No, Really. I Want to Be Here.
If you can't convince yourself, you aren't convincing anyone else.
“Look at Dr. Fightmaster over there. He doesn’t even want to be a psychiatrist.”
I froze. I’d been found out.
Then, a wave of fidelity crested and overcame years of hiding, as I replied, “You’re right; I don’t want to be a psychiatrist.”
I was a fourth-year resident—in the last of my eight consecutive years of medical education—thus, if I were ever in a position to fool anyone, the time was ripe. I was months away from earning my board-certification. But, despite years of contradicting evidence, my attending physician knew the truth. He was talking with a co-resident about her patient’s care, and for reasons unknown to me still, he felt the need to point out the incongruity of my presence in medicine.
Because he knew. Because we always know.
The truth was in my echo.
It’s not so much what we say or do that matters; it’s who we are that resonates.
In medical school and residency, I did my best. I looked after my patients like family, or so I hope. Often, I stayed late to do things right. But when you don’t love it—when you aren’t deeply about it—earnest actions ring hollow.
What causes this discrepancy is something I’ve thought about a lot. Throughout those years, every so often, I’d meet someone who knew I didn’t want to me a doctor. Sometimes they said something, sometimes they didn’t have to. Once, on the Monday morning after third year of medical school’s Thanksgiving break, I walked into the Neurology team room, and my senior resident said, “Phew, I was worried you might not come back.” I asked him what he meant. “I don’t know. I was just worried.”
We don’t know why, but we always know. We’ve discussed the idea of fractured living before, and now I’d like to insert resentment at fractured living’s genesis. Resentment is our tell.
Resentment is displeasure with something that’s occurred. It’s a desire for something to be different. And if you’re constantly desiring something to be different, especially something you can’t change from the past, it’s impossible to be present here. That I believe is the discrepancy people sense. That is the inauthentic echo.
I think about this constantly. I’m 35. I’m married. My wife and I are in an ever-present conversation about our future, and I want a future where I’m myself, not just for me but my family. I understand safe passage into middle age and into subsequent life stages without resentment comes with no guarantees, but that for me to give what I hope to give, I want to be present and ringing true, not muted by my resentments.
When I left medicine, I didn’t just leave for me. I left because I wanted to love the people that loved me. I wanted a shot at giving them the best I could offer. I wanted that chance.
In the almost two years since that choice, my resentments haven’t all dissolved, but I sense them clearing more and more by the day. If anything, I feel more responsible for my life than I did two years ago, when I spent much of it looking back.
And notably, when I’m writing and working on furniture, I don’t feel the need to convince anyone that it’s something I really want to do.
Originally published here: https://fightmastermd.com/2024/07/25/knock-knock-i-wasnt-home/