Sin Duda Nada

Today I had my very first day of work as a doctor. Technically it was all just inductions and no patients but nonetheless. At one point during the day, while we were meant to be doing online modules, I found myself in conversation with Ben. (Side note: I can't really believe I haven't written about him at all. I can't believe Cape Town hasn't made it into any of my posts when it seems to make it into all of my conversations...) 

Now I don't know what he took from our conversation (I can't help but feel so much is lost in our different slang and semantics, even more so over text)... but to me it was a discussion of our differences - our different lives that come down to different backgrounds and experiences combined with different temperaments and attitudes. I said that having spent so much time around his life and in his day to day life, I felt like I understood or knew about what it means to be him. I also said that I didn't think he could say the same for me, that he doesn't know as much about my life or how I got to where I'm at. 

So that's what this is. 

This is how I made it here. I say this with no sense of pride whatsoever. Many people have been doctors before me, many have got here with greater and more numerous achievements to their name. Many have had much more significant trials and tribulations. And many others, who have ended up in completely different places, have overcome far larger hurdles. When I say it took a lot to get here, it's just fact, not pride. It took a lot of different events. 

My parents, like many other working class Desis who made their own way in a foreign country, were driven by the need to educate us three. They saved and what they spend on us is largely towards our education. They've always instilled the goal of being successful, independent women in us. I'm grateful.

In school holidays from when I was about six, my mom would push me to do extra work. 3 pages of math workbook and 2 pages of English every day. We used to get vocabulary lists at school and from each word we had to make a sentence. My mom insisted on long, complicated sentences. She'd make me write a draft, before rewriting them perfectly into my notebook. When I'd score 90+% in school tests, my parents would ask what stopped me from getting 100%. When I came top in the class with a score less than 100%, they'd tell me not to compare to others, that I could still do better. When I scored well but someone scored better, they'd ask why I wasn't the best in the class, how could I study more like that other kid. 

Eventually I knew how to work myself, to push myself to achieve. Or at least they grew to think so, and towards the end of my school life though they encouraged me to study certainly, I was in control of how much I did. And I was driven to achieve. So much so that when I didn't get into the university I'd wanted to, I spent my last year of school and my first year of university holed up in my room in the dark, developing no interests, feeling purposeless and without direction. Suddenly my parents weren't pushing me to focus on education, they were pulling me back, trying to get me to focus on a bigger picture. 

So many of our talks today touched on the stress we will experience as doctors. And many also discussed the personality type that so many of us who have finished medical school have found ourselves burdened with. Perfectionists who feel an overwhelming sense of guilt for small mistakes, who feel an unnecessarily heavy burden of responsibility, who permanently feel an intellectual inferiority complex. 

These talks remind us to look after ourselves, to be mindful, to feed our spirits, to be kind and forgiving to ourselves and to learn to let go and not focus on our shortcomings. We are humans too. It's hard and I'm trying and my spirit is hungry.