June 16, 2026

The expectation that we can be immersed in suffering and loss daily and not be touched by it is as unrealistic as expecting to be able to walk through water without getting wet.

Remen wrote this as a physician reflecting on decades of sitting with patients who were dying, and on the medical culture that trained doctors to stay detached as a mark of professionalism. She had watched colleagues burn out not because they felt too much, but because they had no honest way to name what they were carrying. The quote is an act of discernment in itself — it separates the myth of invulnerability from the reality of being human in hard work. It asks us to stop pretending that exposure leaves us unchanged, which is the first honest step toward knowing what we actually need.