tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36924127.post8414626872221728537..comments2023-03-18T03:12:29.516-07:00Comments on a little piece of me: January Updatebekahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17015558779514047654noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36924127.post-51897885752237033472007-03-02T20:11:00.000-08:002007-03-02T20:11:00.000-08:00Ms. Walker, I was thinking of you today and wonder...Ms. Walker, I was thinking of you today and wondering how you have been since the last time we spoke.<BR/>It appears that you have been up to a great deal.<BR/><BR/>Fun travels and the exploits of your newest position aside (though I hope that you continue to enjoy it immensely), you appear to be deeply conflicted over what path to pursue, or at least were conflicted a month-and-a-half ago. Maybe I'm commenting myself into irrelevance and you have since obtained answers for many of your large questions, but it was a fresh read to me, so I'll comment as if you wrote it yesterday.<BR/><BR/>Firstly, for as much grief as the MCAT gave you, I grieve with you. The Physics GRE was one of the reasons I defected from physics (it helped, of course, that I acknowledged my extreme lack of interest in current physics research, but shhh *hushes side points*). I maintain that standardized tests are a huge conspiracy against society.<BR/>(Their origin was in the eugenics movement of the late 1800's/early 1900's, quite sinister. By the time the "experts" got around to publicly acknowledging that the exams were hardly what they had successfully gotten the public to embrace them as, their apologies and admissions of wrong were drowned out and the public could no longer hear them; it was too late and the machinery could not be stopped -- true story that continues to this day, though many improvements have been made.)<BR/><BR/>But getting back to your uncertainty: if your idea about medical school is something that ceaselessly burns deep inside you, and you are able to take hold without being scorched, hold it fast, hold it high, and commit to unleashing yourself to get it done. You know that is the only way true obstacles have ever really been done away with. Don't be content to suffer the slow smoldering of what could have been -- especially if it's going to take your whole life to completely burn out, leaving you increasingly agonized as you are less and less able to pursue it, as you necessarily will be as time goes on.<BR/>You know that issues of finance are only relevant up to "How can I?" and not "I cannot." You surely already know the toll that med school will take on you, and have some inkling of whether or not you can make it through mostly unbroken by the system. And having been trapped in your head all this time, you must be nearly completely converged upon either "I will do this" or "I will not do this," and have along with that a full realization of the magnitude(s) of the requisite sacrifice(s) that will need to be made accordingly.<BR/>My two cents: either uncage it and let it go, or pack up and go with it, but don't keep holding it.<BR/><I>Drop the gavel, make the choice, and be bound; everything will align with the choice once you have made it.</I><BR/>There are different schools of thought on this, of course. Some people think a person should have pre-confirmation for pretty much everything and always be hand-wringing over everything. Others think a person -- while seeking guidance, of course -- should plot a course and that henceforth, that course serves as the backdrop and stage against which the finely orchestrated, ordained details of life take place. Shooing away the wide spectrum in between, you can probably guess I advocate the latter. Still quiet voices will give you the general directions, guidance, hopefully confirmations, and demand respect and attention, but they will not on the one hand fill out forms for you or on the other decide definitively to not do something for you. "Neither leave you, nor forsake you" means exactly that, no matter what you do, or where you go.<BR/><BR/>And lastly on failure: It is in the forge of pain, adversity, apparent failure, and the heights of despair that we are truly formed, not in the languid shadow of a prosaically situated tree next to the gurgling brook, where to linger too long is to go the way of rust and the sluggard.<BR/><BR/>I hope you are having a lovely weekend.<BR/>--PerusalPerusalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00571658368880854731noreply@blogger.com