace to me and just a natural part of the fabric of these modern lives we’ve built for ourselves became uninteresting, even buffoonish.

It’s like feeling dead inside in the best possible way.

Now when someone I know sends me a TikTok video with some cool gadget that apparently solves the very niche problem of cutting mangos that I didn’t realize existed … I feel nothing. (Well, after I feel disbelief that this person I know and respect is actually spending their time on TikTok, which I think we can all agree is the very worst of all the social media platforms. But you do you, friend. (Do I sound judgmental?))

Now when another person I know tells me about the new clothes they just ordered online and how they really needed this one specific dress because it has this one specific feature that the others in their closet don’t precisely fulfill (and either way, it’s okay because the dress only cost $40 and they just got it to top up their cart to get free shipping) … I feel nothing.

I feel nothing, whereas before I might have felt curiosity to

  • check out that store …
  • and then see something I like …
  • and then ponder buying it …
  • and then ask myself if I need it …
  • and then know I don’t need it but come up with some very specific reason as to why I might need it sometime in the future and had better order it now while I can still take advantage of the sale that’s going on.

I feel nothing, and it feels great.

Don’t get me wrong—I haven’t gone full-on Amish.

Just yesterday I spent an embarrassing amount of money on plant oils because I, too, want to have beautiful, blemish-free skin that twenty years from now will have people saying, “She’s in her forties? No way!” because I sometimes delude myself into thinking that this is 1) possible and/or 2) even important.

Except this time I bought these things (it’s rosehip oil and tamanu oil, by the way) after obsessively researching the anti-inflammatory properties of rosehip and other plant oils, leaving it in my shopping cart for weeks on end because I hate shopping online, and inevitably feeling guilty for 10 minutes after hitting CONFIRM ORDER.

Clearly, this is not a model way of living, and I am in no way positioning myself as someone who should be listened to about … pretty much anything.

BUT

I am happy that this purchase was the result of my own contemplations and musings, careful consideration, and not because I saw it on Instagram and was able to buy it without any reflection within 30 seconds because iSn’T iT gReAt ThAt InStAgRaM hAs MaDe It So EaSy To bUy ThInGs OnLiNe?

Let me be clear from way up here on my soap box: This is not an attempt to shame you for buying things.

I buy things, too. It’s fun!

But this is one woman shouting into the abyss that even though advertisements are everywhere and consumerism has us all in a chokehold and there is 24/7 pressure to BUYBUYBUY, it is up to each of us individually to stop playing into the game.

If you want to buy fewer things, don’t give yourself a budget. Don’t try to resist temptation.

Just stop looking. That’s how you kill the desire. Because in my experience, once you go to look again, it all becomes so painfully uninteresting.

The one thing I never feel guilty about buying…

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How to stop wanting things? It’s actually quite simple

And no, it’s not the one about life being sad and then we all die (though that’s another catchphrase I love to share with my friends).

It goes a little something like this:

If you stop looking at things (i.e., excessive social media, TV, emails, etc.), then you won’t have the urge to buy (as many) things.

… Because the less you see, the less you desire.

… The less you see other people’s lives (and inevitably romanticize them), the less you feel like you’re missing something in your own.

… The less you imagine that if you just had this one thing, then everything else in your life would magically fall into place.

And the more you realize that you can be happy on your own, without all that extra stuff.

That’s how you stop wanting things.

Recommended Reading:

“Life Is Sad and Then You Die.” Why this is the motto that will bring you peace.

Merry April 29, 2024

This is my motto, and it should be yours, too: “Life is sad and then you die.”

WTF, right?

Have we stumbled back to Tumblr and all its side bangs, smudged eyeliner, and adolescent woes of 2012?

Not quite.

Related Posts:

We’re far closer to thirty than we or our not-so-subtle gray hairs would like to admit with our feet firmly planted on the ground and our heads grazing but no longer lost high up in the clouds. Say it with me:

“Life is sad and then you die.” This is the motto that will bring you peace.

(And I’m an optimist! If you can believe it.)

Hear me out:

Life is full of sadness. People die. People get sick and suffer for years on end with no explanation given by any God or gods in response to loved ones’ pleas. People are mean. They judge you, spite you, ignore you, insult you. Some will even try to buy you. Others will sell you things and pretend they’re saving you. Worst of all, it often feels like it’s the most rotten people who are born beautiful and rich because life is just as unfair as it is sad.

This can all be expected. In the wise words of Trailer Park Boys’s fictitious Ray, “That’s the way she goes”:

  • the mean girl at school who can do whatever she wants because people have decided she’s pretty
  • the mean boy at school who’s decided he can do whatever he wants because he’s tall
  • the slimy boss who takes credit for your work
  • the slimy algorithms that now dictate your work

… and so it goes.

Yes, these things are sad. But they will continue to happen, nonetheless. And you—no matter how unique and interesting and rarefied you are in so many little, obscure ways—are not special for experiencing these unhappy happenstances.

Sad things happen to all of us. And then we (eventually) die.

The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can get on living.

The faster you’ll realize you should appreciate your precious time here since we’re all walking around with invisible hourglasses trickling down.

And the easier it’ll be to release your anger when one of the Sad Things happens to you or a loved one (however justified that anger may be).

Because that’s the way life is: It’s sad. And then we die.

But acknowledging this sadness and recognizing its ubiquitousness is not to accept the absence of happiness.

Life is very happy, and we see demonstrations of its wonders every day, from grand gestures to small acts of kindness. A wise man knows, however, that the greatest moment of the greatest happiness of all can never mark the End of the Sad Things, for there will always be more Sad Things.

A wise man also knows how to be happy in spite of the never-ending torrent of Sad Things.

  • He knows to keep replanting flowers in his garden even though the neighborhood kids keep stealing them (because girls will be girls)1.
  • He knows some people will always make more money than him no matter how hard he works—but that doesn’t mean his life has to be any less worth living.
  • He knows that even if he dresses the way you’re supposed to dress and tells the jokes you’re supposed to tell that there will always be people who don’t like him.

Maybe for some years he has a big social circle with lots of friends to pat him on the back and keep his spirits buoyed one Friday night after the next.

… And then maybe for some months people are busy working or traveling or being in love or otherwise living their lives outside of this person who is but one among many.

This may make him feel sad and alone for a moment, until he thinks to himself: “This is just one of those Sad Things. But that’s alright. There’s almost certainly a merry moment coming around the corner.”

When you dwell on the Sad Things, you feel sad. But when you accept that the Sad Things will always be there, then you can be free of them and you no longer have to live your life swinging from the emotional pendulum of happenstances.

Life IS sad and then we die. But don’t dwell on the Sad Things so much that you can’t notice the merry moments among them.

I’ve told a number of friends my “Life is sad and then you die” motto—some over ice cream cones in sun-filled parks and others over whiskey stones in dimly-lit bars.

It usually takes them a couple of listens to come around. But after they’ve laughed in my face and/or rolled their eyes at me, they start to realize I’m not being dramatic (or crafting what would have been a great AIM away message).

I’m completely serious and have chosen this to be the hill I die on (no pun intended):

  1. Life is sad and then you die.
  2. Once you learn to be happy on your own, you can do anything.

Because the only thing holding you back from creating happiness is you wishing your life could be different.

Just be happy. Now.

More essays on finding happiness in this sometimes lonely world?

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  1. Because no one ever says “girls will be girls” to justify our childhood wrong-doings. (This is a true story. Sorry to those people whose flowers my best friend and I plucked on our walks around the neighborhood.) ↩︎

Are You Afraid of Being Alone? Here’s why you don’t have to be.

Merry April 1, 2024

There’s no need to fear. In fact, I think it’s time to change what it means to be a “loner.”

When was the last time you took yourself out to dinner? Or went on a weekend getaway by yourself? Or just went to the movies alone? (OK, I know nobody goes to the movies anymore … )

If so (or if not), would you consider yourself a loner? And is that a good thing?

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Being a loner gets a bad rap.

Quite unfairly, in my opinion.

When you Google the word “loner,” the first thing that comes up is the Oxford English Dictionary, which says a loner is “a person who avoids company and prefers to be alone.”

Next, WebMD says pretty much the same thing: “Being a loner means that you would prefer to be by yourself rather than with others.”

At least Wikipedia (my love) gives the term “loner” a bit more nuance: “a person who does not seek out, actively avoids, or fails to maintain interaction with other people.”

All in all, the Internet seems to agree that being a loner is a bad thing—that it means you’re some kind of anti-social freak who hates being around people.

I strongly disagree. The word “loner” shouldn’t have a negative connotation.

Frankly, I’m really sick of everyone thinking being alone is just about the worst possible thing that could happen to you.

Think about it:

  • Being a loner.
  • Being lonely.
  • Being on your own.

They don’t have good connotations, do they?

Don’t get me wrong: I’m in no way an advocate for social isolation.

For one, I like people. I love a good party. I love spending time doing nothing with my friends. And to be honest, I know that I’m usually a little verbose.

Plus, it’s clear that spending too much time alone is bad for us—even bad for our health.

This 2013 study “revealed that social isolation predicted mortality for both genders, as did smoking and high blood pressure,” concluding that “the strength of social isolation as a predictor of mortality is similar to that of well-documented clinical risk factors.” [Source: PubMed Central]

The dangers of social isolation are such a problem that “in 2018, the U.K. appointed a minister for loneliness and Loneliness Awareness Week was introduced to encourage people to ‘fill their lives with new friends and experiences.’” [Source: University of California San Francisco]

ICYMI: Both of these studies were conducted BEFORE the COVID-19 pandemic, when the world started paying a lot of attention to the risks of isolation and loneliness. Since then, things have obviously gotten a lot worse:

  • A 2021 survey of 2,496 U.S. adults determined that more than half (58%) of U.S. adults are considered lonely. [Source: The Cigna Group]
  • Even the Surgeon General is sounding the alarm, releasing a report in May 2023 to “[call] attention to the public health crisis of loneliness, isolation, and lack of connection in our country [the U.S.]” [Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services]

So, yeah. Social isolation is definitely a bad thing.

But you know what’s also a problem? Being too afraid to ever do anything by yourself.

You know what I mean:

  • That friend who’s never been single for more than 2 months since they were in high school
  • That family member who won’t get on a plane by themselves
  • That co-worker who won’t take a break and eat lunch in the company kitchen by themselves

Of course, to each his own. I’m not trying to single anyone out or judge them.

What if being a loner is the secret key to finding happiness?

I’ve always been a bit of a loner. (And no, it’s not because I’m an anti-social freak who hates being around people. Thanks for asking, though.)

Instead, there are two main reasons why I’m a loner:

  1. I genuinely enjoy doing things on my own.
  2. I don’t feel uncomfortable being by myself.

Let me explain.

Back in the day, when I lived in an apartment in Providence, Rhode Island with three roommates, one of my favorite parts of the week was taking myself to the local pub around the corner with a couple of books and perhaps my journal where I would sit, read, daydream, and ponder the night away with just me, a couple of pints, and a cheeseburger.

(That and Sunday morning, when I did more or less the same thing but diner-style with a newspaper and/or The Economist, a veggie omelet, and some burnt coffee.)

To me, solo time is a luxurious reprieve from the chaotic world. So why do so many people think it’s weird?

So many times, I would

  • walk into a restaurant and ask for a table for one
  • travel for the weekend by myself
  • show up at a party without a date or a friend

…there would be a prolonged silence, and then:

  • “Good for you.”
  • “Wow, that’s so brave.”
  • “I could never do that.”

Huh?

I just don’t get it. What is so scary about being alone? What is so horrifying about the very thought of doing something by yourself? And (even more outrageous) being comfortable and at ease while doing it?

Maybe this is how you feel.

Maybe you’re afraid of being seen as a loner because that also means being a misfit, an outcast, and an anti-social weirdo. (And that’s certainly the case if you listen to what the Oxford English Dictionary and WebMD have to say.)

But I think there’s another way.

A Merry Loner’s Manifesto

This is my mission: to change the idea of what it means to be a loner—from misfit outcast to calm, contented, confident individual.

I call it being A Merry Loner. Because once you learn how to be merry on your own, then you can do anything.

Ready to Embrace Loner Living?

It’s time to flip the script on loneliness.

Join me for A Merry Loner’s 7-Day Do Things Alone Challenge to learn how to redefine loneliness as chosen independence.

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