As I was sitting at camp reading one day, the realization finally came to me why I decided to not pursue my Pre-Med degree and post grad medical school. In college I was always an art major. I went in as an art major and graduated with my BA in Art, never officially switching or adding any majors or minors, but for a year of my college career I was a premed student. I had decided to add a major in pre medicine to my already in progress art major. It would require me to add another year of undergrad, but I decided to do it anyway and was hoping to attend the University of Washington school of Medicine. At the end of my year in the pre med program, however, I realized that it didn’t feel right. As if I was trying to pursue something that my life was not meant for. I knew that I was more than capable of completing the program and going to med school, but there was something deep inside of me that didn’t feel called to it.
I finished my art degree and since graduation have been bopping around various jobs, not necessarily hoping to find a career in any of them, but making do and enjoying living all the while. I haven’t felt unhappy that I’m not in a job that can’t really become a life-long career, I know that my station in life is just part of the journey. But the other day I figured out why I stopped the pursuit of becoming a doctor. It was a hard decision. It kept floating around in my brain that I should become a doctor, simply because I knew I could do it and do it well. How could I choose making artwork over saving lives?
I finished my art degree and since graduation have been bopping around various jobs, not necessarily hoping to find a career in any of them, but making do and enjoying living all the while. I haven’t felt unhappy that I’m not in a job that can’t really become a life-long career, I know that my station in life is just part of the journey. But the other day I figured out why I stopped the pursuit of becoming a doctor. It was a hard decision. It kept floating around in my brain that I should become a doctor, simply because I knew I could do it and do it well. How could I choose making artwork over saving lives?
Whether or not making art ends up being my career or life goal in the end, being an artist is nevertheless an integral part of my being. How that creative spirit manifests itself is variable. It has been manifested through painting, drawing, printing, writing, taking photos, blogging, graphic design, music, interior decor, and so on. Through all of that, I have learned that the saving of lives that doctors do is secondary. What is truly important in the world and what is desperately needed is people devoted to saving lives. Not just keeping people alive, but saving their lives. I once heard a quote that we should not be afraid of death, but afraid of the life un-lived. How very true! What point is there to keeping our bodies alive if there is nothing to live for? I suspect that millions of people walk around everyday as a sort of living dead. Their lives are empty and drained of anything that makes being alive worth it. Those are the people who need someone. While I fully believe that medicine is a noble and honorable calling, I realized that it is not mine, and that that is okay. There are many ways to save lives, I just don’t have to wear a white coat to do what I feel called to do.
