Or, as the Buddha famously put it: Life means that suffering exists.
An important question is what do you do about that suffering? We all are confronted with that question, because no one escapes suffering as a part of life.
You can't change that fact, but you can choose what you do in response to that fact.
Some ways of reacting to suffering in life are constructive--others, not so much. You can choose to blame others, or to "kill the messenger". Lots of people make that very choice.
But if you choose that path, and you find it is not making you any happier, at least there are other alternatives you can change to.
Kat Mayerovitch has a blog post up about relations with biomedical healthcare practitioners--mainly physicians--at Miracles, Medicine, and Manners.
Take a moment to go read the whole post--it's definitely worth it.
One of the best things about it is that she doesn't just recommend what not to do; she also suggests ways to proceed more constructively--to build bridges, not to burn them.
She provides practical suggestions for starting to work together with physicians in a client-centered way. She also provides a well-deserved shout-out to Laura Allen and the Massage Therapy Foundation for creating Working with Physicians: a Massage Therapist's Guide, and making it available on an open-access basis as an e-Book for free download.
You don't have to approve of every single thing about the modern American healthcare system to find and work with sympathetic allies in it toward goals that you share.
It won't change the basic nature of modern reality, but finding and working with supportive allies and companions along the way can definitely make a big dent in the suffering.
Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/FlameDance.jpg accessed 28 August 2012
cheers, to Kat, Laura, and the Massage Therapy Foundation!
