Firstly, I would like to welcome you, whoever you may be, to my blog. I decided to start doing this, because there are so many things that happen in our lives which I feel deserve to be remembered, yet so very often fade with time until they are forgotten. It is my intention that this will serve as a reminder for myself, about those things that I deem important. As well as to provide readers with an insightful look into who I am and how I view the world, with the hope that some form of value or inspiration can be derived therein, or at the very least that it can provide a brief source of entertainment.
Why did I decide to specifically start now though? It is because I have come to a crossroads in my life, where I feel that all that has come before this moment has made it possible for me to be successful on the path that lies before me. I have finally been accepted into medschool, after much persistance and stubborness on my part (we will save that for another post), which has allowed me to finally begin to be the person I believe I am meant to be - or for those who don't believe in destiny - to be the person I desire to be.
It is a strange thing to grow up. We begin as a newborn, with no concept of who or what we are, what we are capable of, or what is or will be expected of us. We then move into childhood, where we seem to be able to believe we are anything we wish to be, and it can change almost minute to minute, and in that ability there is an amazing sense of innocence and freedom that can only be seen looking back, but can never be regained. As we move into adolescence, we find ourselves searching for that sense of self that we seemed so sure of before, or perhaps didn't truly care about previously. We seem to lose all sense of who we are, and in that state we begin to try to figure out what we are capable of, what the world expects of us, and in some ways more importantly, what we expect from ourselves. All too often though it seems like far too much to take on. Like the world is this immense place, and we feel lost as we scramble to find our place in it. Even as we get older, I believe that from time to time we revisit the place where we feel lost, or that we don't really fit in, or are unable to live up to others expectations. Yet from that state of uncertainty, we move on to being young adults, to being people who have to decide what they want to do with their lives, and what they want to get out of their lives, without really having the wisdom or experience to decide either one with any real clarity. Yet we still make the decision to start a career, or go to college, or university, or to do none of these, either perhaps because we are still searching for our place in the world, or perhaps because we feel there is no value in these things for us. Now depending on the road we have taken, we are likely in our twenties now, with almost a third of our lives behind us, and now we are able to truly begin our lives. Now when I say this, I don't mean to imply that we have not been living up until this point, but in North America, as well as a large percentage of the rest of the world, it takes about this long (at least for most of us) to begin to be able to live the life that we chose for ourselves back when we couldn't really, and perhaps shouldn't have had to make that choice. Of course we hope we made the right choice, and that the path we put ourselves on is the one we were meant to be on, or truly want to be on, and one that will make us happy.
So this is where I am now. It took me a bit longer than most I think. Longer than many of my friends definitely, since for me my actual career is still likely about a decade away, but the path itself starts right now. As I look down, I can see the freshly paved road ahead, and the well traveled one behind. I know that as I take these steps forward, my life will never be the same. It will require leaving everything I know and love behind, at least for a time, and dedicating myself to the study of medicine, at the cost of any other desires I may have (for the most part), so that one day I can dedicate myself to improving the health of others. So that one day, I can live the vocation I feel I was meant to live.
So this is my long winded explanation for this blog. Because if everything in my life is to change, I want something to stand testament to those things that happened previously which got me here, and something to serve as a record of those things that are coming. I am sure I will need the distraction of writing, or a forum on which to vent to help keep me sane in the years to come. So on those occasions when I find myself looking back at a key moment in my past, or living through something particularly interesting or frustrating in the present, perhaps I will come here, to the waiting room, and sit and talk with you.
