One year ago, I started my dream job in medicine; a fruition that transformed from godsend to breaking point to deliverance within weeks, and set me on the path to wholeness.
With six months of residency left, I searched for the right job and the right titration of medicine in my life. I wanted something part-time, in an outpatient clinic, and remote. If I negotiated what I believed possible, I’d pay down loans, own free time to surf, and simultaneously create my escape, at last, from medicine. When the time was right.
I graduated residency with the dream in my hands; twenty hours a week (with Monday and Friday off), pay double my resident salary, and four weeks of vacation. At minimum, the schedule was better than residency by miles, and I’d done that for four years with little autonomy. Now I had the gig of my choosing. I can do this gig in my sleep, I figured. In telling friends, parents, and colleagues about the plan, I repeated, “It’s the best of both worlds”. I had the security of medicine’s salary and the time to figure my way out of medicine.
One year later, I report the following:
The best of both worlds is no world for me.
Here’s what went down:
I made it two months in the dream job. Two weeks, of those two months, were training. My schedule was half-empty as I built my practice. Being remote, no-shows were frequent. Hence, before quitting, I worked six weeks in the chillest gig of all time. I made absolutely no progress toward figuring out my escape from medicine. None. And I barely surfed.
Why? I was consumed outside the job with recovering from my time at the job. I was miserable during those twenty hours, and I could not partition its impact from the rest of my life; the job ate away like termites behind a wall. On paper, my work-life balance was ideal, but on the soul’s ledger, I drove deeper into the red.
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Since, I’ve often wondered how my dream imploded. What happened, best I can guess, is that for years I figured my relationship with medicine would improve after residency. Once done, I’d make medicine work, part-time. I relied on my hopeful vision during darker, taxing stretches, reminding myself of the dream that awaited, if I could only get through one more day. It’s gonna get better, one more day, I’d say.
What’s funny, now, is how my plan required I continue doing the thing I barely survived for eight years. Somewhere inside, I knew it was doomed to fail. From the jump, medicine had never owned a safe role in my life.
Still, I was absolutely demoralized by the dream’s dissolution, hitting rock-bottom in the “best of both worlds”.
Rock-bottom’s praises need be sung. With unwavering conviction, I know that’s where I had to end up, staring at my futility, and admitting, chiefly, that I cannot do this (medicine) anymore. That could only happen after achieving the dream job scenario.
To fail in the “best of both worlds” was a valuable step in my figuring-out-who-I-am saga. When we trespass on intuition (mine told me for years that medicine wasn’t home), we learn the cost of compromise. We understand our limitations; in the long-term, we cannot do things that are bad for us and be okay. No matter the part-time designation (how well does one nightly drink go for the alcoholic?)
Think about your favorite movie. There’s likely a scene where the protagonist attempts a “best of both worlds” straddle. My favorite movie is Rounders, which owns such a plot. Mike, played by Matt Damon, decides he’ll forego a career in poker and pursue a law degree. To his girlfriend’s liking, he makes a promise to never play poker again; poker’s just too big a risk. The only problem is… Mike’s a poker player. When his best friend Worm is released from prison, Worm asks Mike for help paying back old debts. Mike figures he’ll join a few local games, skim some cash to help Worm, and return to law school. Two weeks later, Mike’s life is dumpster fire. Girlfriend? Gone. Savings? Gone. Law school? Gone.
Mike pays the protagonist’s price to understand who he is and what he wants. At rock-bottom, it’s finally clear. Mike ultimately admits he’s a poker player, commits, and takes back his destiny (while taking down the house).
We all face a similar rite of passage. On the other side of my most recent passage (I expect more), my life is simpler and yet harder. I know who I am, thus I cannot run without full awareness of the consequence. From hence I came, I’ll take that existence every day because the “best of both worlds” never existed. The idea doesn’t hold up.
And when we give it up, we get to be who we are.
(Photo Caption: In Cleveland two weeks ago, where I viewed the city from across Lake Erie. In the “best of both worlds”, I was always a body away from myself, only catching glimpses.)
Dude, I am so proud I know you.
Same here Grant, appreciate that