Let’s rewind to the year 2014, I was a college student. At the moment just finishing my sophomore year of college, my plans were to get a bachelor in science and pre-med; then go on to med school and then to a plastic surgery residency. I was two year into a probably 10-12 year journey and I was miserable every single day of it.
Well, not every day!
Why? Because when I was a kid, my father asked me what I wanted to do with my life; I said I wanted to be a doctor and in a period of over 15 years I never doubted my desire. In high school, I did career assessment tests and they seem to align with my predilections. I’m one of the very few people I know, that doesn't mind the sight of blood and guts. However, all these things not a doctor make.
As I implied before, I hated the subjects I was studying and it was not learning the material as a future doctor should. I would often learn the material just in order to pass a test and not because I really wanted to understand it. My G.P.A 3.7, it was not the best but adequate for a person in my position.
The year 2014 is also when I found also the book the 4-hour workweek . The title says it all, the perfect life at your finger tips; I decided to buy it. Unlike many other self-help books, the four-hour workweek is entertaining and interesting, I read the first chapter and Tim Ferris, the author, had caught my attention. I wanted more and I wanted fast. I spend the next couple days devouring the chapter one by one, sometime while I was in the middle of a lecture.
This amazing book filled with self-reflection exercises helped me soon realized that I didn't want to really become a doctor, but that I was doing it for a really unnecessary sense of debt to my parents. I realized that I was stressing myself for something for something I didn't love. I took the first step of telling my mother that I no longer wanted to be a doctor to which she responded by saying that she never saw me as a doctor. How could it be that I created a whole world in my head of what my parents wanted for me without even hearing their side of the story?
Still the education bug in my head, I decided to take another semester in school. I honestly love learning so how back could it be? I chose classes that in subjects that I love, so photograph, creating writing and an extra semester of Italian made it into my curriculum. It was the most amazing experience, I learned a lot and enjoyed every second of it; as the result of this, I got straight A; however, still, I didn't have a clear sense of where my life was going. A meditation in the book helped me with this new dilemma. The excise is to focus and what is the worst thing that could happen if you acted in different ways. This helped me realized that the worst that could happen to me could easily be reversed with little to no downside.
I made the decision of quitting college entirely and focus my life to create a business and try to fill the craving for learning and wanderlust that I have.
It's been three years since I left college and still haven't succeeded in the business front, I have tried many times and failed many others. I don't regret following my true desires because I have a clarity of who I am and what I want for my future and the four-hour workweek is definitely play a big part of it. I have bought a least 10 times to give to my closest friends in the hope that they too find their true nature. and if you don't have a copy I recommend you to get one, it will change your life.
What will happen to me in the future is unknown, but the truth is that no of us knows what the future holds. The best we can do it try to guide it to align with what we want.
