I got a very touching letter yesterday from L, a physician practicing in the South. He is struggling to salvage his humanity and well being in a system that is increasingly dictated by insurance companies, lawyers and government regulations. He is suffocating in it, the artist inside of him – and the free man – wanting to be free. Every day, he has to deny his patients the things they need, because there is not time, the lawyer’s won’t allow it, the insurance companies won’t pay for it, he might get sued,  or the government doesn’t permit it. And then, he has to give patients so many things they don’t need because others are making so much money  from medications and procedures.

It is draining his spirit and his soul. He is no longer a healer but a bureaucrat and paper pusher. “We never feel really able to be a part of the rhythms of nature and just live. I definitely feel this is a large part of the increasing depression I see in many of my patients.” And in himself.

“What did you do and how did you get to the point of changing?,” he asked me. “I would love to know if you have time to answer. If not, I certainly understand and will continue to applaud you work.” A nice man, L is, and a hurting man. He wants to draw and misses painting and most of his friends think he is losing his mind. Sounds familiar. If he changes, everyone in the world will think he’s losing  his mind.  It is the way men are beaten down whenever they wish to change their lives. Their yearnings are dismissed, even by those they love, as a “mid-life crisis” and if they do not muster the will or courage to change, they often come to feel it is too late. I understood that if I did not change, I would die, literally or in the soul.

I told him I couldn’t answer such  complex questions in an e-mail. It is also not my right to tell other people what to do. Nobody told me what to do, and I didn’t ask anybody.  Nobody much liked it, either. Change has to come from inside, or perhaps with the help a good therapist. You cannot ask me. You have to ask those questions of you. I do not know what other people ought to do, and I do not tell them.

L, my wish for you is that you work to release your inner spirit and use your remaining time in the world to do good and to be happy and life a fulfilled life. I took a leap of faith, and it brought me wondrous things and great pain and loss. If you leap, you will never have the kind of security most people believe they need, and even your close family and friends – you are seeing this already – may break away from you in confusion and fear.  It will often seem that the whole world – people, media, movies and books – are telling you to be afraid, assuring you that you will pay. You will separate from your world forever. In my case, the rewards have been beyond imagination. I have never looked back.

There is no perfect life, no easy life, not mine, not yours. But there is a life of meaning and self-fullfillment. A life with purpose beyond making money to give money to others or to save it until it has no value to you.

If I had a magic wand, I would sweep over you and set you free. Or say the magic words that might save your life. But it is not that simple. In our country we talk a lot about being free, even as I feel many of us are becoming a nation of slaves – to fear, health care, IRA’s, legal and governmental restrictions, money, the media, technology, corporations, bad jobs. Like yours, you can almost feel countless spirits draining away, struggle in lives of anxiety, pressure and lack of meaning. Hamsters on the wheel. They can never keep up.

I closed my eyes and took the leap. I don’t know of any other way to do it. I wish you peace and compassion. All I can tell you is that I remember the day, the moment, that I swore to myself that I would not live a loveless life, without meaning or purpose or the joy of creation. I promised myself I would not live and die a slave.  And I will keep that pledge to the end. Good luck to you.