Watching sunlight spread slowly over my yard’s newly green grass, I accompanied the morning from my porch. It’s a simple, majestic experience, usually. Sometimes I’m lost in thought, worried about this or that, and I miss it; but today, I was there. I closed my eyes and sensed the sun’s warmth on my face, identifying birds by their songs. When I opened my eyes, I stepped into the day’s potential. Ideas flowed; so, I fetched my notepad, then sat watching and listening, scribing down the furniture and writing ideas that were worth exploring.
Nothing about this was novel. During medical school and residency, to the soundtrack of different birds, I had similar experiences: early morning, outside, in awe, thinking. I’d do the same ritual at the apartment where I lived in Orange County, on our park’s bench, under a weeping willow, filling up my notebook with ideas. Then, I’d race into my apartment, stash the ideas on my desk, and while driving to work, promise myself, “At lunch—or tonight when I get home—I’ll chase down those ideas.”
Most of those possible explorations withered away in my notebook, blocked from the sun by a life consumed by work that wasn’t who I was. For years, I failed to understand why my ideas couldn’t flourish, why the feeling I had in the morning wouldn’t translate into the evening.
The eighteen months since leaving medicine have been definitively harder than medical school and residency. There are no grades to cling to, no board exam preparation to lose myself inside, and no academic targets left to orient toward. There is only uncertainty. And the daily grind of figuring out who I am inside it.
Two illusions are dead to me: one, that an efficient or practical path to wholeness exists; two, that there’s a perfect job or calling out there waiting on me.
For the first six years of my medicine journey, I thought it was feasible to be who I was inside something I didn’t want to do. Medicine was the practical next step in my life. It was, and still is, an incredibly lucrative and efficient investment. How many $200,000 investments—the cost of my student loans—yield $400,000 per year for the duration of one’s working life? Not many. With this practicality before me, I thought surely, I can figure out how to be happy. But that’s not how the game works.
For the last two years of my medicine journey, I waited for the perfect job or calling to appear. I knew I didn’t want to practice medicine. And with that knowledge, I sat patiently for my opportunity. It was entitled and arrogant. Again, that’s not how the game works.
When I surrendered those illusions, finally, taking the tiniest of actions toward the inklings of my wants, my life got better. And much harder.
Today, in the blooming majesty of a new day, I felt what I always had: inspired, hopeful, and driven. But today was different than those mornings in medical school and residency. After my morning, I stood up, went back inside, sat down at my desk, opened my notebook of ideas, and set about to chase them down. And as I’ve chased, throughout a day full of its hardships, and will continue chasing into future days, I have felt and will continue to feel like myself.
A worthy prize for the cost of admission.
Every Friday morning, I send an email of support to anyone who wants to chase their ideas. If you’d like to join our community of people building a life they love, here’s a link.
