“Where do you go when you don’t know where you’re going?” is a common question people ask themselves at the end of something, and at the beginning of another thing. Most people feel this at least twice in their lives –graduation from high school, when we decide what course to take in college, and during graduation from college, when we decide which career path to take.
Two major events involving two major decisions are what it takes for most people to live the life they want to live. Most are happy, some are not. Some, on the other hand, require more than two… like doctors in general, and doctors in training in particular.
For physicians, on top of those two graduations most people have to make, we further decide: first, on which hospital to do post-graduate internship; second and third, on what specialty to train on and which hospital; and fourth and fifth, on what subspecialty to train on and which hospital, not to mention the decisions that come AFTER training –which place to practice? Which hospital to affiliate with? And the list goes on.
But what do you do when you still can’t decide which specialty to take? Which hospital to train?
Or the more difficult question is when you’re already in a training program and you suddenly feel you are NOT in the right program, but when you ask yourself what you’ll do when you quit, you wouldn’t have an answer also. I know right –life is difficult.
Well I guess we just all need to spend time to think what we really want in life. And this time is limitless –for some, it maybe a weekend, for some it can take months or years, while for others, it can last a lifetime. We have to remember that knowing what we want is not a race to win where we should be first, but a destination to arrive to. And every destination is best achieved when the journey itself is well enjoyed.
So don’t be afraid to wander, and wander more… because not all who wander are lost, but are just still looking.
So where do you go when you don’t know where you’re going? You go deep within. Within your self. Within your mind. Within your heart. Within you.
What is it that YOU are looking for? What is it that makes YOU jump out of the bed every morning? What is it that makes YOUR life worth living?
See the emphasis in YOU. Because only YOU can tell what you want. Only YOU can feel your passions. Not your friends, not your teachers, not even your family.
Remember, if it feels so heavy to wake up and face work in the morning during most mornings of the week for consecutive weeks, then maybe you ought to rethink and reconsider where you are now and what you would want to do about it.
Remember life is too short to be wasted. It’s better to die wandering, than die wondering.