After thirty-five years of practicing psychiatry, certain truths have slowly clarified themselves, not as sudden revelations but as steady companions. They have made whatever days remain more meaningful, more directed, and more anchored in responsibility rather than anxiety. These are not abstract ideas. They are lived conclusions, arrived at through thousands of encounters with human suffering, resilience, self-deception, and courage.
After thirty-five years of practicing psychiatry, certain truths have slowly clarified themselves, not as sudden revelations but as steady companions. They have made whatever days remain more meaningful, more directed, and more anchored in responsibility rather than anxiety. These are not abstract ideas. They are lived conclusions, arrived at through thousands of encounters with human suffering, resilience, self-deception, and courage.
The first truth is this: every human being is always making a choice about their relationship to the world. We may actively work toward its betterment, remain passive observers, or, through indifference, fear, or self-interest, contribute to its worsening. There is no neutral position. This choice applies not only to large social or political actions, but to how we treat fellow human beings, how we relate to our communities, how we regard nature, and how seriously we take responsibility for our own inner condition. We do not live in isolation. Seeing ourselves as leaves of one tree and drops of one ocean is not poetic sentimentality; it is a psychological and moral reality. When this interconnectedness is genuinely felt, life acquires purpose and relevance. Our actions matter because we matter to one another.
The second truth is that truthfulness is the foundation upon which all other virtues rest. Without it, compassion becomes performative, justice becomes selective, and love becomes conditional. In clinical work, I have seen repeatedly that lies do not disappear simply because they are unspoken. They persist, often outside conscious awareness, shaping behavior, relationships, and symptoms in ways that confuse and distress the individual. Some of the most consequential untruths are not deliberate deceptions but quiet accommodations we make with ourselves in order to avoid discomfort, guilt, or loss. The work of life is gradually to come into contact with these hidden distortions, to tolerate the unease they evoke, and to live more honestly with ourselves and with others. Truth, once faced, may be painful, but it is also organizing. It brings coherence where there was fragmentation and relief where there was chronic tension.
The third truth, which is often neglected in moral or psychological discussions, is that our physical life matters deeply. The body is not incidental to our ethical or spiritual development. It is the instrument through which intention becomes action and insight becomes service. Over decades, I have watched how exhaustion, neglect, addiction, and disregard for the body quietly erode moral clarity and emotional availability. Conversely, when individuals treat their physical lives with a sense of stewardship rather than indulgence or contempt, something stabilizes within them. Sleep, movement, nourishment, and restraint are not mere health recommendations; they are forms of respect for the conditions that make a meaningful life possible. Accepting the limits of the body, including aging and vulnerability, also brings a certain humility that deepens compassion for oneself and others.
Taken together, these truths converge on a single orientation toward life: responsibility without harshness, awareness without despair, and purpose without grandiosity. We are not required to save the world, but we are responsible for not harming it, and for contributing whatever measure of clarity, kindness, and honesty lies within our reach. We are responsible for tending to our inner lives so that unconscious fears and falsehoods do not quietly govern our actions. And we are responsible for caring for the physical vessel that allows us to show up, day after day, in the lives of others.
After many years of listening to human stories, I have come to believe that meaning is not something we discover once and for all. It is something we enact repeatedly, through choices large and small, through truth told and truth tolerated, through care given to the world, to others, and to ourselves. That realization, more than any professional accomplishment, has made the passage of time less frightening and the days that remain more intentional.
