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(6/19/07) There Is An Answer to Every Problem. Really!! by Paul Dobransky

Tue, 06/19/2007

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I could start out with "Welcome. Let me introduce myself to you...I'm a white-coat clad psychiatrist who can help you with your troubles..."

But that's against how I usually am with people. I consider most everyone a potential friend, and I'm a very normal (but some say rather attractive), approachable, everyday guy who loves to play practical jokes on my friends, socialize, and generally stir up debates.

Not the stereotypical "white-coat" academic. I get bored VERY easily, and stay as current on pop culture, music, film, fashion, and what's cool and hip as I do on what's the latest in the science literature. On the first day of medical school I looked around and wondered what in the world I was doing there. I mean, the rest of my life seemed so PLANNED OUT.

"They" had a great plan for me.

I was told that I "should learn to like golf."

I was told to borrow more money for school than the cost of mortgages on two large mansions (nestled on golf courses I would never get to play, because there would instead be endless lines of patients to see, all neatly arranged in a dayminder kept by someone other than me - an HMO manager, or some other sterile euphemism for "The Man.")

All that borrowing would be for the privilege of working about 100 hours a week - minimal socializing or dating, obviously - for seven days a week through most of my twenties.

Then it was in "the plan" for me to work about thirty-five more years doing the same thing every day - six, or often, seven days a week - just to be able to pay off those loans. Maybe you know what I am talking about. Maybe you know the nice folk at Sallie Mae too.

It was in "the plan" for me to get about two, maybe three weeks of vacation a year, but those needed to be spent on coursework that I would also need to pay for.

Then I was to retire if I didn't die first from sleep deprivation. Perhaps then I would finally get to play that exciting sport called golf, never having written the books that were burning to get out of me since I was a student dreaming of being an author.

I don't know how I decided to go to medical school. It just seemed like what I was "supposed to do" at the time. And I am glad I did - don't get me wrong - or I would not have had a glimpse this deep into the incredible world of how our minds operate. Psychology is a mental wonderland to explore, and unusual, surprising facts about how it really works can spread wildly among friends. Such dorky random facts such as research studies about "animal mating rituals" can transform into the most exclusive "in-crowd" secrets in our culture. Seriously. I've seen it at cocktail parties. Instead of talking about stocks, bonds, opera, ballet, and all manner of highbrow subjects, I have had an entire crowd dying to know how in the world I know of a study that claims:

* that women cheat on their partners at an alarmingly high rate we didn't ever suspect

* that there are only three consecutive days out of the month on which such cheating almost exclusively happens

* and that at rates as high as ten percent of world population, a child's biological father is unbeknownst to him, his mother, and her husband, NOT whom they thought he was. (The sexual infidelity led to a pregnancy with now way of identifying the real father...)

Medical training gave me the chance to see that there are so many secrets yet to be revealed about science, it's as if we're as much sleuths and historians as we are doctors.

And I never did learn to play golf. There was no time, and I suspect I would detest it anyway. Golf is not in MY plan, now, or ever.

Nor is further denying myself the freedom and time to meet as many incredible people to befriend as I possibly can.

Nor denying myself the freedom to spread as much love and advice as I can dish out.

Nor denying myself the freedom to write that slew of books about it all that have been begging me to let them out for over a decade - the ones that are still as eager inside me as electricity in the clouds of a Colorado storm at night - waiting to burst out in lightning flashes on the plains.

Yes, I'm a psychiatrist with a few years of professional life, and many, many thousands of people feeling better for the advice I give. There's nothing I love better now than helping men understand women at a deep level and helping women understand the mysterious minds of men. I love it.

Now in my thirties - and after a lot of paying my dues, soul-searching and finding my perfect niche in a life-not-so-rigidly-planned - it's nice to finally feel I can be more my real self.

To actually have the time to just ponder on what I could develop to further help people's romance problems, without having to rush to the next appointment for an HMO that doesn't really care to know about such things.

To not have to meet some meaningless deadline, fill out paperwork, or sign prescriptions with so cramped a hand. It is so nice to relax, slow the pace for once.

To hang out with people (YOU) who above all else, have interesting stories to tell and no other agenda but that. Now that's a meaningful job.

(Thank you Michael Moore, for your latest documentary coming out - you know, about "the plan" that others have had for my patients and I for so long now... today's state of medical care.)

Lets use our time here to make it all about YOU and your musings on men and women. You've been ignored long enough. There can be difficulty in getting access to accurate advice based on real science these days. Plenty of self-proclaimed experts out there, but it can be a long wait to find an appointment with a real psychiatrist these days.

Let 'er rip... I can't wait to hear your stories about love, dating, and marriage, whether you are a man or a woman. I'm all ears. That's not to say you'd find my personal life uninteresting, though - it has been a very unusual and adventurous ride so far.

So let's chat like two friends rather than having me just be a doctor...

I'm a distant-past (former, okay?):

* social dork

*academic geek

*shy, sort-of-fat kid

*detestably poor teen, abandoned (along with my siblings) by my Dad

* a dreamer, who had a persistent desire to write books some day

*a guy who also thought he might someday go to medical school, and when finally done with the training, make the time to go find Dad, wherever he might be hiding, to "patch things up" and have a "normal" life again.

I was later:

*informed that my runaway Dad had died of a heart attack. Too late to use that medical knowledge, and too late to find peace and normalcy with him

*a sometimes-homeless (for real, and often-hungry) young adult

*a fiancee cheated on by a woman who didn't see "my potential," with an NFL star she encountered (yuck...I was in my early twenties, "young, and dumb")

So tonight, it really is a strange thing to look back on what I later did, or now find myself being:

*total acceptance of my Dad's life, and finding my own, independent, adult path

* Around-the-world adventure traveler, meeting people of all walks of life who forever changed me and opened my mind to the complexity of both our pains and joys as humans

* That guy on a one-episode (luckily only one) stint as a would-be star on ABC's The Bachelor

...and roles as:

* a former (and brief) residency as a surgeon

* a sometimes actor

* a theoretical psychiatrist ("unification theorist")

* a karaoke-singing wild-man

* business-owner with a 150% per year growth

* a media expert commentator, and interviewer of porn stars, priests and every variety of people between

* Hollywood party-crasher

* social networker

* volunteer advisor and friend to all

...and now...this...well, book I've done. Yay! My first book, a source of pride and a goal I've had for over fifteen years. I've had some pretty critical information for you for a long, long time - about love, personal growth, and amazing facts of psychology that you may find more than surprising. They will be utterly life-altering. Promise.

Still, after over a decade developing this for you, I thought I was going to get to finally finish the thing and go back to "normal" life.

Not by a long shot. Apparently the work of helping you is just beginning! There is so much to do around the book even now that it's out, and so many NEW channels for bettering your life with its ideas. They keep popping up every day. I can talk to you on the radio, the internet, television...

If you're like me, you've been met with pain, struggle, friends, and victories in the drama called your life too. So I trust you will know where I'm coming from when I tell you "all about me" during this brief week. Because it will be about you just as much if I do. You've been there too in life and love, so maybe we can see them in a new light together.

In all the things I've said and done, I've been forced to come to one, happy realization: there really is a solution to every problem - and new love, new friends, and a "new you" on the other side of them.

I hope you will send me a bazillion questions here about what has worked for you in life and love, as well as what leaves you somewhat, or even totally confused. It doesn't matter. Whatever it is, I promise, there is an easy answer if we break things down into easy parts. We're going to quickly solve them and have a blast doing it.

So if you're a man, feel free to write me at paul@doctorpaul.net . If you're a woman, write me at drpaul@womenshappiness.com . And if you're willing to share with the rest of us, also feel free to send me questions in the comments section down below. Or just chime in there with your two cents.

We can explore anything and everything you like that has you confused, miffed, touched, or just plain curious about the behavior of men, women, and people like you and me. We have a week. That's plenty of time to solve anything you can dish out, right?

Believe it or not, I really, truly think it is. You'll see. I've taken the whole week off from work and any other duties - just to be available to you.

While I wait for you to write, I hope you don't mind if I do some stuff that young-guy-psychiatrists like me do:

*burn a pizza in the oven while writing to you,

*while listening to a CD of the new Rihanna hit song, "Umbrella,"

*while alternating the TV channels between Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central and Bill O'Reilly on Fox...oh yeah, and five stored episodes of Oprah on the Tivo,

*while opening my new toy, a Canon TX-1 hi-def cam-corder for making short films and educational videos,

*while texting my wonderful girlfriend so that she has a sweet message from me in the morning (to lower the annoyance of going to work while I do not, and just to give her a surprise that shows I care...)

*...while getting ready to hit the sack and dream of all the cool, fun, serious, sad, wild, genius questions you will no doubt send me to wake up to!

I am a psychiatrist-but-ordinary-guy at your service...

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