New Years Roundup


Doc’s Thoughts

This is a bit of different weekly post. This one is a roundup of previous writing I’ve done around the New Year. But first, if you didn’t read the holiday posts on love, peace, and joy.

Last week, I talked about how curiosity can be the engine of change.

Turns out, I’ve written about New Years (and New Years adjacent) topics quite a bit. Rather than do another post, I thought I’d dust off the archive a bit. Here’s a bit of a round-up:

Happy Reading!

​
Love,

Doc

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Doc’s Thoughts

Every week, Dr. Justin Altschuler writes a post that provides new insight and perspective into the familiar parts of life, helping readers live a healthy, happy, meaningful life.

Read more from Doc’s Thoughts

Doc’s Thoughts It is the nature of my body to get old, break down, and die. This may sound morbid, or defeatist, or obvious, and perhaps it is. It is also true. Whether I like it or not, these things will happen to me, just as they happen to every human being. This is not to say that I want this to happen. I eat well, exercise, and take care of myself to prevent it from happening as much as possible. I want to remain healthy and capable, to avoid pain and illness, and to live a long life. But...

Doc’s Thoughts When we love and care about someone, it is natural to want to help them—in fact, that is a part of love. We tell them they matter to us, offer kind words, give gifts, show up, listen, make dinner, sit beside them when things are hard. Love takes many forms, and much of what makes life worthwhile comes from these ordinary acts of caring. We also want to protect the people we love from suffering, to help them avoid the bad relationship, terrible decisions, and mistakes we can see...

Doc’s Thoughts In my work with people who use drugs, I often talk with people who are filled with regret, shame, and deep feelings of sadness about where their life is. One of the joys of my work is being a part of people moving from this place of unhappiness to a place of significantly more joy. This extends beyond just drug use. At heart, I am fairly optimistic, and believe in people’s ability to learn, to grow, and make peace with themselves. Bad endings While I hope this for everyone, I...