So last night I read an interesting passage from Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project. Her blog, also entitled the Happiness Project, was one of the inspirations to starting my own blog, so I was excited to read her book. It’s about her journey to find happiness in everyday things without making radical changes to her life. Basically, it’s an attempt to better appreciate the incredible life she already has. So anyways, the passage was a conversation between Rubin and an acquaintance that follows like this:
Friend: Everybody’s so obsessed with finding happiness and it really isn’t the point.
Rubin: Well we’ve reached a decent level of prosperity in our society. Isn’t it admirable that people set their sights on higher goals like happiness?
Friend: People should be more concerned with social justice, and peace, and the environment.
As Rubin tried to explain her project to others, she frequently encountered such criticism. This passage was so striking to me, because a year or two ago, I would have made that exact same criticism. After becoming aware of the grave injustices of the world I became obsessed with trying to right those wrongs, the only way I knew, by working hard and burying myself. I didn’t have time for my own happiness. In retrospect, this was, of course, not the best course of action.
I think about this, because I am essentially spending my life now to do whatever I want, enjoy myself, and learn about myself. At its essence, it is a very egocentric life. How would I answer to that friend who told me I should be more concerned with the world than “finding myself?”
That’s a hard question but if I had to answer now it would be something like this:
Helping people because I feel like I have to, which is how I used to feel, is completely different from helping people because it brings me happiness, which is how I am hoping to feel.
This Martin Luther King quote also represents my thoughts well:
“I submit to you that if a man hasn’t discovered something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”
There is really no cause in my life right now, that I feel so much solidarity for that I would die for it. I only have a shallow understanding of how I want to help people, who I want to help, etc. I’ve read enough of Pauline Chen’s columns (a surgeon that writes for the NYTimes) to know that med school/residency burnout is a far too common problem in medicine, and in other service fields. I think people burn out, largely because they jumped into a cause they weren’t prepared to die for, and when they started to die a little bit, they had to jump ship to a different cause. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with changing ships, I’ve done and will continue to do that. And that’s really what I’m doing now, hoping that if I just keep following random passions I’ll come across a good ship to jump on.
from ken
Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com
Hey Ken,
ReplyDeleteIm just starting to work through your blog now and in this section i can draw so many parallels to what I am trying to do over the next few years. Im not sure if being able to die for something is necessary, as it is possible to reinvent oneself and try completely new things. However, I do believe that complete passion is important for a career path (if one is fortunate enough to gain that passion). I am hoping to find something that I know deep down is what I want to be, and what feels right. I do not want to try to convince myself that i should be a doctor, or a salesman, etc. I want to listen to myself and respond to my own internal GPS, and see where it takes me. Because, if i do that, I believe I will not waver later on in life and doubt my career path. My mind in that sense will be clear, and i can focus solely on the profession itself.
Rob,
ReplyDeleteAs always, I love hearing your thoughts. I'm also trying to "align myself with my internal GPS," I really like that idea, and hope to attain that too.
Sometimes I find it hard to trust that if you follow your heart, your life will just work out.
from ken
Ken i find your point about this "trust" to be very true. However, I find that this is only in some circumstances. In many situations one must use their mind and shut off the emotions involved with acting from their heart in order to direct themselves in a certain path or towards a certain goal. Normally, that internal GPS that i referred to is an immature and not fully developed idea. In order for one to develop that idea, an idea like "I want to be a physician", often it is important to continue pushing towards that even when the going gets tough. Then later on, when the feeling or idea is more complete, you can get an idea if this truly is the correct path or not. The difficult thing is to put in a lot of effort towards one goal, and then potentially step away from that if it doesn't feel correct in the end.
ReplyDeleteI will use myself as an example. Going into college, I thought it would be interesting to be a doctor because I like science, have a desire to learn as much about the human body as possible, like to help people, and enjoy interacting with other people. A few nuggets that often describe doctors, but by no means characteristics exclusive to physicians. At the beginning of sophomore year, i had doubts about my desire to be a doctor when my classes started to become very difficult. I asked my dad once, "what if I dont want to be a doctor, what if I want to go into business, or be a lawyer...etc." he responded that he thinks I want or would enjoy being a doctor. Furthermore, when he thinks about my interests and strengths he feels that it would be a good path for me. Taking intro chemistry and 2nd year biology classes did not reflect directly on medical school. At this point if i had listened to my heart, I may or may not have continued. But I trusted my father, so i put my head down and worked harder. There have been other instances where it didn't feel right, but then again, how can one know until he or she is taking care of patients or witnessing the ins and outs of everyday patient care.
This is one reason why I am in bethesda, MD currently. It gives me multifaceted exposure to the medical field. I can observe, and try to understand the life of a physician. But I also understand that I still have initial adrenaline and energy associated with starting a new job. So far, I am more sure now then before the job that I want to go to medical school. However, I am waiting until the fog clears. After 9 or 10 months, do i still feel as though i am part of something great? When i wake up in the morning does it feel like a job, or something I want to get up to do in the morning?
Rob