If anyone wonders why I have time to be on SDN, it's because HE staining, westerns, and PCR all provide ample down time. A bunch of mouse slides, 9 cell samples. 3 sets of primers (one with 3, and 2 with two). I can't imagine "crashing and burning", maybe if I hated everything I was doing, I'd explode at some point. But I don't. Don't get me wrong. I get stressed. But I never feel like I rather be doing something else (ok, sometimes I rather be sleeping or eating, or doing what men and women do when the lights go off - I have a sweet pillow top mattress that I paid a premium for that is sincerely under utilized in that department), but never do I feel like I rather switch to a less stressful lifestyle. I can't predict the future, I'm not going to say "theres no way I could burn out". That would be naive. But I don't see it coming any time soon.
Yesterday someone was talking to me about neurosurgery. We are at different stages in our medical careers, he's not dual degree so temporally we aren't competing for the same residency spots. He wasn't crazy gung-ho. He's in his 3rd year and hasn't worked to pump out clinical journals. I told him that he should be making face time with the nsurg department. That he should ask for menial task such as data entry and paper editing to hopefully get a one or two clinical pubs...I felt like I was taking the high road by helping a peer. Avoiding the egocentric ass of a person that I don't want to be. And then immediately after I told him, I felt this sense of guilt and stupidity. because any data that he works with is data that I'm not working with. I am still conflicted man. I don't mind living the life of pursing the hardest thing I can possibly do, I actually want this sincerely. I want to bust ass. I want to go to sleep saying, "damn today was rough" sleep 5 hours, wake up and say "damn, today is going to be rough". Thats my goal MO. But I'd truly like to shed the egotistical ass hole malicious side of me. I can have an ego, I have a big one, I like it. My ego coupled with caffeine makes me feel amazing. But having an ego and being a malicious ass are different things, and I want to shed the latter.