there will be time, there will be time

this year has been one of intermittent confidence racked by bouts of extreme self-doubt.  there are days i feel like i am finding my way, ascending steadily to a place i aspire to reach in a profession that will one day entail my calling.  there are others when i wonder if i'm really going to be any good at this, if i'm even committed enough to truly be a great physician.  these are the days when i long to spend time reading fiction rather than physiology, writing prose rather than progress notes.  learning medicine can be so singular, so one-dimensional in its focus.  and while i want to put forth the effort and dedication necessary to be not just good but one day truly respected and admired in my profession, i need to keep the other passions in my life alive.  and i'm not doing it right now.

i think many of us have our alternate scenarios.  what would i be doing if i weren't doing this?  and when we speculate on what it might've been like, an element of regret almost inevitably presents itself.  'what could've been' starts jockeying for 'what should've been' status.  i think i'd be traveling and writing.  i think i would've seen most of continental and eastern europe, greece, egypt, and southeast asia by now.  i think i would've had countless more adventures and stories of hilarity and hijinks that i would nostalgically tell my grandchildren about.  i think i would've watched more films, seen more theater, listened to more music, and read more literature.  i think i would've published a number of magazine articles, and perhaps even a book by now.  i think i'd have more friends, more of niche, and be living in an urban, cosmopolitan city.  i think i'd be more interesting.  i think i'd probably have found someone that i wanted to spend the rest of my life with by now, and she me.  i think i'd probably still be in debt, just not nearly as much.  perhaps i'd be happier.

i think i'd also still be searching for a way to put more meaning into my life.  i think i always will be.  i'd wonder if what i were doing truly represented my calling, if there was something more.  here's what i like about what i'm doing now and the path i'm on: there is and will always be the potential to acheive something truly meaningful.  on balance, i think it is what i should be devoting my time to right now, even though it is at the expense of so much else. 

it's the opportunity cost that troubles me, i guess.  i'm sacrificing my twenties, surrendering adventures, missing chances to meet extraordinary people who might've become lifelong friends.  i'm losing track of people who are close to me and sometimes wonder if i'm truly close to anyone anymore given the self-centered vacuum i've been relegated to these past few months.

but who knows?  that's the difference between 'what could've been' or 'what should've been' and 'what is.'  only the latter of the three counts.  still, there is always some solace to be taken in what lies ahead, despite what might've been left behind.  to quote ' the love song of j. alfred prufrock,'

there will be time, there will be time
to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
there will be time to murder and create,
and time for all the works and days of hands
that lift and drop a question on your plate;
time for you and time for me,
and time yet for a hundred indecisions,
and for a hundred visions and revisions,
before the taking of a toast and tea.

of course if you read the whole poem closely (as you should), you realize that even this can only be true for so long.