How can a life be so fullfilling, so rewarding, so exciting, so full, and yet so frustrating, so challenging, so taxing, so draining?

I believe that my life will always be a dichotomy of the good life and the hard life all at once. Each day I go to work, I affect lives. I am but a servant of God, tending to and caring for his people. I keep people safe, I save them from themselves, I fix the wrongs in their bodies that have happened without warning, that have been afflicted on them, or that they've inflicted on themselves. I use my hands, my head, my heart each and every day on a level so intense that it can be nothing short of overwhelming. What an exciting place to be...... but there is a price for such a privilege.

~ To be able to do the right thing at work, I have to know what the right thing is, which means CONSTANT reading, CONSTANT studying. There is no cap on what I have to learn.

~ Never enough time to sleep, never enough time to just rest and do nothing. A movie watched is two hrs that I could have, that I should have spent reading on the etiology, pathophysiology, management and treatment of a condition that I will undoubtedly be faced with the next day at work. Not to mention board exams and being ready to be quizzed and questioned by a superior.

~ This field is wrought with pressure. Pressure to perform, pressure to achieve. Lives are at stake, and we all take it seriously

~ In a few months, I will have to be a part of the teaching and guidance of new first year residents. I have to know my stuff so that I do not lead them astray.

I sit here at my desk, with my textbooks in front of me wondering (as I've done so many times before), how I am going to withstand the pressure without crumbling under its weight?The price that I must pay is high. Only in this profession is so much asked for so little in return.

I know that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I have always needed God, continue to need him and will always need him in my life. My heart says a silent prayer to God before going into the operating room, delivery room, emergency room, ICU, praying that that which I have missed sleep, rest, a movie, etc for in order to study, will come forth, out of my brain and serve me at that very moment.

When I sit at my desk, before these study sessions, I pray that I will be able to retain all that I read, for if not, the time away from other things would be a waste.

My life is full and still I want more. More children, more time, more knowledge, more wisdom. But to have all of that there is a price to be paid. I've always believed and still do believe that we can have it all. We just can't have it all easily.