Who Am I?
By Uliyaah
I have always avoided thinking too deeply. I liked the comfort of going with the flow of things and easily accepted my situation as it unfolded. School made this lifestyle easy to achieve. It was almost like a game. All I had to do was get good grades to make my parents happy and make a few friends along the way so I wouldn't be too bored. Even during high school, the deepest thing I thought of was to do well enough in school so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting into college.
However, after graduating from high school, I realized that my whole life I have just been going along with what was expected of me, without thinking about anything further. I was expected to do well in school, so I did it. I was expected to go to college, so I got the grades needed for it. Doing what was expected of me was easy. I didn’t have to worry about if what I was doing was the right path, because someone had made the path for me.
The moment I made this realization was when my parents began laying out my next path. My parents had found an accelerated med-school program that I could interview for right out of high school and receive an MD in six years as opposed to the usual eight. I didn’t have a strong opinion of it, but as the day for the interview approached, I felt intense anxiety as I thought for the first time, deeply about my future.
I realized I didn’t know at all what I wanted or even who I was. I had been so focused on following the path set for me that I never thought to look for where I would end up. I knew if I just stopped thinking about it the anxiety would go away, and I knew it would be easier for me to continue following what was expected of me. I would end up with a stable, well-paying job that I would likely adapt to enough to tolerate. But I also knew that if I did follow through with this, I would continue to do what was expected of me without ever discovering who I really am or what I really wanted. (Also, the fact that I would be committing to six years of advanced education without a sliver of passion for the subject I would be learning, helped seventeen-year-old me make the right choice.)
Instead of going to med-school, I went to community college. I spent my first year completely lost, it also happened to be the same year that the COVID-19 quarantine had been put in place. But surprisingly I was happy with the situation, which might have been because of my tendency to go with the flow, but for the first time I had complete reign over my education. The option of online classes gave me more time to take a few extra courses I had always been interested in. I tried every random subject that had an open seat. From American Sign Language to historical geology, I discovered that I actually enjoyed learning. I realized I hated life sciences and would likely not have survived med-school. Eventually, I found out that I understood computer science and actually enjoyed it enough to pursue it as a major.
Looking back on my past self now, I can’t help but wonder if it really is my fault that I didn’t discover my passion earlier or if it is the fault of the education system which didn’t incentivize me to search for it.