The Vagaries of Change

A Beatiful Sign Close to My New Home

Things have changed since I last posted.  I quit my job and moved 850 miles away from my home.  The day I took the MCAT my wife shared a surprise with me when I got home.  She told me that she had been accepted into a Graduate program at Tulane University.  I was absolutely shocked by this, because it was something I never expected.  Somehow, in less than two months I was able to find a new place to live, a new job, and relocate to an entirely new city.

I am now settled in and we have established our new rythm of life, however things are different.  For one, living arrangements are vastly different from before.  I went from a three bedroom house with a nice yard, to a tiny 1 bedroom apartment.  When my neighbors have friends over, I can hear it.  They often wake me up in the middle of the night, which is something that never used to happen before.  The hallway often carries suspicious odors that whisper to me their nighttime activities.  I never realized that living in an apartment would mean being more intimate with your neighbors...you literally share everything with them, whether  you want to or not.

The smallness of our apartment and the need to walk everywhere has also drawn my wife and I closer together as well.  We have been spending much more time together, and I am now thinking that bigger is not necessarily better.  Most people dream of having a big house, but I am not so sure I want one now.  I don't like that family members can hide from each other by going to other rooms in the house.  I especially don't like the maintenance duties of a large house.  Cleaning, upkeep, and yardwork take up so much time.  Now these are things I don't have to worry about, and I love it!

A View From my Morning Commute

My work routine has changed as well.  After moving here, I decided that I would bike to work everyday instead of driving the car.  Many things contributed to making this decision, such as traffic, expensive parking rates, and my lack of knowledge of the city, however, the main reason is because I was really craving a way to lose weight.  As an aspiring Physician I think that it would be hypocritical to meet patients as an overweight person.  If I am going to preach the high principles of healthy living, then I must also follow those principles as well.  My problem is that I hate going to the gym, especially when I have to do it by myself.  Forcing myself to bike to work accomplishes several things at once.  It allows me to learn the city, it provides me with a means of transportation, and it ensures that I get a healthy dose of exercise every single day.  With a 22 mile round trip I have already managed to lose 10 pounds in two weeks.

All of this upheaval has been difficult, yet instructive as well.  I have learned that sometimes we need a drastic change that will take us out of our comfort zone.  In the short month I have been here I have totally revolutionized my lifestyle.  I look back on who I was before and I am amazed at the change that has happened in only one month.  Most people battle to keep things from changing, because that way they never have to face a scary or uncertain situation.  It is those situations, that makes us grow the most.  The more of them I experience, the more I look forward to it.

All of this has caused me to evaluate my personal goals as well.  Last year I was so sure I would get accepted into Medical School that I was rocked when the rejection came.  This year, I decided I have to prepare for it.  I must have a contingency plan in place so that I can smoothly transition into plan-B instead of being caught unprepared.  I was scared to quit my current profession before, because the stability that an Engineering income provides is very comforting, however I have realized I am reaching a point where I need to go the extra mile if I am really serious about Medicine.  If I am not accepted this cycle I will be going to Graduate school starting in January to study Neuroscience.  I have finished all the pre-med courses that I can take at a community college.  The only thing left ot me now is some GPA redemption by going through a Graduate program.  GPA redemption isn't my only goal, because I also want to study something that I find interesting while also continuing to prepare me for Medical School.

Change can be scary, but change is necessary.  The saddest thing to me is to see someone who has done the same thing, in the same place, for thirty years or more.  I know there are probably many reasons for this, but to me it looks like they were scared to go further, so they decided that where they were at was "good enough".  The possible risk to go further was too much for them so they settled.  I hope that I never settle in my life.  I hope that when I reach my goal of becoming a Physician that I will go even further from there.  I never want to be satisfied with where I am at, because the alternative is scarier than any nightmare I could ever dream up.

Being Successful

Sort of cliche, but sports are an appropriate metaphor for success

I often think about success, and say to myself "Wouldn't it be great?"  I don't think I have the traditional definition of success where the end result is tons of money, a hot car, trophy wife, and a white picket fence with a two story house.  No I am always impressed by true success.  Success that people reach where they look back after a long journey and say to themselves "I made it!"

One thing I have noticed about success is that I hear other people speak of those who have achieved it in hushed tones of envy.  "Oh if I was only as LUCKY as them."  or "I could never do that, he's a GENIUS." or "It's just not FAIR" or "I just don't have the TALENT they have".  These people always look at a fully realized successful person and assume that they have always been that way.  They totally ignore the journey  that person had to take in order to become successful.  They completely ignore the hard work, the agonizing moments, the long tear-filled nights, the times of self-doubt, the times when they believed they couldn't go on...yet they did.

I find my favorite success stories by reading through blogs.  I love reading about the journeys people take to become better athletes, to learn a new hobby, or to reclaim their lives from obesity.  Every day "average" people decide that they are going to do something great.  They are going to go from a sedentary life to running the Ironman in Hawaii.  Maybe it is someone who is going to get on a bike and ride from Alaska all the way down to the tip of Argentina.  How about a person who decides that their life has been ruined by complacency and that they are going to lose a tremendous amount of weight one day at a time?

For me, I always have to start at the first post when I read those blogs.  I want to know about the days when it was impossible.  I want to read about the times when they felt weak, unable, and inadequate.  It is because I feel like this all too often, and I hope that one day someone is going to read my blog and realize that they can do it too.  I want to say now, that I FEEL like I will never become a doctor.  The cards are stacked against me.  I have an average MCAT, and substandard GPA, and I have been out of college for more than 8 years.

It is impossible for me, but I have something that all the lazy apathetic people don't have.  I just can't find it within myself to give up.  For some reason, after I was laid out flat by rejection after five years of preparation I got back up and said, "Lets try again."  Even after everyone online said, "No, it is impossible for you, you just don't have the right stats."  I closed my ears and decided to keep going.

When I start my residency, I want to look back at this post and remember what it was like when it was impossible.  Because I know what will happen when I get into medical school.  People will start saying those things about me.  "Oh it is because he is so SMART." or "I wish I was as LUCKY as him."  But it isn't true.

None of them who say that noticed the tears streaming down my face.  None of them were with me when I was defeated.  None of them sat with me during the long study sessions I had to do AFTER I had already worked a full day at the office.  None of them were there when I had to turn my wife down for date night so that I could do well on a test.  None of them used their vacation time to study those final two weeks for the MCAT instead of going to Peru for some fun.  The only thing they see is the end result, the fruits of my labor, what happens AFTER all the sacrifices.  So they simply dismiss it with a casual statement, because it makes them feel better for giving up on their own dreams.  That is the real truth, and that is why when I am successful I want to look back and remember how high the price was.

I also hope I can inspire someone, somehow.  I want them to read about my journey and realize that Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, Businessmen, or whatever you choose to be has no bearing on your intellect.  It has to do with how much time you spend practicing, improving, sacrificing and moving towards your goal.  An elite athlete practices for years so that one day he can stand on the big stage and compete in front of thousands.  It is no different for the highest levels of success in any arena.

I did not improve on my MCAT score this year.  Conventional wisdom says, that after 2 tries you should quit.  That a 29 is "good enough".  You know what?  It isn't good enough for me.  After three tries, guess what?  I am going to start studying again.  Because it is all stuff I NEED to know.  Because I know I can do better, and because I want to do better....for me.

I think that the key component to success is the ability to maintain discipline.  By managing to put for a solid effort every single day over a long period of time someone inches ever closer to the success that they have in mind.  Writing a novel does not happen in a one week flurry if intense activity.  It consists of research, writing, revising, and often times throwing away large portions of script that have to be redone.  Losing weight does not happen in a week, even if commercials tell you it does.  It happens over a long period of time after someone has changed their lifestyle and committed themselves to a new discipline of diet and exercise.  My own success, hinges on daily efforts of reviewing material I have learned in the past, keeping up with current advances in medicine, and constantly striving to involve myself in the opportunities that exist to participate in volunteering or research.

Today my goals seem impossible, but I can see that every day I am inching ever closer to what I truly want.  Once I reach the starting line of Medical School I am looking forward to raising the bar even higher and making a new set of goals that will further define my new success story.

Coming Clean

I have been avoiding this post for some time, because I honestly just didn't want to come clean.  I didn't want to own up to the disappointing results of my MCAT.  I studied hard for that test, like I have never studied before in my life (and if you are familiar with this blog, this is now the third time I have taken the MCAT.)

So how did I do?  Exactly the same.  Yes, that is correct, I got the same exact score as last year.  To me it was a disaster, because the whole point was to improve, not to stay static.  The numbers tell me I haven't learned a thing, and yet I am positive I know VOLUMES more than I ever did last year.  Last year after the test I felt horrible, I was in a fog, I couldn't even remember the content of the test.  This year was different.   I remembered almost every single aspect of the test, I spent weeks beating myself up over the questions I missed, constantly going over things I was unsure of in my mind.  It was significantly more traumatizing this time around, all because I knew what I did and didn't miss.

Upon receiving my score, the feeling was horrible.  It was almost as bad as realizing I wasn't going to be able to start Medical School this year.  That every single school I had applied to did not find me worthy.  That somehow intellectually I do not measure up to anybodies standards.  I just turned 34 this year, and the thought of spending another year in exile from the path that I am convinced I should be walking, sounds like a death sentence.  I am reminded of Moses and the nation of Israel who wandered in the wilderness for 40 years  How many years will I wander before I reach my promised land?  I have already wandered these last 5 years gathering pre-requisites one class at a time.  One of those years of exile was a year of rejection.

So now we come upon this year, and a new application cycle.  I decided to apply early decision this year.  It represents a huge risk to me, because early decision means I am selecting only one University and declaring my intention to them to ONLY go to their school.  I cannot send applications to any other school until I receive a rejection letter from my early decision application.  This would happen by October 1, which means my applications would be going out late, putting me behind the curve for the rest of those schools.

Why did I take such a risk?  I did the math.  For some reason it comforts me.  There are some aspects of my life in Engineering that I will never get away from.  I only received an interview invite from one University last year, so that is the one I chose to investigate.  I discovered that if I apply early decision I have a 37% chance of getting accepted versus only a 4% chance of doing a regular application.  If I get an interview invitation my chances of getting accepted suddenly jump to 60% in early decision, versus 37% for a regular application.

So come August I will find out if I will have an interview or not.  Until then I continue to second guess myself.  Why did I work fulltime during my undergrad?  I could have had a better GPA if I didn't.  Why did I major in Engineering, instead of Theater?  I could have had a better GPA if I did.  Why didn't I sign up for a Master's program as a contingency plan?  If I get rejected, yet again, it will be another wasted year.  I find that I learn all too many things in retrospect, after it is too late.  I wish I wasn't like this.

In other news I will be uprooting my entire life to move halfway across the country.  My wife has been accepted to a Master's program for Clinical Research, and I decided it would be better to give up my career to keep our family unified than try to maintain a "long distance" marriage.  Some of this hasn't been easy, but the process of relocating, of having to solve a myriad of life problems on a tight deadline has drawn my wife and I closer together than before.  Sometimes I feel like things need to be shook up, that we need to be broken out of our routine so that we have an opportunity to rely on each other more, and build our trust in each other even more.

Some days I find it exhausting to be the one who has to carry the load, both financially and emotionally.  Often I want to quit and say I have had enough, but how can I when this empty gnawing feeling of unfulfillment will just remain and grow even greater?  I cannot allow my current misery spill over and ruin the hope I have for the future, for that is really the only thing that pushes me to move forward.  Then there are the expectations of my family.  How could I fail them, when I have already put forth so much effort?  I don't think I could bear to look my wife in the face, to see the pain in her eyes.

I am very grateful for my wife, I don't deserve her.  Even though from the outside it looks like I am the one "bringing home the bacon", the great Software Engineer making big money, while she merely studies; the truth is I see the effort she puts forth, I see the tears of frustration she cries, the resolve she has, the passion she fights with, the organizational skills she possesses, the brilliant mind she puts to use, her patience to see things through, the strong character that allows her to stand up after several crushing defeats, and secretly think to myself that I am way out of my league.  Nobody is as lucky as I am.

I feel like we have been successful because she puts forth effort every day so she can please me, and I get stuck every day doing my best to please her.  I think that as long as we both keep putting each other ahead of our own personal desires we are always going to have a wonderful marriage.  The worst times I can remember have been when I got stuck on myself, instead of following that intrinsic Universal paradigm, that law of nature more reliable than Gravity, where I should love others more than my self.  How much moreso should I love my wife then?

The Difference Between a Dream and a Fantasy

Is This a Dream or Fantasy? Image by Karezoid Michal Karcz

 As I was speaking to my wife yesterday something very profound flew out of my mouth.  At the time I did not give it much thought, but as I mulled it over later I grew to appreciate how significant it was.  I think my subconscious was using my effort to comfort my wife to teach me something instead.

"The difference between a dream and a fantasy is that a dream is realizable."

The reason that statement is so profound to me, is that before I vocalized it, I had never made a distinction between dreams and fantasies.  I have a very active imagination and one of my favorite activities is to give it free reign to express itself.  I end up thinking along many different paths, oftentimes fanciful and impractical.  I suspect that allowing this type of thought is the root of creativity, so I have never wanted to inhibit this tendency.  This means that I have always been a "dreamer".

"Dreamers" get a bad rap sometimes.  They are often accused of chasing after something impossible to achieve, something impractical, or "silly".  I think that there is a certain level of hypocrisy injected into judgements like this, because children in the USA are often told,

"When you grow up you can be ANYTHING you want."

When the child reaches a certain age, and starts to manifest their interest in certain areas the litany changes.  Soon they are told they should go to college and study something "practical", or they are told that their chances of success in a certain field are too small because of the high amount of competition.  I think that such a drastic change in message has a crippling effect on someone who dreams.  Forced to settle for something less than their dream, they begin to fantasize.

I bought into those lies when I began my undergraduate studies.  I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and worse I had no idea what I was interested in studying so I took the practical approach.  I thought about the professions that payed well and were in high demand and decided on Computer Science.  That is a pretty safe call, right?

Fast forward to two years after I graduated and I was absolutely miserable.  The realization that a CS degree was essentially meaningless in my chosen profession was a huge blow to me.  Technology firms stand by the litany of "Experience over all", meaning if you have enough "experience" on your resume then you must be qualified.  I have noticed that this is extremely misleading, because many people have a tendency to lie on their resume.  I cannot count the number of "hotshot" resumes I have read, only to be met with incompetence when I performed the interview, or worse yet when I was overruled and was forced to work along someone who is merely an amateur at best.  I could never understand why there is such a professional disconnect in the IT industry.  Unqualified lawyers are not allowed to practice law, nor are unqualified physicians allowed to practice medicine, yet in IT as long as you put down you have "experience" you are good to go.

My discontent with my chosen field led me to fantasize.  I wanted to hop on a bike and ride across the United States, vicariously living from day to day (Crazy Guy on a Bike).  I wanted to buy some land and go live off grid, experiencing the freedom that only nature can give you (Wilderness Survival).  I began finding solace in long training runs, with the idea of possibly running a marathon (Daily Mile).  Inevitably the theme was always the same.  I wanted to escape, and I was seeking a way out through ethereal unrealizable fantasies.  The fact that they were unreachable only intensified my discontent, and I am pretty sure it ended up drastically affecting my attitude and performance at work.

I don't know if I can put my finger on it exactly, but a combination of things worked together to galvanize me into finally pursuing a dream.  My wife and her father are physicians so I had been learning more and more about the profession through my interactions with them.  I soon realized that working as a physician would give my life the purposeful meaning that it was missing, the professionally competent peers I was seeking, and an outlet for my fantasizing mind.  On that day, and I do remember the exact day, in 2007 a dream was born.

I knew that it would take work, persistence, and time, however, I also knew that it was something I could reach if I were willing to work hard enough, and long enough.  From 2007 - 2013, I have slowly chipped away at the pre-requisites I needed one night course at a time.  Now I sit here, nearly at the end of the road and look back at what I have done in disbelief.  I could have never come so far with a fantasy, but a dream...well that is something worth living for.

Real Life is My Favorite RGP

After my Bio-Chem class today, it sort of hit me.  I really enjoy this daily struggle to try and improve myself.  During my class we were going over the kinetics of enzyme catalyzed reactions and I was really digging what the professor was teaching.  Later, as I was driving to work, I realized that only three years ago I wouldn't have been able to even follow the lecture.  That was cool, really cool.

Every day my goal is to be better than the day before, and usually I feel disappointed that I did not meet that goal.  When you are stuck in the moment it is easy to lose sight of the progress you are making.  It isn't until you look back over a roadmap of months or years when you finally see that all that sacrifice and effort has really paid off.

Each day we have the opportunity to confront our weaknesses and try to overcome them, which will hopefully lead to a better life.  Maybe it is ironic that I consider my weaknesses to be apathy, laziness, and procrastination.  My only saving grace is that when I have a goal I really try to run after it, however I feel like those three weaknesses really derail me from reaching my goals as quickly as I'd like.  I also have extremely outlandish goals, so if you are on the outside looking in you would think I am an extremely hard worker.  I have never really seen it like that.  If I compare what I have done to other people, then I would probably look pretty good in that aspect, but personally I still feel like I don't try hard enough.  I tend to relax earlier than necessary, and I probably take too many walk breaks during my long study sessions.

I know that point of view seems obsessive, but it works for me.  I am positive that I would not have made it this far if I didn't think like this.  There was a time when I couldn't sit for more than ten minutes to study.  It was a constant point of frustration for me, because I really wanted to dominate the material.  My mind would flip between thoughts so quickly that I would find myself reading a textbook, but in actuality daydreaming about something entirely different.  Through daily effort, I have been able to extend this study time to roughly 1 hour blocks.  A huge improvement, but still nowhere near what I need it to be.

I have also noticed that this inattentiveness has also extended itself into my personal hobby, which I could describe as "collecting hobbies".  I bet you are wondering what that means.  It is a phenomenon that runs like clockwork.  I will discover something I find interesting and I will do nothing but that one thing until I have figured it out.  I am always amazed by people who gravitate towards one singular hobby and do it for years without getting bored.  For some reason once I have it figured out and have been able adequately reproduce whatever that hobby calls for, I am bored and no longer care for it anymore.  This has led me to try knitting, cross stitching, home brewing, gardening, woodworking, luthiery, playing various instruments,  engraving, calligraphy, creative writing, sports, etc. etc.  The list is massive and never-ending.  I still wonder why I am like this.

Another thing I tend to do is constantly examine other people and wonder how they lives their lives the way they do.  I have noticed that the vast majority of people reach a certain age and suddenly decide that their life is "good enough".  From my observations this generally occurs immediately after High School, upon graduation from college, or after marriage.  Lets say the average age is around 25 years old.  The average life expectancy for people in the United States is currently 78 years, so that leaves 53 years of a static repetitive non-progressive life.  Think about that for just a second.  Doesn't that scare you?  It blows my MIND when I think about it.  What could I accomplish in 53 years if I kept improving every single day?

This apathetic behavior also manifests when people have children.  It seems almost counter intuitive to me, that parents give up on improving themselves as soon as they have children so that they can "raise" their children.   It is so hypocritical to me when a parent admonishes their child to get an education and be successful, to set goals and improve themselves, yet they aren't willing to do it in their own lives.  Living for prime time TV and weekend sports is not my definition of success or happiness.  It is merely another form of drug addiction, where you get an endorphin rush by trying to associate with the success of someone who is actually making it happen.

Entertainment has become the center of our culture and most people are too stupid to even realized how chained they really are.  I watched my grandmother spend 30 years glued to a television and when she died she didn't even know who I was.  Her brain was turned to mush because she never used it, and her body crumbled alongside.  She was hypnotized by the fantasies unfolding before her and could never escape the temptation so that she could be fulfilled in her own life.  This mass hypnosis has manifest itself in our society with the various health issues we are currently having.  The overwhelming numbers of diabetics, and obese people (not to mention many other health issues) all stems from one singular problem, and that is a problem with lifestyle.  Overeating, couch surfing, and inactivity for years leads to this end result. However, when people reach this state, they want to operate under the misinformed idea that they can take a "magic pill" and continue to abuse their bodies.  I call this a slow measured suicide.

I have just realized how long this mind dump has gotten.  This will probably be TLDR; for most people, but it's my blog so nyah!  Maybe I'll follow up with a part 2, if anyone can stomach it.