Sometime last year I had this feeling that 2009 would be the last year that I would practice medicine. It has been seven years since I finished residency, and it is now more than just a seven year itch: it has become practically a wound.
To make the long story short, I've found a job as a medical consultant. No, it isn't filmmaking. I'm quite aware of that. The teleplay that I'm working on with my friend in New York is coming along nicely, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed. In the meantime, I'll start my new job in September - seven years and one month after I began working at Kaiser Permanente - five years and one month longer than my residency classmates and I had estimated I would last in medicine.
Last week I met a ballet dancer. A Russian ballet dancer. As expected, he was in perfect physical shape, charming, handsome. I was intrigued to hear his story, his life, his plans. In turn, I told him of mine. He then mentioned that he had an idea for a dance-based theater project and that it might be fun for me to write it with him. When I shared with him that it would be "incredibly, incredibly, incredibly" amazing if one day I would work on such a project and also work for a film production company, he immediately corrected me, saying that it would be at most "incredible," not "incredible, incredible, incredible."
I confessed my ignorance. So he proceeded to remind me that if I work on something really hard then ultimately achieve the desired result, then there isn't much there that is incredible.
Well, of course he was right. I don't know if I was misusing the word incredible, if I never understood its meaning in the first place, or if I was not giving myself the credit I'm due. This isn't a multiple choice question - I already know the answer.
I remember that when I working in Santa Rosa as a full time primary care doctor, I had imagined how amazing it would be if I could one day work just a few days a week and spend the rest of my time pursuing the things I loved. Well, that's exactly what happened. I spent three years in Santa Rosa searching for my passion, I found it in filmmaking, and I moved to San Francisco to work part-time while learning about the art, playing tennis, going to Paris for months at a time...
Then during this period of hedonism, I imagined how amazing it would be if I could one day not be a doctor any more, then be lucky enough to find some job related to filmmaking while working on various writing or photography projects. All this is slowly coming true. I've worked hard to make it come true. So what's so incredible about that?
Nothing. Absoultely nothing at all. So I'll march on to my own little symphony and keep exploring opportunities that take me to my dreams. What once seemed amazing will one day be what I'm living.
Changes are coming.
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