The amount of uncertainty ahead of us is alarming and knowing that everything we build over the years can simply vanish overnight with a situation like we are experiencing right now – it makes sense to feel helpless and things have never been out of our control like this. The question is: do we simply take life as it is? Just like what President Trump said in his interview with the Australian Journalist last week about his theory of how America is stacking in the COVID pandemic against the world – “It is what it is” and his ignorance was his attitude. This makes you wonder if this the kind of mindset we all need in our darkest hour? Taking life as it is? Or we can start making progress and working towards digging ourselves out of the giant hole?

If we focus on all the things that are out of control, I can guarantee you that we’ll feel more vulnerable. Most importantly, we’ll lose faith in our ability and start doubting our importance and self-worth. This is not a place we want to be in. So, the number one thing that we all need to do is to shift our focus onto the things that are in our control. Some of you might say – Chris, that is easier said than done, how can we not think about how much we have lost since April? The answer is simpler than you think – just don’t think about it! That’s it. We all tend to think too much, discussing, strategising, and debating. Sometimes all we need to do is to think about the things we can do right now to improve the situation. This is a big thing for me and I remember saying this to a friend of mine years ago about relationships and it changed his whole perspective – do not spend time with people that don’t make you feel good. This can easily be translated into “do not spend time worrying about things out of your control”.

A patient of mine asked me the other day about how I feel in general about life and the whole situation we are in. He had lost his high-paying job and was quite pessimistic about the future especially with the economic downturn that we are going through. As much as I want to inspire you all, I wanted to be as transparent with my thoughts as much as possible at the same time. I told him that I’m actually feeling optimistic. And I don’t want to be coming across as tone-deaf because there has been so much difficulty and sadness going around in the last 6 months. He quickly interrupted me and asked how do I stay that way. Look, I strongly believe that the optimism trait is in the DNA, meaning certain people are born with it. The second thing is that it’s nurtured by parenting. I think both my mum and dad have had a huge impact on the way I see the world. They both instilled a level of self-confidence in me which made me the person I am today. Mum provided me with her philosophy on life and dad is more of a practical guy – I’ve seen him been through countless difficulties in his business life and he never dwells on any one of his setbacks. Rather, he stands up stronger each time which contributed to his success today.
The next thing – and I believe is the most important of all – is to try to train yourself to see things from different angles.

One of the things I try to tell people is that you can’t blame your circumstances due to not being in control. There are many circumstances and you can take any circumstance and see the bad and the good in it. Sometimes you just need to think it through and have conversations about it so that you can rewire your perspective. Once you start seeing things in a different light, everything starts to fall into place and your life will never be the same again. I also believe that optimism can be trained. Just like your muscles, the more weight you lift, the bigger it’ll get. Optimism is no different, try to see a situation whether is a good or a bad one from a different angle. A lot of the time when we start to shift the angle, we see the problem as a little bearable, and makes us wonder if it’s necessary to react the way we wanted to initially.

Staying optimistic also requires gratitude and perspective. Believe it or not, sometimes the only way for us to be grateful is by losing it all. It’s very harsh but is the fastest way for us to gain perspective of things. A simple way I gain appreciation and gratefulness is that every morning when I wake up I treat it as the best day ever because all of my loved ones are still here. Meanwhile, the pharmacy is under pressure, I have 7 employees I feel responsible for, a patient asks to un-dispense all their medicines which you have spent the last 20 minutes doing – running behind the scenes talking to the doctor and sorting out the correct dose so that it is safe for him to take. There are a bunch of problems that we need to deal with daily but if you are grateful, you’ll see beyond your problems with a bit of clarity and appreciation. The fact that many people out there compare themselves to others they perceive as better off than them. They think that their problem is much bigger than the problems that someone with a multimillion-dollar business on the verge of failing due to the COVID crisis because they have a nicer home to go back to. This makes me feel sad. Gratitude does not belong to a wealthy person. It belongs to everybody in society.

There’s this interesting thing that running through my mind over and over again in the past 4 months. Not until my conversation with my patient did it trigger me to give a deep thought about it: many people have been affected greatly both financially and emotionally from COVID-19  and they are not willing to take a step backward for a giant leap forward for the rest of their life. I realised so many people are miserable with their golden handcuffs because they were making substantial earnings and had mortgages, fancy car repayments, and lavish lifestyles. Now they need to make some painful adjustments because the business is not surviving well or job losses. They are worried about what other people may think if they downsized the home and drove a Toyota instead of an Audi. Literally, they are not willing to take a step backward because they care too much about other people’s opinions and are willing to let other people’s judgments ruin their next 40 years of life is the stupidest thing they could do to themselves. The only thing that stops many of us from moving forward is the stigma of losing and going back to zero.

One thing that I always do when I don’t feel happy or in control is to switch on the water tap. It is a tremendous blessing to be able to do that because there is an entire continent where people walk miles to get clean water. So, stop pondering and holding on to any unnecessary baggage. Move forward by slowly making progress day by day until you reach a place where you feel comfortable with tremendous gratitude.

To your best future yet,

The post Take a step backwards for a giant leap forward to a fruitful life appeared first on Eastmed Pharmacy.

It doesn’t help especially when stubbornness is a prominent feature of mine. Let me put it this way, at times, my stubbornness during our arguments is equivalent to splashing kerosine to a campfire. There is this part of my stubbornness that whenever I believe something to be true then I’ll defend it. We both bottle up issues like a pressure cooker over an extended period of time. The real reason most people choose to bottle things up is that they are wary about saying things that could hurt others. Speaking the truth is something I’ve been talking about frequently in recent years but it’s probably the hardest thing to follow myself. It is a constant challenge because it’s so easy to use words in a way that pays off in the short term and circumvents the problem.  Despite how difficult it is, I still believe it’s better to face things early on and to get to the bottom of the problem before it is too late for any reconciliation. As a health professional, I have to present myself in that manner too if I want to be a useful pharmacist as well. Not that I’m the kind of medical professional that tells people they have only months to live. But it’s still unpleasant to tell patients that they have scabies – it hurts their feelings and upsets them. Nonetheless, if you don’t deal with it now, then perhaps they will scratch themselves and make things a whole lot worse.

What I realise is that of the augments we had over the years, every time we still manage to come out of it as nothing has happened. Most people would think that we have comes to terms with each other’s temperament and we have developed the muscles to forgive. I contest that though because in an ideal world if you truly have forgiven someone, future arguments and conflicts can often be prevented. The fact we continue to have such conflicts on a regular basis could only point to the fact that we deceive ourselves into thinking we have forgiven each other, but in fact, we only have forgotten about the conflict. Forgive and forget are two very different things. There is something fundamentally wrong about “forgetting” a problem. This is because forgetting doesn’t involve reflection and reconciliation. Forgetting is acknowledging that there is a problem, knowing that there are things that I should be doing and that I must do it to resolve the conflict. However, I’m not willing to do anything about it. Hence, shuffling it under the mat seems to be the easiest way of dodging the responsibility of trying to figure a way out.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, is driven by the proper reflection of the problem and laying out the rationale. There is usually a sense of genuine urge to reconcile by trying to understand why the person did this and what they’ve learned from it. However, forgiveness is difficult in part because evolution has endowed us with the motivation to avoid being exploited by others. We are constantly in a defense mode.

Forgiveness is a personal decision and is the one that requires both parties’ understanding and input before it can happen. Sometimes we have to come to terms that people have irreconcilable differences, and there’s nothing that can be done. This is partly because there is a tendency of people to simply not want to admit what they really want. And when people don’t communicate and tell each other the truth, conflict generally boils up. What I’ve learned from this friendship of mine is that telling each other the truth not only will increase the probability that we can maintain our relationship in a stable manner but it also enables us to forgive, reconcile and move forward. Although you may or may not be ready to forgive despite the truth been spoken, one day you’ll find yourself less resistant to the idea and starting to align yourself toward it. When that time comes, you’ll most certainly feel lighter, and generally relieved that the burden of hatred is no longer resting forcefully on your shoulders.

To a more forgiving world,

The post Just because you’ve forgotten doesn’t mean you’re forgiven appeared first on Eastmed Pharmacy.

From my observations over the years as a pharmacist, I found many people are generally hesitant about sharing both good and bad news about their life. Hence, I was really surprised that she so willingly shared the good news about her life with me. It’s a sad truth that society primes us into keeping things to ourselves. I guess as our society is becoming more complex, people are wearier about “sharing” because sharing your life usually involves exposing ourselves to others and immediately opens ourselves up for comparison and judgement. We need to be very careful about comparison and judgement. It often leads to a toxic cycle of jealousy. The person we usually compare ourselves to are mostly people we don’t know much about besides their shiny outside.  The truth is that we don’t really get to see the reality of their life.

I’m sure many of you living in St Heliers and Glendowie areas can relate to this. I often see someone revving up their engine and speeding along Tamaki Drive in a Porsche. I think to myself, “Oh man, What a lucky guy.” However, the truth of the matter is that he’s thinking about drifting his expensive car off the road and burring himself into the ocean on the next tight corner. You just can’t tell. People have hard lives, relatively privileged people have hard lives too. I have a friend who is always troubled by jealous thoughts and constantly compares himself to the other person that he is fixated on. The funny thing is that the person he compares himself to is not me. And I said to him, if you compare yourself to me then you’ll be a much happier person. The problem with him is that the ideal he is mirroring himself to that made him jealous and resentful is in reality merely an illusion that’s created by his own mind.

I am fortunate enough through the nature of my job to have known a diverse group of people. Some of them are unimaginably wealthy, and most of them made their money through their intelligence and hard work. When you get to know them better, you realise their burden and responsibility is so huge that would probably crush me and any other normal person. They are constantly working, easily 80 hours a week and they have hundreds and thousands of people dependent on them, they don’t take holidays. They certainly have their money and status. However, most people would jump to the conclusion that they are privileged without realising there is usually a price to pay for what they have. They usually don’t see their family often enough, and as a result, miss out on seeing their children grown up. Hence their relationships are usually compromised. We often don’t see the other side long enough before we start judging. If we were to know what is at stake, we would probably be more careful of who we are jealous of.

As I’ve recently been reflecting on my two years of continuous writing, documenting my life, and looking back at my younger self, I have grown and learned so much (particularly about myself) that I would not have if I haven’t started on this journey. My experience interacting with my patients, being a husband to my wife, a father to my son, and a son to my parents has taught me that everyone is different from other people in their unique way and you shouldn’t be comparing yourself to them because you are not like them. You are experiencing life differently. Writing a completely different book with a different storyline and characters. They don’t have the same experience as you and they certainly don’t have the same temperament as well. They don’t have your problems and your abilities to solve them. The only person that has those is you and that’s why a much better game to play is to compare yourself to the yesterday you rather than someone else today.

Focusing on other people’s games often leads to disappointment and that’s what I’m observing regularly when I’m interacting with people. On the contrary, a game you can win is your own game you have been playing since day one. Because you can be a little better than you were yesterday if you chose to.

Two years ago, I embark on his journey of writing my way to become a better version of myself because I took stock of where I was, my strengths and weaknesses, and where I wanted to be… I started with a little humility and projected myself on a path of incremental improvement to be the person I wanted to become. Two years is relatively short in the scheme of things, but I’ve seen myself come a long way and I’m on the right trajectory to leading a virtuous life.

Are you playing your own game?

The post Playing your own game appeared first on Eastmed Pharmacy.

Initially, my patient thought it was just another health blog amongst tens of thousands that are already out there. However, he found it fascinating – in a good way – that I not only talked about health but also my perspective about life in general, which he certainly didn’t expect from a pharmacist. This is not the first time someone has mentioned this.
However, it’s not always positive feedback I receive, one time a patient emailed me saying I should stop sending my emails because he finds them annoying and he made a point about what gives me the right to tell people what to do. This comment hit me hard.

I have to admit that I have been writing less about health topics since the birth of my son, and also during the COVID pandemic. I’ve been diving into topics about life, its meaning, and mental health quite frequently because it fascinates me. I’m glad you are all still here along with me and haven’t been tempted to click on the “unsubscribe” button yet.

I think many people misunderstand my intentions of writing about life. Look, I’ve not experienced life enough to be able to give “advice” about life as such and certainly not to tell people how to live their life either. I mean, after all, I’m only 36-year-old turning 37 – what do I know about life right? I guess the reason I write is to allow me to document and share my journey as I navigate through the rough sea of life. Life is tough. It’s even tougher when you can’t be open to sharing about it. As with everyone else, I’m still pretty much a “work in progress”. If my writing can in any way resonate and inspire others then, by all means, that’s an upside for me. I’m hoping that people do find my writing useful. I hope it can alleviate some unnecessary suffering. There’s a lot of suffering out there, a lot of people are suffering, and either we’re not aware of it or simply we don’t care enough to pay attention to it.

To another two years of writing (and hopefully many more!),

The post Reflection on my two years of writing appeared first on Eastmed Pharmacy.

I tend to overanalyse situations sometimes and I understand that it doesn’t have to be a bad trait, but it’s often is a double-edged sword. Take an incident that happened to me this week, I found out about something that could potentially jeopardise a project I have been working on for the past year and a half. The news struck me like a lightning bolt and it changed my mood for the rest of the day. Without realising it, I carried my thoughts into my sleep and woke up at 3 am several times wiping sweat off my forehead. I was catastrophising as my mind was revving to 8000rpm like a naturally aspirated sports engine – analysing all the possible outcomes – especially the bad ones.

I’m sure all of you can relate to this. All of us can jump to the conclusion of the worst-case scenario at times. Your friend didn’t reply to your text and your fear that they got offended. You make a mistake at work and worry that it can compromise the reputation you’ve worked hard on building. You argue with your spouse and you fear that they are going to leave you. As a pharmacist, I’ve come across many people with anxiety disorders. One thing that I’ve learned from people with anxiety, depression, or substance use abuse is that the reasons they get anxious are usually not mysterious at all. I mean, everybody has a reason to be anxious. We all have the ultimate reason to be anxious because we know that we’re vulnerable creatures and we have the intellect to realise that we’re all going to die one day. There is plenty of reasons for us to drown our consciousness in alcohol too and that’s why there is a strong link between anxiety and alcohol or substance abuse. People find relief when drinking alcohol is because it is a very powerful anxiolytic agent. I do enjoy a glass of wine now and then, and what I noticed from my own experience this week was that having a glass of red did take the edge off – temporarily.

Now I fully understand why many people with high levels of anxiety are prone to drinking alcohol. It is because when we are catastrophising and caught in the grip of fearful thoughts, we want to immediately break free, and alcohol usually does the trick quite nicely.  But a simple glass of wine that we think will be a simple fix turns out to be a vicious cycle that we naively think is okay to enter. So how do we stop anxiety or catastrophic thinking without resorting to alcohol? What I found to be useful this week was recognising what’s happening and laying out what I was anxious about in detail. What is it that I’m afraid of? What might happen? Then I deconstruct it into small manageable problems and expose myself to situations that I was afraid of. What I noticed from this exercise is that I don’t necessarily get less afraid but instead I get braver. The two are completely different things. Because if you get less afraid, it’s like realising that the world is not as bad as you’ve once thought. On the contrary, becoming braver means that you acknowledge that the world is just as bad as you thought or even worse. However, it turns out that there is something in you that is strong enough to take on a voluntary challenge and as a consequence, grow and thrive along the way.

Obviously, it is not easy to move forward into the unknown. It takes a lot of convincing and courage. But knowing that you have the courage can be the elixir we’re all after that could help you sleep a little better at night rather than those damn sleeping pills. It certainly did comfort me when I woke up at 3 am several times this week.

The other thing I realise is that sometimes the real catastrophe we fear isn’t necessarily being afraid of what will happen or the fact that we are overwhelmed and not capable to deal with it. But rather fearing that the outcome might not be the one that we set out to achieve. That was bothering me this week as I was too focused on not achieving the ideal outcome that I fixated heavily on. Chances are that many people who don’t achieve their ideal outcome might give up after weighing up the costs and benefits of continuing to pursue the same path. The problem with this is that many of us do not realise that there is a cost and benefit of not doing something as well, and sometimes the cost of not doing something is far worse than the cost of continuing pursuing the same path even if the path seems risky.

The ultimate lesson that I’ve learned from my personal experience so to speak, to help break anxious and catastrophic thoughts is to realise that there are risks no matter what you do even if you choose to do nothing. This can help us break loose from our shackle of anxiety and start taking some risks that we don’t normally do but know we should be taking.

To find your way to diminishing your anxious and catastrophic thoughts,

The post How I deal with fear, anxiety, and catastrophising thinking appeared first on Eastmed Pharmacy.

As a pharmacist, I’ve come across many people with anxiety disorders. One thing that I’ve learned from people with anxiety, depression, or substance use abuse is that the reasons they get anxious are usually not mysterious at all. I mean, everybody has a reason to be anxious. We all have the ultimate reason to be anxious because we know that we’re vulnerable creatures and we have the intellect to realise that we’re all going to die one day. There is plenty of reasons for us to drown our consciousness in alcohol too and that’s why there is a strong link between anxiety and alcohol or substance abuse. People find relief when drinking alcohol is because it is a very powerful anxiolytic agent. I do enjoy a glass of wine now and then, and what I noticed from my own experience this week was that having a glass of red did take the edge off – temporarily.
Now I fully understand why many people with high levels of anxiety are prone to drinking alcohol. It is because when we are catastrophising and caught in the grip of fearful thoughts, we want to immediately break free, and alcohol usually does the trick quite nicely.  But a simple glass of wine that we think will be a simple fix turns out to be a vicious cycle that we naively think is okay to enter.

So how do we stop anxiety or catastrophic thinking without resorting to alcohol? What I found to be useful this week was recognising what’s happening and laying out what I was anxious about in detail. What is it that I’m afraid of? What might happen? Then I deconstruct it into small manageable problems and expose myself to situations that I was afraid of. What I noticed from this exercise is that I don’t necessarily get less afraid but instead I get braver. The two are completely different things. Because if you get less afraid, it’s like realising that the world is not as bad as you’ve once thought. On the contrary, becoming braver means that you acknowledge that the world is just as bad as you thought or even worse. However, it turns out that there is something in you that is strong enough to take on a voluntary challenge and as a consequence, grow and thrive along the way.
Obviously, it is not easy to move forward into the unknown. It takes a lot of convincing and courage. But knowing that you have the courage can be the elixir we’re all after that could help you sleep a little better at night rather than those damn sleeping pills. It certainly did comfort me when I woke up at 3 am several times this week.
The other thing I realise is that sometimes the real catastrophe we fear isn’t necessarily being afraid of what will happen or the fact that we are overwhelmed and not capable to deal with it. But rather fearing that the outcome might not be the one that we set out to achieve. That was bothering me this week as I was too focused on not achieving the ideal outcome that I fixated heavily on. Chances are that many people who don’t achieve their ideal outcome might give up after weighing up the costs and benefits of continuing to pursue the same path. The problem with this is that many of us do not realise that there is a cost and benefit of not doing something as well, and sometimes the cost of not doing something is far worse than the cost of continuing pursuing the same path even if the path seems risky.
The ultimate lesson that I’ve learned from my personal experience so to speak, to help break anxious and catastrophic thoughts is to realise that there are risks no matter what you do even if you choose to do nothing. This can help us break loose from our shackle of anxiety and start taking some risks that we don’t normally do but know we should be taking.

To find your way to diminishing your anxious and catastrophic thoughts,

The post How I deal with fear, anxiety, and catastrophising thinking appeared first on Eastmed Pharmacy.

I was talking to a friend over the weekend and it seems that resentment and regrets are quite common at this time of the year for pharmacists. She said to me how much she hates being constantly accused of ripping patients off simply because they charge the $5 government tax. Yes, I understand how she feels, I get a fair share of being called a “con” every now and then. I can tell you that comments like this often ruin the rest of my day at work. It’s a terrible feeling to have such an accusation thrown at you when merely 15 minutes ago, I was treating them just like my own family – making sure that whatever was prescribed for them was of the right dose that doesn’t kill them.  People just don’t know…
She said studying pharmacy and being a pharmacist is the worst decision she ever made and she regrets every minute of it. The worst part was that she felt like she was nothing but a glorified drug dealer.

I understand where she is coming from. Pharmacists like to joke about being “legal drug dealers”. But despite the joke, I am quite certain that there is a part of every pharmacist that feels like nothing more than a glamorised drug dispenser.

Even after practicing as a pharmacist for more than 13 years, I still wake up every day naively think that my day would be filled with verifying prescriptions, assessing the appropriateness of the medicines prescribed, talking to doctors on optimising patient’s health outcomes. In reality, I’m in constant battle with patients when it comes to calling the doctors. Is it important or urgent enough to have to make them wait? Especially for those disgruntled patients just wanting to get their prescription and leave. You know what, instead of picking my battles, I always end up calling the doctor despite how annoyed the patient was towards me. I just simply can’t lower my standards because they’re frustrated and wondering why they need to waste 10 minutes for a pharmacist. I can tell you for sure that I have made many patients angry during my time as a pharmacist.

If you think the misery just ends from the patient’s front, that’s wishful thinking. Because even if I call, the majority of the time I leave a message with the nurse instead. Hence, my mission of optimising a patient’s health is usually dashed away when I can’t even get to talk to the prescriber. I am very fortunate that I get to work alongside very respectful doctors. However, sometimes you get odd ones from other practices who disregard my concern without a second thought – comments like “that’s fine” or “it’s always how we do things here” can often strike and pierce your heart like an arrow.

My friend asked me whether I feel the same regret about being a pharmacist. I have to be perfectly honest; I have good days and bad days. However, overall, I don’t regret it at all. Let me put it this way, I don’t so much regret choosing to become a pharmacist as a career, despite all the ugliness and resentfulness within the industry. What I regret is not doing enough to change people’s perspectives towards us. Not advocating enough that our knowledge and time are not penniless, at least I see it as more than the $5 government tax that you pay.

Every profession has a defining moment that can either make or break someone. If you can ride it out while remaining naïve and optimistic, good for you. But you certainly not a hero. On the other hand, if you can’t tolerate it and quit, you’re not a loser either. There are certain things in life that we desperately want to change and cannot. Sometimes, we actually have zero control. But life isn’t really about having ultimate control of every aspect of it. It’s also not about condemning ourselves for making an irrevocable decision, leading us to a terrible consequence either. And without a doubt, it surely isn’t about living a life without any regrets. Here is the thing – if we have goals and dreams and we always strive to do our best, we should feel pain and resentment when things go wrong. But the point is to not hate ourselves for having those feelings. We have to understand that some of our regrets are not as ugly as we think they are.

The lesson I learned from my bad dream this week is this:

A dream is only a dream. Reality is more malleable than you think. Of course, you can learn to sculpt out the flaws and imperfections to minimise your regrets. But that’s not the point. The point is to have the capacity to forgive ourselves for creating them. Regrets don’t always only remind us of how terribly we did or the things we didn’t do. They also remind us that we can do better and most importantly, there is still time to accomplish that.

To a future of good dreams and an even better reality,

The post Living in a bad dream appeared first on Eastmed Pharmacy.

I was talking to a friend over the weekend and it seems that resentment and regrets are quite common at this time of the year for pharmacists. She said to me how much she hates being constantly accused of ripping patients off simply because they charge the $5 government tax. Yes, I understand how she feels, I get a fair share of being called a “con” every now and then. I can tell you that comments like this often ruin the rest of my day at work. It’s a terrible feeling to have such an accusation thrown at you when merely 15 minutes ago, I was treating them just like my own family – making sure that whatever was prescribed for them was of the right dose that doesn’t kill them.  People just don’t know…
She said studying pharmacy and being a pharmacist is the worst decision she ever made and she regrets every minute of it. The worst part was that she felt like she was nothing but a glorified drug dealer.

I understand where she is coming from. Pharmacists like to joke about being “legal drug dealers”. But despite the joke, I am quite certain that there is a part of every pharmacist that feels like nothing more than a glamorised drug dispenser.

Even after practicing as a pharmacist for more than 13 years, I still wake up every day naively think that my day would be filled with verifying prescriptions, assessing the appropriateness of the medicines prescribed, talking to doctors on optimising patient’s health outcomes. In reality, I’m in constant battle with patients when it comes to calling the doctors. Is it important or urgent enough to have to make them wait? Especially for those disgruntled patients just wanting to get their prescription and leave. You know what, instead of picking my battles, I always end up calling the doctor despite how annoyed the patient was towards me. I just simply can’t lower my standards because they’re frustrated and wondering why they need to waste 10 minutes for a pharmacist. I can tell you for sure that I have made many patients angry during my time as a pharmacist.

If you think the misery just ends from the patient’s front, that’s wishful thinking. Because even if I call, the majority of the time I leave a message with the nurse instead. Hence, my mission of optimising a patient’s health is usually dashed away when I can’t even get to talk to the prescriber. I am very fortunate that I get to work alongside very respectful doctors. However, sometimes you get odd ones from other practices who disregard my concern without a second thought – comments like “that’s fine” or “it’s always how we do things here” can often strike and pierce your heart like an arrow.

My friend asked me whether I feel the same regret about being a pharmacist. I have to be perfectly honest; I have good days and bad days. However, overall, I don’t regret it at all. Let me put it this way, I don’t so much regret choosing to become a pharmacist as a career, despite all the ugliness and resentfulness within the industry. What I regret is not doing enough to change people’s perspectives towards us. Not advocating enough that our knowledge and time are not penniless, at least I see it as more than the $5 government tax that you pay.

Every profession has a defining moment that can either make or break someone. If you can ride it out while remaining naïve and optimistic, good for you. But you certainly not a hero. On the other hand, if you can’t tolerate it and quit, you’re not a loser either. There are certain things in life that we desperately want to change and cannot. Sometimes, we actually have zero control. But life isn’t really about having ultimate control of every aspect of it. It’s also not about condemning ourselves for making an irrevocable decision, leading us to a terrible consequence either. And without a doubt, it surely isn’t about living a life without any regrets. Here is the thing – if we have goals and dreams and we always strive to do our best, we should feel pain and resentment when things go wrong. But the point is to not hate ourselves for having those feelings. We have to understand that some of our regrets are not as ugly as we think they are.

The lesson I learned from my bad dream this week is this:

A dream is only a dream. Reality is more malleable than you think. Of course, you can learn to sculpt out the flaws and imperfections to minimise your regrets. But that’s not the point. The point is to have the capacity to forgive ourselves for creating them. Regrets don’t always only remind us of how terribly we did or the things we didn’t do. They also remind us that we can do better and most importantly, there is still time to accomplish that.

To a future of good dreams and an even better reality,

The post Living in a bad dream appeared first on Eastmed Pharmacy.

The general feeling was that many people are not entirely happy with the government’s decision on Saturday night. One of the reasons was that some people were training hard and looking forward to the once-a-year “Round the Bays” event. The other reason was the strategy of going into a lockdown every time a new case of community transmission is found or suspected. The thoughts were that it’s probably not the best strategy when balancing stomping on the virus and stomping on our economy. Especially, the fact that the whole population and the economy of Auckland had to be punished when a few could not follow simple rules.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to share my thoughts of how the situation should have been handled or how we should move forward as a team of 5 million. Quite frankly, I feel that the government has handled the situation to the best of its ability given the rapidly changing nature of the virus. However, as always, there are lessons the government could learn systematically to not jeopardise the effort of locking down a city of 1.5 million.

What I wanted to discuss instead today was why many people are feeling resentful and anxious and it all points to the result of what lockdown can do to us mentally.

There is no doubt that 2021 will be another interesting year given what we are seeing so far. There’ll definitely be challenging times ahead of us for both our mental and emotional well-being. The stress and uncertainty of the pandemic, the financial repercussions from it, and the anxiety of whether our lives could ever go back to some form of normality have been difficult. Now, faced with the potential of multiple short bursts of lockdowns, profound changes in our daily routines have arisen. Many of us, including yourself, could be feeling the strain already. Personally, the last lockdown had already placed significant stress and disruption to my daily work and personal routine. Things that should be done are not getting done. It’s really hard to find your equilibrium when everything feels like it’s going through a phase of a trough.

Everyone is being affected in some way or another. Every life situation during this time is bringing unprecedented challenges. Workers, if they are lucky, can work remotely. However, many can not and are unemployed until the lockdown finishes. Businesses are forced to operate with maximum restrictions. Parents do their best to home-school their kids while working from home themselves. Single people struggle to maintain a connection with their friends and family.

All of us are collectively facing problems of our own. It is extremely important to be aware of this and it is of paramount importance to not be judgemental. Everyone is fighting a battle that you are not aware of. In times like this, we must not get personal and realise that the is a valid reason why people are behaving this way. A little bit of understanding goes a long way during a pandemic of a lifetime.

People with depression and bipolar disorder are particularly vulnerable to the effects of the lockdown because of the disruption in routines and their usual patterns of daily life. Routines, regularity, and social interaction are important for people with depression to be able to manage their mood symptoms, and disruption in these can precipitate a relapse. During these challenging times, we must protect our mental health and the mental wellbeing of people who suffer from clinical depression. There are lots of things you can do to boost your mental wellbeing:

1)      Maintain your routine as much as possible

Establishing a routine allows you to get through the day with less stress and anxiety.

2)      Find moments for yourself.

Try to regularly set aside time for yourself in the absence of social media, news, or other technology. Trust me, this will help you to relax and have a positive impact on your thoughts.

3)      Stay connected with your loved ones

We must keep connections and close ties to our loved ones and friends. By staying connected, it’ll make us feel safer and less stressed and anxious.

4)      Share the love

At times of stress, it’s easy to neglect our relationships, especially to the people we see every day. It is important to spend and treasure the time with the people who love you and who will be with you no matter what the future holds.

5)      Find ways to forgive

Always look for an opportunity to give people the benefit of the doubt and see the good in people. Being quick to forgive not only is good for your relationships but also for your mental well-being as you embrace their good character and let go of their shortcomings.

6)      Improve someone’s life

Finding ways to be of service to others not only lightens their burden but also, most importantly, it will liberate yourself from a preoccupation with your own struggles (something I still have to remind myself regularly).

7)      Practice gratitude

It is important to be able to recognise the things that are right in front of us when we are in the middle of a storm. Dwell less on what’s wrong or missing and be thankful for what you already have is the most reliable way to maintain sanity and be mentally healthy.

We don’t know exactly how many more lockdowns we’ll have in the foreseeable future. It would be wise to start giving your emotional well-being the attention it needs and prioritise it. It’s alright to give yourself a break as you navigate through stressful times and adjust to a new situation or normality. There is no need to be harsh on yourself, you are doing the best you can, and that’s all matters.

To a happier and more optimistic you.

The post Looking after your mental wellbeing during the COIVD-19 Lockdown appeared first on Eastmed Pharmacy.

The reason why I find these two groups of people so fascinating is that their reactions are usually as genuine and real as you can possibly get. There is absolutely no hiding behind the curtains, no beating around the bush. What you see is what you get.  There is a sense of innocence, naiveness, simplicity, and curiosity that comes with a child while a sense of poise, subtleness, and wisdom for older folk. Such a portrait of realism is fading in our society, particularly in my generation and the generations to come.  What I admire the most is that many of the older folk that I have come across in the past still have the capacity to never stop asking questions, challenge the status quo, and most importantly, still have a life despite the number of health hurdles they have had to endure. While on the other hand, the untamed nature of a child in a capitalistic world gives us hope that we are capable of simplicity and curiosity. I truly believe simplicity and curiosity are the antidotes to the chaos we are seeing in the world right now. From an emotional perspective, it’s not easy to be optimistic when life can often feel hard, confusing, and unfair. In fact, problems almost always pile up and things never go exactly according to plan. So how do we combat our fear for the unknown and adopt a simplistic and curious approach to life? The truth is that we are often the person sprinkling salt over our fresh wounds.

I came across a patient this week where we had a lengthy conversation about her insomnia. She had been having trouble sleeping for almost a month. Upon asking, I found out her daughter’s recent health problems were keeping her up at night. She said her mind just couldn’t rest and stop thinking about how to help her daughter. She was constantly trying to find an answer to her problems because she believed she was responsible for her daughter’s suffering. Life can be unapologetic sometimes, from the moment we’re born, we enter this world where the weight of responsibility and expectation gets placed on our shoulders. Especially now I’m a parent myself, I can relate to her feelings completely. There is nothing in this world that can prepare you to deal with sick loved ones.

I honestly think it is tremendously hard work to juggle not just the responsibility, but the pressure that comes with finding a perfect solution to a problem. Maybe what we don’t realise is that we are trying to find answers to an unsolvable problem or sometimes we simply don’t have an answer that works. Instead, all you can come up with is a solution that has the highest probability of success. Now it may turn out the way you wanted it to – but there is no certainty about that, what is certain is that it is your best bet in moving forward. It’s often the case that you get to pick poison A or poison B but you don’t get to pick the elixir of life. However, I don’t believe that’s a reason to be particularly pessimistic because you simply cannot predict what life is going to throw at you.

Whatever problems arise in your life, do not let finding a solution restrict you from being curious and making discoveries about who you are. Tackling life with the wisdom of older folk but still maintaining the simple and curious mind of a child is the antidote to the world we’re living in. Adopting this attitude will avoid getting paralysed by everything that’s going on, make us appreciate what we have, open ourselves up to accept new things, and allow us to respond to challenges with greater flexibility. After all, when I look at my son and his natural instinct of handling whatever challenges throw at him (whether is crawling, taking in his surroundings, or learning to acknowledge his feelings), it has given me tremendous insight into how I should live my life.

To a wise, simple, and curious life,

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