Therapists get paid because they've made what they love their life's work. We don't merely "listen to people's problems;" we help them come to know themselves and their desires, evaluate what it is in life/themselves that blocks them from getting what they want and need, and provide a safe place in which to make genuine contact with another human being, something that, for many people, doesn't occur anywhere else in their lives, and certainly not often enough...No matter how much we may convince ourselves that we're horrified by the very thought of such a thing. And no matter how supportive we are, people generally don't like the observations we make about them. And that's only part of it.
I love my work, though practicing psychotherapy is only a small part of it, and I think about my patients a good deal of my time away from them. There are so many daily occurrences and interactions that remind me of them, including my own inner life, that I'd be hard pressed not to think about them, even if I were merely indifferent towards their struggles.
If denial is a cardinal element of what we refer to as "alcoholism," then it's at least as much of a blessing and a curse in virtually every other issue that we as human beings deal with in life. None of us wants to "have problems," but only a sober and authentic self is able to do anything to improve his or her lot. Living an inauthentic life (or Socrates' "unexamined life") is indeed not worth living. That's my bias, and I'm sticking to it. We have as many ways to bury ourselves alive as we do to lie to and generally deceive ourselves, with or without booze, about anything and everything that pains us.
In my professional life, one of the most challenging of patients -- and often the most heartbreaking to work with -- is the man or woman who comes in later in life, realizing that they spent the previous fifty or sixty years living someone else's life. What, exactly, does 'hope' look like for someone like that? And what, if anything, does it even mean?
Life awaits, but not forever.