Thursday, October 6, 2011

First medical school class is OVER

My first medical school class is OVER.

We covered four credits of six hundred level biomedical material in SIX weeks, not to mention all our other classes.... 23 credits in all.

These first few weeks have been tough but doable. I feel like I am learning more about myself than I am about medical science. Which has really caused me to look deep inside myself and ponder.

I felt this pondering nature reflected through the death of Steve Jobs. I heard a recording of the speech he gave at Stanford's graduation commencement ceremony in 2005. In the story he reflected upon his life, dropping out of college, the way that the events of his life had come together, and how he had remained driven despite several dramatically hard events in his life.

The course of his life looked strikingly like mine; dropped out of college at 20, pursued his dream job, was fired at the age of 30, and had to restart his life. In fact, that is the exact course that my life has taken. Steve said these rough times forced him to make the hard decisions in life and he couldn't have been more grateful.

You see I, like Steve-o, choose to pursue my dreams each time I had to restart. When I decided on medicine I did so because it was the only thing I could see myself being happy doing. Sure, it was a gamble. Sure, I was VERY likely to fall on my face. Sure, few people thought that the big stupid ogre could actually do. But, I still went for it boldly, fearlessly, and passionately.

Steve said he measured his life by looking in the mirror each morning and asking himself, "If I knew I was going to die today, would I do anything differently than what I am going to do right now?" He said if the answer was no too many days in a row then he knew it was time to make a change.

I articulate this same sentiment by saying, "If I don't love it, I refuse to do it."

Sure, this is a hard line to tow but it has taken me into two dream careers, across the rockies on a bike, and into the best medical school in the country.

With that being said, I have decided to post one thing that I am doing that I love every day for one year. These posts might not be long but they will be heartfelt and I hope they will encourage others to get out there, roll the dice, and head boldly in the direction they want to go.


DAY #1- Sneaking home to cuddle with my wife at lunch.

1 comment:

  1. I absolutely love your writing. Can't wait for your first book. That's what you should do next, write a book!
    And I hope that was a great lunchtime cuddle! I love y'all!!!

    ReplyDelete