New Beginnings-Why I Started This Blog

Hey everyone! Welcome to my blog and thank you for stumbling upon this page. Maybe you’re a friend or a family member that I coerced into reading my blog or perhaps you're a complete stranger. Whatever the case may be, I’m really glad that you’re here and I hope you continue to come back week to week. This week I thought I’d tell you all about how this blog came to be and how I handled my quarter life crisis by quitting my job and putting my medical school dreams on hold.
 
I started this blog as a way to start over. You see, I thought I had everything figured out, which is something I don’t think most others at 21 can say. I really don’t mean to come across as a prick, but I had great grades, a resume with awesome experiences, an amazing girlfriend, and I was getting paid to do important research under a really well-known professor. I thought that all I had left to do was go through the motions and everything would just work out. I would get into medical school, have a nice house, and be able to live a nice comfortable life with my wife, 2 kids, and 3 dogs.
 
I was so comfortable with everything that I never stopped to reflect and ask myself if I could be better and I definitely didn’t care to properly listen and take advice from others. After all, why would I need to listen to others? I thought everything was figured out and that I just had to keep on keeping on.
 
Here’s the problem with being comfortable and not being adaptable to change. One moment you’re perfectly comfortable and the next you have no idea what’s going on. I felt as though life threw a brick in my face and for the first time in a long time, I realized I had absolutely nothing figured out. I didn’t know why I so badly wanted to go to medical school. Heck, I didn’t even know why I was putting so much time into jobs and extracurriculars that accomplished little other than frustration. Everything seemed to be falling apart. As the cherry on top, Covid-19 decided to cancel all my summer plans.
 
For those of you who don’t personally know me. I’m a really extraverted person and I love being around people, so Covid-19 was essentially my worst nightmare coming to life. I didn’t really know what to do, so I just binge watched a lot of Netflix, ate a lot of fast food, and hoped that things would eventually just get better (that was a lie and I very well knew it). At a certain point, after many hours just lying around in bed, I realized it was probably time to get my shit sorted out. What did I want to do? Why did I want to do it? Do I even have a passion for anything?

I’m a strong believer in big changes for big problems so I decided to take a leap of faith and try and resolve my quarter life crisis in the biggest way I knew how. By starting over. So, I quit my lab job, turned down a few summer job offers, cancelled my MCAT exam, and moved back to my student house for more time alone.

I swear, I'm not insane. I really wanted to feel like a kid again and just do things for the sake of doing them. I was so tired of doing things for the sake of putting them on an application or because it looked impressive. I wanted to be creative, make a difference, and take risks (even if they don’t really make any sense at the time). This blog is a way for me to share my personal journey and thoughts. It’s also about having you guys hold me accountable for some of the things I promise to do. Hopefully, you guys can also learn vicariously through some of my experiences, thoughts, and hardships.

I never thought I’d be here. I never thought I’d be sitting on a porch writing my thoughts as all my friends go off to work. But, here we are and I’m truly grateful for it. I’ve always seen life as a story with various chapters, characters, and story arcs. Well, this is my chapter that's going to be filled with lots of character development. This is my story of taking a risk, starting over, learning new things, and (hopefully) growing into the ideal version of myself that I hope plays a large role in society. If you’re going to take anything away from this blog, just know that I’m sure there’s going to be something that I talk about in the coming weeks that will be relatable to you. Thanks, and I’ll talk to you guys next week.