One of my favorite ways to start the new year is to look back at what went really well in the last 12 months. Below, I have pulled three of the most popular blogs that I wrote and sent out via the Dr. Andy Roark newsletter (Which is totally free and arrives every Friday).
I hope your year is off to an outstanding start! If you missed any of these entries when they came out, consider checking them out today.
Sometimes it’s Worth the Risk – My wife went through cancer treatment in early 2023 (Everything is really good now! Thanks to all who sent well wishes and encouragement our way)! Partly for this reason, I think finding and holding onto hope and optimism were topics that really rolled around in my mind over the last year. This story is about my neighbor’s dog that went to surgery, and how we should remember that sometimes the best possible outcome does indeed happen.
I am a #MooseTruther – Vet medicine is often a fearful place. In 2023, I talked a lot about how perfectionism is often a manifestation of fear. Many of us are driven by anxiety around getting something “wrong” or not being exceptional in everything we do. #MooseTruther is about finding motivation through aspiration instead of fear.
(I bought my wife a plastic moose for her Christmas stocking because I told her I’d show her one. Check and mate.)
The Hope Punk Rebellion – Cynicism is often confused with insight in our modern world. The “wise” among us see that everything is a scam, the system is always rigged, and whatever we hope for will probably turn out to be a twisted and disappointing version of what we actually want when we get there. Well… i cynicism is not wisdom. Being pessimistic doesn’t make you smarter than people who are optimistic. I’m tired of having these thoughts and keeping quiet when I hear about how everything is crappy and it will all be crappy going forward. It’s time for a rebellion! I want a punk rock, optimistic, hopefully revolt against the idea that everything is and will be awful. Who’s with me?!?!
Thanks so much to all of you who subscribed and read my writings last year. Thanks to those who wrote back to me when something I said really resonated with them, thanks to all who shared blogs with their friends and colleagues, and thanks to my neighbors who aren’t in vet medicine at all but still read what I write so we have something to talk about as I walk my dog past their houses.
In true Hope Punk style, I think 2024 is going to be a great year. I’m going to do everything in my power to make it so. I hope your year will be amazing.
Find your Moose!
– Andy
