Having an unexpected amount of free time on his hands, John had been doing a great deal of reading. Wanting to expose himself to some new ways of thinking, John had begun reading the work of a relatively obscure Polish Psychiatrist named Kazimierz Dąbrowski. Dabrowski’s primary theory suggested that as people progressed through life, portions of their personality “disintegrated” as they began to integrate new ways of coping and more creative ways of solving problems. He suggested that it is often a crisis that spurred on this positive disintegration, and John thought a lot about this in terms of his own situation. He was in crisis, that was true, but he also felt a part of him slipping away.

In particular John knew that throughout his whole life, he responded to people with charm when confronted with any kind of difficult assignment. Now John faced perhaps his most difficult by facing up to his own avoidant behavior. He was actually quite excited about the possibility of change, and continued with his reading making notes and writing down a number of short term goals.

John was also very interested in a model called the “Stages of change,” which suggested that all human’s that experience change go through a number of different steps, beginning with precontemplation, then contemplation, and finally ending with some kind of action. It occurred to John that he had walked dozens of his patients though these stages, but that he had never taken the time to see how this worked in his own life. It was a shame it had taken a near-fatal car accident to make him see this, as he had only a vague notion that something in his life needed to change for decades now. Even still, he reminded himself that there was no sense beating himself up now, and wherever you go, there you are. He was still excited.

John’s enthusiasm waned a little following a session with his physical therapist, who put John through a workout that nearly brought him to tears. He was out of shape, and one of his immediate goals was to begin to put his body back together through regular exercise. He also wanted to cut back on his drinking, which was one of his most useful tools in avoiding dealing with big portions of his life. He always rationalized that it helped fuel his writing, which was at least partially true. He was going to have to learn to do a lot of things over again.

Later that day John did a phone session with one of his older patients, who asked him repeatedly if he was going to die. Yes, he told her, indeed he was, but how he spent his time until then was what really counted. She was not amused, and was asking the question with all sincerity. Still, it did in fact dawn on him at that moment, perhaps for the first time ever. He was going to die, almost did die. If they were going to write his obituary today, he was quite sure the story would be incomplete. He still had a lot to do.

John called a couple more of his patients over the day, and was continually surprised by how worried everyone seemed to be about him. He knew he gave a lot to his patients and had touched a lot of their lives, but as he was making these calls something dawned on him for perhaps the first time. All of the energy he had given to his patients, and essentially to everyone he came into contact with, basically flowed in one direction. No wonder people were often so confused around him. He gave freely of his love and compassion to others.

But he never let them love him back.