All the good that is around me.

I can't say that I haven't been tempted to explore again. 

All my life, I've been taught to keep options open. For somebody who has learned a consistent ability to get those options in life, I've fallen very short of learning how to pick them once they are there before me. 

Don't ask for too many options if you don't know what to do with them. They will just torment you to death. 

For the past few months, most of my friends from Internal Medicine had been gearing up for their fellowship applications' final stretches. It's nice to see so many of my friends fighting for something they want so dearly. But seeing such ambition around me always rattle my faith and makes me question time and time again if I did the right thing pulling myself out of their program and into Family Medicine. There are never any perfect answers to that question. I know I'm overall happier and probably did the right thing. But I'll always feel like I took a step back, as much as that being a gravely unfair statement to the field. 

But it's when I look deeper do I realize that I've spent much of my training on a misguided mission within medicine. It's a hard thing to shake. I'm naturally pragmatic and selfish. I genuinely got into medicine because I want to learn the ability to help. I still genuinely want to help anyone who seems to need helping when they are in front of me. But along the way I've also bitten the bitter fruit of envy and greed. Medicine indeed holds the key to so much more that can feed my selfish nature. And I find myself yielding to those temptations very often. 

Which is why it is all the more refreshing and inspiring when I meet people who genuinely are so selfless, who genuinely want to do so much good to this world, who genuinely want so very little in return. 

All the good that is around me. I thank you for reminding me to be decent. 

Thank you to you who raced out and held the door for the old lady before I did. 

Thank you to you who would go abroad not to enhance your resume but to do sustained good. 

Thank you to you who chose your field because you truly believe you could help others better there and not because of what it can bring you. 

Thank you to you who went and volunteered to hand soup out even if it's late and you're tired.

 

Thank you to you who recycle. 

Thank you to you who turns off the light not to save money but because it's good for the environment. 

Thank you to you who picked up the garbage on the hiking trail even if it's not yours. 

Thank you to you who stopped in front of the girl who fell and asked before I did if she was alright. 

Thank you to you who struggled to save a small marine life when there is no ocean around. 

Thank you to you who would release a spider and not flush it down the toilet. 

Thank you to you who constantly reminds me to hold myself to decency in life and in my work.

The more I struggle with my inner demons, the more empty I feel inside. I see good people around me and I tilt my head down. I'm scared to look anyone in the eye for fear that they will see the shallow me. I'm afraid to speak my mind, for fear of sounding superficial. I fear looking in the mirror sometimes, for I'm afraid I'm no longer proud of what I would see. 

I've got to get back to doctoring. I've got to remember that a doctor is a doctor is a doctor. Never mind the type, never mind the rank, never mind the reputation.  It is the nature of our work that defines who we are, and we have the remarkable privilege to be helping people with what we do and get paid for it. It is truly an honorable profession. And I have better start practicing like it.