Lesson #2: Stop and Smell The Roses...But Not For Too Long
I've always been in a bit of a hurry to get on with it. And maybe that's because of the November birthday and the stupid rule that if you were born after September you were held back a year in school. This arbitrary cut-off didn't truly hold me back for long, though. A precocious talker (but definitely not walker), reader, writer, and generally gifted child, before I knew it I had skipped from kindergarten into the third grade in a manner of months. Great! Or not so great, as emotionally, I was, well, still a 6 year old.
I also rushed through Harvard, graduating in two years instead of four due to some wacky transfer of Canadian credits and my general desire to get to medical school as fast as possible. So, I graduated at age 20, but with the emotional maturity of a 12 year old. Awesome.
And then I started to slow things down. I decided not to to go to medical school. I worked in advertising. Lived in New York City. Studied opera. Traveled and lived abroad. Was an au pair. An English teacher. A cancer researcher. After all, I was so much younger than everyone, I could afford to take time off, "find myself" and enjoy life a little before eventually succumbing to the Hippocratic oath.
By the time I got to medical school I was just shy of 25 and officially felt "old"; there were 19yr olds in my class, for chrissake.
After the initial panic wore off, I again believed I had time, and lots of it. After all, I was nowhere close to the dreaded three-oh.
As for relationships? Who needed them? Not me. Boys were mean and stupid and generally in the way of my Medical Career. I dated with little to no success until my late 20s-early thitrties, but by then it was sort of too late.
No longer in college or medical school, everyone around me paring off and tying the knot, popping out babies (something I just could not comprehend! We were TOO YOUNG for all this shit!!!), buying houses while I racked up debt and went on a handful of fruitless blind dates.
It didn't help that I was god awful miserable throughout my residency. It wasn't just the not eating or sleeping for decades that was taking its toll, it was the whole "oh-shit-I-picked-the-wrong-career-and-it's-too-late" epiphany that made me pretty much undatable. But I still had time. I wasn't 35 yet.
All was not lost.
The wake up call was not a subtle one and came in the form of my best friend's husband dropping dead while playing frisbee. He was 35. And that's when it all hit me: this is it. This is all there is. Time is finite and it runs out so you better do what you love and you sure as hell better do it now.
When you're little you think you will always live in your parents' house. That your grandparents will always be there to cook special dinners like lamb with mint sauce or gefilte fish. That your favorite restaurant will always be in business. That there is always another time, another chance, another day, another try.
But there isn't always.
Paradoxically, all the rushing and focus on the next exam, achievement, promotion, date, milestone, and brass ring only serves to perpetuate this sort of timeless tunnel vision that is so dangerous. Because one day you might wake up and realize the things you have are not necessarily the things you want.
So, stop. Reevaluate. You have time. Sort of.