Are you stressed out and juggling too many balls in the air? Are you looking for a sense of calm? Do you feel like you need to tap into deep sources of energy, motivation, and talent?

Have no Fear, Clever Doc is here with some questions for you about the way that you are living your life. And maybe some suggestions about how to slow down and smell the roses.

Clever Doc is a good friend of OTBKB. Her real name is Linda Hawes Clever, MD, MACP. An internist, she is the founder of an organization called Renew. She is also an occupational health specialist with a national reputation for activism and for professional and community service.

Galvanized by the growing exhaustion she observed among fellow health professionals and inspired by the work of John W. Gardner, founder of Common Cause and former Secretary of Health, Education & Welfare, Dr. Clever and colleagues formally launched RENEW in 2000.

Clever Doc wants to know: Is your daily whirl really just a whirrr of "doing something"? What about being effective? What about having some meaning and purpose? What about joy?

And what about when life delivers a knockout punch?

    I had a busy, busy, busy but manageable life awhile back, Then my parents died, our home was burglarized, cutbacks evaporated two jobs that I loved, and my husband needed life saving surgery. All in 18 months.   

    Eventually, I surfaced, looked around, and saw that I wasn’t the only one wondering how to do it all or, if not “all”, how to decide what to do and how to do it well.

    Many of us, whether 20- somethings or 40, 60, 80-somethings, wonder how to make it over the long haul. We have plenty to accomplish; plenty of reason to be creative, enthusiastic, focused; plenty of need to be resilient.  But how?

    Over years of learning and listening to groups that engage in “renewing,” I’ve found that a four-step process can get things rolling again.

    Step one starts today: Wake up and smell the coffee (at Connecticutt Muffin, Gorilla, or wherever else you go). Begin to notice how the people you care about are doing and feeling.

    Then ask yourself the first of ten questions. A new one will be rolled out every few days. Let them be an alarm clock.

    Keep track of your answers and your score. Leave comments here.

    THE FIRST QUESTION IS THIS:
    1.    How many times did you really laugh yesterday?
    0 (0 points)
    1 – 2 (1 point)
    3 – 4 (2 points)
    5 – 6 (3 points)                           
    6 + (4 points)