Dream. Believe. Achieve.

“All great achievements require time.” – Maya Angelou

Recently, I was rejected from the medical school that I wanted to attend, and I just felt completely defeated. I was so angry at myself because it was only one section of the cut offs that I didn’t meet. I started thinking back to how hard I had worked to study for the MCAT and how much time and money I had put into writing the exam and applying for schools, and it brought me to a point where I felt completely worthless. I started thinking about how stupid I must be, how I am not even cut out to be a doctor, and how all I do is raise my families hopes and then disappoint them. I felt like a complete failure. But this wasn’t the first time I had felt like one.

For me, it’s been an ongoing feeling ever since I decided to pursue a career in medicine. In fact I felt as though I had failed before I had even begun my journey when I realized that I didn’t even have the grades to be considered competitive. So there I was on the verge of giving up before I had even begun. But something wouldn’t let me give up; as though the very moment that I had told myself that this was the path I was going to pursue, I had scratched it into the universe somewhere, and that was that, there was no turning back. But I didn’t want to turn back, for the first time in my life I was able to clearly envision my future; what I wanted to do and who I wanted to become. I wanted to manifest everything I had in my mind and I didn’t want to settle for anything less. But at the same time, it was like I couldn’t catch a break, like I was failing in every way. And with each failure, the pain it brought about me was more than I had ever felt, as if the world was tearing away at my entire being each time. As though rather than helping me reach my goals, the universe was pulling me away from them. And the more it did, the more I fought against it.

You see, when you go through life simply allowing things to happen to you or around you, never really attempting to take control of your life, you start to care less about whether you fail or succeed, or where your life takes you. You brush it off your shoulders and allow yourself to be victim to circumstance. The problem with falling victim to circumstance is that you become numb to the feelings of grief and sadness that failure would normally bring about. Why? Because the world can’t take away from you what you don’t value.  But why do we allow ourselves to feel like this? Are we so afraid of being truly proud of ourselves that we would just rather not strive for bigger and better things?  Or is it the idea that those feelings of happiness will only be fleeting, and that one day they may be taken away from us, leaving us to feel victimized once more? In the past, I have allowed myself to feel like this and with my rejection from medical school I felt myself slowly falling into this mentality once again; but I won’t allow that to happen, and neither should you.

There are many things in life that we have no control over, but the way we view the world and what’s going on around us is something we can control. The reason I am telling you this is because I don’t think any of us should feel like victims of circumstance. I truly believe that making the decision to pursue medicine and trying my best to be relentless in my pursuit is something that has benefited me in so many ways. It made me raise my GPA to one greater than that of the cut offs, it made me realize what I was truly passionate about, and it gave me a sense of purpose. Yes, I have faltered numerous times and will falter again, and of course the closer I get to my goal, the more each set back will hurt. But I assure you that that pain we feel when we fail, is a far greater feeling compared to the numbness we feel when we give up. That pain is a driver; it is not only the thing that has had me crying myself to sleep, but it is also the thing that makes me determined to get up each morning. It is pain, rather than happiness and success that should be a fleeting feeling. It is simply there to remind us what is important in our lives, and why we should fight each day for them. It is what forces me to look for a brighter side to each circumstance.

I think it’s important to feel like we have control over where we end up in life because otherwise what is the point? I truly believe that we create our own destinies and with that I believe it’s important to have a vision and a strategy. Having clarity in your dreams is what allows you to actually chase them relentlessly, through the failures as well as the successes. And it’s important to realize that if you want something bad enough, and if you work hard at it every day, you will get there, even if it takes a little bit of time. In the words of Maya Angelou, “all great achievements require time,” so rather than spending that time feeling numb, embrace your failures, learn from them, and pick yourself back up and try again.

For me, I had to realize that I met every cut off except for one, and that in itself is an incredible accomplishment. Now that I’ve changed my view of this rejection as one that left me feeling worthless, to one that has shown me where to improve, I know that I’ll be fine. I know that my goals are still achievable, I know that I will meet all of the cut offs one day, and I know that I will get into medical school and learn to become a brilliant MD. I know all of this will happen, even if it takes a little more time than expected, because in the end it won’t matter, because in the end I’ll be living my dream.

– Vidhya S