A change of heart

I guess it was a change of heart when that white girl with the blue eyes called out to me after class. I didn’t even know her name but she knew mine. Asia, she called me like the continent; completely butchering my name.

“You’re amazing. I love what you write. It’s so raw and authentic and crude. I felt your anger and anguish. Your pain. I almost missed the bus because of you.” She rambled. “You should definitely focus on writing.”

And that ladies and gentlemen was when I started failing my science classes. I was too confused. Did I want to suffer in med school, in residency in rotations. The answer was a simple no. Was I willing to get rejected by publishing houses. Was I willing to write endless letters to agents only to be ghosted by every single one of them. Was I willing to go to seminars and open houses instead of studying for my biochem final. The answer was a simple yes. 

I knew one thing for sure that being a doctor would give me a comfortable life. It would secure my future. But I knew that it wouldn’t make me happy.

One thing I learned was that you will suffer no matter what you do in life. But you can choose your suffering, and choosing your suffering makes the pain bearable.

It won’t be easy. You’ll have a lot of setbacks. You’ll have road blocks. There will be fog. Your road may be broken and not easy to walk on. You’ll have people tell you to give up and that you’re not good enough. At some point you’ll tell yourself to give up.

But that’s the beauty of following your own dreams. You won’t have any regrets. You know you’ve worked hard for it. Even if you don’t reach the peak, you know at least you attempted the climb. Living with falling and failing is better than having the regret of never trying.

I gave up on that dream of medicine, because I realized it wasn’t mine to begin with. It was someone else’s dream that I was carrying in my chest. My dream, no matter, how unattainable it may seem gives me happiness. It gives me a reason to keep pushing, to keep moving ahead.

Life has an odd way of teaching you lessons you don’t want to learn. But if life is trying to tell you something over and over again, listen to it. It might be trying to guide you to a path that was meant to be yours, but you were too afraid to take. Listen to your heart before it stops speaking to you.