My dream job, even as a doe-eyed little toddler was to be a doctor. Something about the way my aunt (who was then studying to become a doctor) fascinated me, even when she didn't talk much about medicine to a 3 year-old me. She was the first person I adored and looked up to, the first person I wanted to be like when I grew up.
She was everything a young woman was meant to be - calm, gentle, respectful of everyone, and she had this spirit that I admired. She wasn't like everyone else. She was special - not because she was doing the near-impossible, becoming a doctor, but because of the person I saw - she was beautiful inside and out. Anyway, I grew up as a fan of biology - this time, it was not because of my aunt, who had gone away to have a successful career, but because I took a genuine liking to it.
I loved studying about plants and animals, microorganisms, and all the cool things that could be done with them - hence the choice I made, of doing Biotechnology. I always - ALWAYS enjoyed studying about the human body, though. It was my guilty pleasure. I did want to become a doctor, but I saw that it took much more out of a person than what it gave a person, which made me reconsider and take the more interesting option of Biotechnology.
People who wanted to become a doctor had to study like there was no tomorrow to get into Med School. Then, they had to pay fees like there was no tomorrow too. Then, they had to work again, like there is no tomorrow. Study, practice, work, give exams - all with good reason - they work with the lives of people. If they mess up, people could, most definitely end up dead. Then, they come out of Med School after many many years of living like hermits, and continue to live the extremely stressful, extremely one-minded life. My reason for not choosing that life was that I can't live like that - I can't completely concentrate all my time, energy and effort into only one thing - the uncertainty of it would kill me. It's like I have only one path - only one choice.
My defining feature is the fact that I do many things - it is just who I am. I LOVE change, and I love to keep changing what I do, or how I do it, and I love to keep changing the little things that can be changed. I write, I sing, even on stage, I listen to music, I study, I like to do my own laundry, I LOVE to keep my room clean and decorated, and that's just a few things that I like to do - I love to be spontaneous, to travel, to make friends, take pictures, edit them, and a lot of things along those lines. I love to be passionate about life and the various things that I can do - I like to discover new things to do as I go along. I also love to proverbially 'stop to smell the flowers' as opposed to just breezing by without even noticing them.
Besides all that, I'd like to have a life where I could disappear one day and expect to not be bothered for a little while, because I enjoy spending time with myself. I'm not a loner, but I enjoy my own company - I like to think about things - things that don't have to have any relevance to my own life. If I became a Doctor, that would be just out of the question.
I did enjoy my decision of choosing to do Biotech for my Under Grad. However, when I 'met' Stem Cells, it was love at first sight. I saw it on TV, as a doctor was explaining it on a programme as a new method of treatment. It sparked my interest, and the more I read about it, the more I got drawn into it. It made me realize that my thing with Biotech was just a fling, a sort of an attraction when compared to the sinful passion that kept me pursuing Stem Cells. I know I sound super-nerdy when I say that, and even though I am anything but super-nerdy, Stem Cells drew me to it, like a moth to a flame. It soon became an addiction. If I were a dog, the mere mention of 'Stem Cells' in the background would make my ears would do that thing where they'd get all pointy and turn all around, trying to locate the source of the sound.
Now. It isn't that I have no idea what it feels like to be like that - being 'all work and no play'. After my Under Graduation, I chose to do my Masters in Stem Cells - that was like the most natural decision...like, duh - right? It was in a field of research, in Biomedical Sciences, and more specifically, Regenerative Medicine. Here, I did get to study in detail about Stem Cells, the human body, and I used to be so charged, enthused and excited about every single day of lectures. However, what made things difficult there was how there were a set group of people I had to meet with. People get all narrow-minded, judgmental and cocky when thrown into smaller, isolated groups. Add that to competition where people would metaphorically rip each others' throats out to get ahead, or for the lecturers to throw them a bone(give them their approval) - now that in my opinion, is a disaster waiting to happen - it did happen, and I imploded in a way - that sort of brought me to reality. I fought tooth and nail too, because - hello, I was in love with the subject so I wasn't going to give up that easy. I took as much as I could until it seemed like a pointless thing to continue to fight. I had to forfeit, only with the condition that I would go back to it later, on my own terms. Life wasn't going to wait for me to keep trying like that - it was time to move on, but this was most definitely unfinished business where Stem Cells and I were concerned.
I did love the subject, and it was, an all-consuming love, but the competition and pressure was totally not me. To me love isn't about fighting like that - I didn't want to be incessantly anxious, upset and worried. The relationship can't be 'abusive' and successful at the same time. I wanted out, at a point - didn't like anyone I was with - I really wanted to start over, and fate sometimes has an odd way of giving you what you asked for. I wanted out of the place, not the subject, but I ended up losing both, in a weird twist of fate. I was relieved to be leaving the place, but completely and utterly shattered to be leaving my subject that all the trouble only made me to only love more. I wanted it more fiercely now. If Stem Cells was my boyfriend/spouse, then he was one that came with a horrible, twisted and very complicated family that never left.
I watched a few seasons of Grey's Anatomy recently, and watching the surgical interns vying for their supervisors' approval and the way they went hours without sleep, and just studied and worked and loved it reminded me of how I loved (still do, by the way!) being at lectures when I was studying Regenerative Medicine. I'm back doing a Masters in Biotech, but my one true love, will always be Stem Cells. I will find my way back to it one day - I know I will.
The thing about having a profession even remotely related to medicine is that you put the patient's life before your own. Besides, the amount of work you are expected to put in is overwhelming, and every other thing in life would take a back seat, and after being constantly put off, it would eventually get so conveniently forgotten until everything else disappears and ONLY your work remains. That would mean that I would have no time for friends, no time for myself, no time to be myself or a mother or a wife. Not the way I would like to be anyway - I love to do MY best in everything that I do. So if I chose an all-consuming profession like medicine, I would end up losing myself and everyone I hold close at some point along the way, and life's too short for such massive regrets. That's exactly what I hoped to avoid when I didn't choose to become a doctor. Of course I would absolutely love to get the rush and the heady-excitement that I only get when I study about the human body, but the overall effect would be that the other parts of my personality would just fall away one day - and that, I have promised myself, that I will never allow to happen.
So although my biggest regret remains the unfinished business with my beloved Stem Cells, my perspective is that I will let it go for now and focus on what I have in hand. Maybe there was a reason why I was denied. Maybe not, but I get ONE life to live, and I sure as hell am not going to waste it worrying about what would have been when I could be making the best 'version' of the today that I am given. My point is - what will happen will happen - no matter how hard you try to stop it. So why waste time worrying and obsessing when you can just stop and smell the goddamn flowers?
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