The Hardest Thing

During my last week of medical school, a physician I had recently met asked me what had been the hardest part of it all.  I thought for a moment, both to sort my way past the obvious pop-up replies, such as Anatomy or The sheer volume of information to be learned.  But once I began to speak, the answer - for my experience, at least - became clearer.  And as I rambled, I made my way toward a truth that I hadn't fully realized until that moment.

The hardest thing, I said at the start, was that there are so many things that I love in life other than medicine.  I truly love medicine, and I am thrilled and honored to have the privilege of doing its work.  But I also love to read.  And write.  And run, travel, knit, ski, do yoga, speak French, watch movies, catch up with friends, and spend time with my family.  The devotion required by a life in medicine spares little time for any of those things, let alone all of them.  The biggest challenge for me was trying to maintain the most important aspects of my outside life while striving to master the ocean of information laid out before me, a task difficult enough even without distractions.  

There was always a tug-of-war: steal some time to read or write, then feel guilty as I hurried to catch up in my studies.  Ignite a reactionary resolve to dedicate every minute to medicine, then burn out and be forced to take a break, thus setting off the guilt again.  I spoke and wrote ad nauseam about the holy grail of "balance," and I pictured the road to this goal as an ascent of evenly-spaced steps.  Once I had worked one outside activity into my life - say, by devoting an hour most days to exercise - I would integrate another, perhaps allotting some time for reading before bed.  Then, I reasoned, I would (while keeping up with my classes) juggle in a third and perhaps a fourth such activity.  The only way I could explain my repeated failure to reach what seemed a perfectly reasonable goal was my own ineptitude.

As I spoke, my words carried me to the revelation that had previously evaded me.  The hardest thing, I concluded, had been the constant, punishing pursuit of a balance that was impossible to achieve.  Suffering in the service of an arbitrary and artificial goal of my own invention.  I only recognized it at the very end.  But as I stand at a new beginning, I hope to remember it.