Now and Then

This is definitely one of the worst weeks of my entire life. The weeks leading up to it were bad enough. That sense of uncertainty kept me anxious, i thought i would go crazy. But i thought everything would turn out right in the end. All the stress that I was feeling back then would disappear in an instant because the pay off would be big. But as always, luck wasn't on my side. I guess it never was. I got no huge payoff. All i got was a huge disappointment. And that feeling that once again, I am a failure. I didn't just fail myself. I also failed all those people who believed in me.

It was probably doomed from the start. On hindsight, I guess it was. Overall my whole application was weak. I was lacking in many areas, yet i thought I would still pull through in the end. After all, I know several people who had worse credentials and they made it. Surely I will. But I never considered the fact that they had connections to important people. I never considered the fact that applying right after graduation made such a huge difference. And I never considered the fact that some people always seemed to have luck on their side. Pure dumb luck.

The reality has not set in yet. I thought I'd be in such a mess, but as of now, I'm not. I don't feel a thing. I don't feel anything. Maybe tomorrow when several people are already in a festive mood, i'd finally feel all the pain. I'd finally feel guilty that I've wasted my grandmother's money. I'd feel guilty that I won't be able to fill in my grandma's role of paying for the education of my cousins. I'd feel miserable because I'd be stuck in such a shitty, fucked up, god forsaken country. i would hate myself so much, because after all that time and money spent, i still have nothing.

I have to renew my driver's license tomorrow. Trouble was, I couldn't find a certain form that i needed. Good. Now I had something to do to keep my mind off things. My file cabinet was a mess. It's full of papers gathered for so many years, mostly unsorted. I didn't know where to start. As i scanned through all that junk, i figured I might as well throw a lot of those in the garbage. I even had reviewers back from high school and college for crying out loud. Brochures from different universities. God, I had junk from eons ago.

Then i saw my report cards from high school. Straight A's all through out. Not a grade below 90. Jesus, I was such a nerd back then. Funny thing was, i didn't really do a great deal of studying. I still had time for a lot of stuff. Sure there were times when things were difficult, but those times were rare. Most of the time, i breezed through school effortlessly. With those high grades, I could pretty much go to any university that I wanted. Then i saw the letters from two universities who kept asking me if i would still consider enrolling even after I have already enrolled at the university where i wanted to go. Man it felt good to be wanted that way. it made me feel so important. It made me feel as if i had achieved something great.

But then came college. I had a little too much fun after freshmen year. I discovered a lot of things. I began to discover that life wasn't all about school, it wasn't all about studies. What can I say? I stopped being a nerd when being a nerd actually started to matter, when being one could have made a huge difference in my life as a whole. College was great. it was probably the best four years of my life. But a person can't have everything. After freshmen year my grades were no longer extraordinary. They were bordering on average. I almost flunked one subject for Christ's sake, and that feeling was so unfamiliar to me. looking back, that was really stupid. The subject matter wasn't very complicated at all. I just didn't bother studying. As a result, i didn't get into my med school of choice. But things turned out right anyway. If i went to that med school, i wouldn't have much of a social life. And I wouldn't possess as much skills as I have now because their curriculum was extremely lacking in many important areas. All I would get would be bragging rights and nothing else. But I didn't study as much in med school either. There were several high points, but mostly I remained an average student.

Somehow, i just couldn't study the way I did before. I guess I could if i really wanted to... and there lies the problem. I just can't commit all of my time to studying knowing that there are a lot of things that i can do. While studying for the local board exams I went out a lot. while studying for the MLEs I just couldn't give up my work because my pride just wouldn't let me depend financially on my grandma and my parents again. It's bad enough that she had to pay for all those expensive exams. I couldn't depend on her for my everyday expenses again. I guess it's a mixture of wrong decisions, wrong timing, and just plain bad luck. So here I am now.

I wonder where i would be now if i took some other course in college. I didn't know what I really wanted to be back then, but if I went to the other universities I'd probably be doing something generic by now. Generic, but financially stable. Laymen look up to doctors, some even see them as Gods. But if they only knew the ins and outs of the profession, being a physician is just like any other profession. We just play a different role in society. We do our duties like everyone else. It's just not as financially rewarding. The road we travel is long and uncertain. And if you're not lucky enough, it may never even be rewarding at all.

The past decade of my life has been made up of one wrong decision after another. If only i could go back to the previous decade when everything seemed all right, I would. I would try to do it all over again. Start from when i did that first huge mistake and redo everything. But doing something like that would be impossible. Probably as impossible as the dreams and ambitions that I have right now.

So what the hell do I do now? As I see it, there are three options. If i choose the first two options, I'd have to wait a few months. As for the result of those two options, they are both clouded in uncertainty. The third one however, is immediate, certain, and permanent. If you just based your decision on those descriptions without really knowing what they are, which one would you choose? I'm willing to bet most people would choose the third. And that's the option that seems very attractive to me right now. i've grown weary of all these uncertainties. I've become afraid of making another huge risk and making another huge mistake. When it comes to a solution, most people would be looking for a permanent one. And that's exactly the kind of solution that i have in my hands right now. I've already got everything that I need right here. With the present mood that I'm in, it's no longer a question of if. It's just a question of when.