Life line exercise

Finally back at Tuck! Whew . . . makes me wonder why exactly I’m doing this residency thing

Speaking of introspection, I am taking a course called Leadership Out of the Box at Tuck which is about the developmental journey that leaders take where we study bios of leaders we admire as well as undergo some soul searching. Perfect class for me: high on interest and low on work!

Anyway, Prof B had us do an exercise in class where we all drew our own life lines with time on the X axis and happiness on the Y axis and noting transitions in your life where things went up or down precipitously. Mine was quite interesting. One of the key takeaways was that in my mind, I was happiest in my life when I was 12 right before my parents moved us to Taiwan. All I remember from that period was not feeling self conscious despite being a rather “portly” child, feeling self confident as I was one of the top students in my elementary school and in Jr high as well and most importantly having a lot of energy and happiness being surrounded by friends and family and having all a kid could ever want. The crazy thing is despite the other highlights in my life, I cannot say that there has ever been a period where I have been that happy with perhaps doing premed in San Francisco and being at Tuck in this fall term coming close to that.

So what does that mean? Does it mean that I was forever scarred by the move to Taiwan? Or as Dr. B would say it, is moving to Taipei a “defining” moment in my inner journey to become a hero/leader? What is clear to me is that some of my current behavior as an adult in which I prefer to be comfortable and lazy as an adult, be mothered in relationships, be mentored by father figure types relates directly to this period in my life where I was the “most” happy.  Does this mean I am forever to be defined by this moment so far in my past? Or does it mean I need to resolve some inner psychic conflict to move on? I guess that’s what the rest of this class and this life is all about.

Anyway, highly suggest doing the exercise, it may sound froofy but it actually does make you think about and visualize your life thus far a bit!

Decisions, decisions

So anesthesia it is! Like most decisions in my life, I waited till probably the last minute and took the path that as my dad says “opens up” more opportunities. Anesthesiology has a little bit of everything that I’ve liked about medicine and still gives me the opportunity to keep my hand in business. All while being a bit more lifestyle friendly than EM or medicine.

Just finished turning in my ERAS (that’s the common app service for residency programs) application so we’ll see if programs agree with me that anesthesia is the right fit!