Lazy Friday

This is actually a continuation of the post I wrote yesterday, but it is a new topic, and thus I wanted to save it for another day.

And this brings us to my next topic: life. Rigidity in life allows us to proceed forward on a certain path; rigidity on this path allows us to (theoretically) succeed by moving up the ladder and mastering one particular skill. Of course, one has to loosen the rigidity to allow acquisition of knowledge passed on by mentors and peers; the concept of keeping an open mind. But this sort of rigidity and single track mindedness, while benefitting us in the “mastery” concept, restricts us from trying out new things, venturing into new fields, or exploring other professions.

I am at this fork in the road; which I’ve been stuck at for a while, actually. Too long, arguably. Basically, I’ve had this sort of “dream” to become a doctor. But I can’t solidly specify where this dream came from. There isn’t any one point in time where something happened and I had a lightbulb moment: “Eureka! I wanna be a doctor!” No, nothing like that. It was more like, “Hmm, I like sciences and math. I like people, and I want to help people. And it’d be cool to cure disease and fix people’s ailments. Hey, maybe I should be a doctor.”

And over the years, I’ve bounced around ideas about what kind of doctor I would want to be (oncologist, cardiologist, dermatologist, and most recently, pediatrician because I work with kids), or where I would want to work (hospital or my own private clinic; honestly would rather have the latter). Most recently (couple weeks ago), I DID have an apple-on-the-head moment: I should build a health clinic that is part clinic and part dojo. That way I can teach martial arts on one side AND give medical checkups and be a doctor on the other side. One of my friends joked that I could fix up one of my martial arts students in the clinic after giving them a proper showing of the ropes in the dojo.

(This reminds me of another Hajime no Ippo character: the medical student who challenged Ippo after he won the title belt. He made a comment that his hands are used both for fixing and for breaking. He was an interesting character, as he utilized his knowledge of the human body to pinpoint specific targets on his opponent. As a pre-med student, of course I was immediately interested in this character.)

To be continued…

Word of the Day: 夢 「ゆめ」 “yume,” which means “dream(s).” It may be used in both the figurative sense and the literal sense, just like in English.