Back in 1999, I attended a lecture given by Hunter “Patch” Adams, whose life is the inspiration for the movie “Patch Adams” starring Robin Williams.
I found Patch’s message struck a resounding chord and adequately named what it is that is hurting our relationships, our communities, and our world.
I recently rediscovered the notes I took that evening and couldn’t resist sharing them here.
Take the ones that make you jump and share them, post them, and remember them.
- “Serve Humanity”
- Patch inspires people to leave off being stuffy. Everyone was laughing, smiling, and having fun.
- Learn to love. Even if something annoys you like your wife using your razor to shave or your husband always handing you things (like old receipts) for you to decide what to do with them, learn to love that thing. It will quickly become not-so-annoying.
- Do not try to change society or your community all at once. Reach out and change individual people. Those individuals will come together as the community, not the community coming together as individuals.
- When you are finally committed to something with all of your heart, all of a sudden the universe will come together to help you. Commitment leads to boldness, genius, and magic.
- Care for each other out of pleasure, not responsibility.
- Don’t live in fear, and don’t prepare yourself for the worst. You must have trust. In Patch’s case, he refused to have malpractice insurance because having it made the statement that he feared his patients, that he feared his patients would not have confidence in him. Trust can not be built on fear.
- Explore human relationships, and develop them beyond name, age, how many children, where you were born, and where you went to school. Dig deep and find the spirit of each person.
- “Health is not the absence of disease. Health is feeling good on your worst day.”
- If you have a passion, enjoy the thrill of the pursuit. Burnout, feeling overwhelmed, thinking the task arduous will not exist when you appreciate the pursuit of a dream.
- It is easy to begin. It is harder to keep going. Four Ways to Persist: Find people who have similar goals, and welcome them into your life. Don’t do it alone; Heroes – find a role model and imagine you are taking over where they left off; Vividly imagine what your life would be like if you gave up your passion – chances are the depressing image will stir you into action; Find an irritant, provocation that keeps you going (i.e. everyone says you can’t, so you will show them exactly how you can.)
- Be free, laugh, have fun
- When you fly alone, it’s a drag. Let people be a part of your life.
- Be willing to receive and give help. Don’t accept the American ideal of “individualism.” Being an individual makes you unique, it doesn’t make you able to do it all on your own.
- Be willing to give up the lead and let others in the pack take over while you re-energize.
- It pays to take turns, and share leadership.
- “Life isn’t a struggle, but a privilege.”
- “Live as close to yourself as you can.” Society encourages us to bury our true selves so as to fit in. Never mind that silly idea. Know yourself and be yourself.
- Be creative in everything, never sacrifice creativity.
- Passion is not a final product, it is a process.
- Let yourself take a break when you need one.
- Define success as something achievable every day in the day-to-day goings on. If you try, if you give your time, and if you never give up, you are a success.
- Delight in compromise. Decide what is essential and be resolute to never compromise those things then let everything else be negotiable.
- Be conscious of the power of passion. Be sure you are a decent person before you experience this power or you will use the power wrong.
- Don’t get caught up in the details of life so much that you don’t live.
To finding inspiration and good reminders,
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