Pull The Trigger

This is a concept most of you may already be familiar with. Chances are you exemplified it as soon as you decided to read this post. Instead of mulling over the decision to do something about your current state of mind, you cleared your mental palate, pulled the trigger, and opened this bad boy up.

There is an inherent paralysis associated with indecision. It’s something that I have struggled with and, often times, continue to struggle with. At times, I’d wear it like a badge of honor. Stating things like, “I’m just so indecisive!”. I would just get caught up in all the options available to me. If you’re studying for the MCAT, then you may have heard the term “Tyranny of Choice”. If you haven’t already learned it, I would suggest doing so. It might get you some extra points on the psychology and sociology section (you’re welcome).

The Tyranny of Choice basically states that there is a psychological strain put on us when there are too many options to choose from. Which, if you think about it, is all life is. It’s an almost unlimited array of decisions. From what we should wear every day, to what Frappuccino we should order at Starbucks, down to what career path we should pursue for the rest of our lives. This latter decision can be doubly daunting. Specially if you choose, say, a profession that requires an hypercritical review of your entire life’s work before you even get in the door and which subjects you to four years of rigorous academic training followed by upwards of seven years of specialized on the job training before you can really do what you want to do. That’s what you’re signing up for when you decide to pursue a career in medicine. Sounds like a pretty gnarly choice to make.

The gnarly rating gets spiked even further when you are engulfed by what everyone else is doing. Everyone you graduated with has landed a sweet new gig, making hella cheddar, while you’re in the midst of racking up a quarter million dollars of debt. Your friends are starting their careers, buying homes, and getting married. You’re going back to school in a little college town. Everyone is getting on with their lives and you are signing up to put everything on pause for the next 11 years. Scary right?

Maybe a little, but I would argue that sitting around doing nothing, or worse doing something you absolutely loathe, in place of making the commitment to pursue your dream is far more frightening.  Maybe your fellow peers landed a nice job straight out of college and they’re making good money. That’s awesome, be happy for them, tell them you love them and wish them the best of luck. I bet if you asked them their take on your professional track, they’d drop a gem like “I wish I could do what you’re doing”. That’s right, you’re doing something that most people cannot do, even if they tried.

Scared of the student loans you’ll accumulate? Don’t think of it as debt, think of it as an investment in yourself. If you are anything like me, you’ll find solace in knowing that you are the very best investment you can make. You’re not throwing away money, you’re making a bet that you can do this, and the payout will be worth it.

Embarrassed that you’re going back to school when everyone else is settling down? You’re young, all you got is time. Even if you’re not as “young”, compared to a traditional student, you have to realize that time is relative. There is no perfect time frame for everyone. You are exactly where you need to be in life right now. You are not putting your life on pause. On the contrary, you have made a decision to start. You have hit play on your life DVR. This is not where it stops, rather when your journey begins. All you have to do is pull the damn trigger.

I want to dive more into what I mean by “pulling the trigger”, because I don’t want it to be misinterpreted and have someone think that I mean that you should just say yes to everything. Including doing crack and then, well, you can imagine how bad that could go. Don’t do crack. That is not what pull the trigger means.

It means stop losing sleep over what you should do, and just do the damn thing. If you’re tired of being stuck where you are right now and you don’t know what to do about it, just do something, anything. Sometimes this manifest itself as just saying “YES!” to something. If you haven’t watched “Yes Man”, I would suggest doing it now. As you will see, the character Jim Carey plays realizes that he is severely limiting his life by not being open to all the opportunities available to him. I won’t ruin the movie, but there is also a limitation to this. I don’t want to ruin the movie, please just give it a watch, but it goes back to my crack reference earlier. Don’t do crack.

Why do I think “Pulling the Trigger” is so helpful anyway? How is it going to help you get into medical school? Excellent question. After all, the only reason I am writing this is because I think there are a whole heap of individuals out there who would make excellent physicians but are lacking a bit of guidance to get them there. I think part of this guidance is instilled in this motto.

You might think you are not worthy of pursuing this profession. Maybe it’s a self-limiting ideology because of the way you were brought up. You were constantly told you were not smart or hard working enough to be a doctor. It’s an imbedded insecurity within you, so you look for reasons to justify this self-limiting belief. Maybe it’s been influenced by trying to get into medical school and failing to do so. The admissions committee took a look at your application and deemed you not worthy. This may lead you to think, “Obviously, I’m not good enough to get into medical school”. Maybe you don’t actually want to be a doctor. You have just been indoctrinated by family and friends to think that this is what you want to do, who you want to be. Or maybe, just maybe, you’re just making excuses.

Pulling the trigger negates the ability to make excuses. This is the message I want to hammer home. Stop blaming your upbringing, your family, your MCAT score, your crack addiction and just pull the fucking trigger. If you want something bad enough you will make it happen. This has nothing to do with what anyone else is doing, or anything you’ve done in the past. It is a commitment to do what must be done, to be where you would like to be. Don’t ask for permission. Do what you need to do. If you fuck up, pull the trigger and apologize.

What does “Pulling the Trigger” look like?

I’ll stop rambling on about just doing it (I probably sound like a Nike commercial featuring Shia Labouf “JUST DO IT”), and provide you some real-life examples of what it looks like. In my journey to becoming a physician, my first trigger pull (unbeknownst to me at the time) was sitting in my manager’s, Donte, office and telling him I was doubling down on my decision to be a doctor. For context, I was still on the fence about pursuing medicine versus becoming and engineer. I was a senior at FIU, fresh off an ACL reconstruction, with graduation looming right around the corner. Donte was literally the first person I told that I was going to be a doctor (sorry mom) and I’m really glad, because instead of thinking I was having a quarter-life crisis, he wholeheartedly embraced my choice and was genuinely happy with my trigger pull (thanks Donte).

What happened next was all a product of pulling the trigger. After my committment, I signed up for an MCAT date, graduated, subleased my apartment and moved back home to Sarasota. I figured I’d be able to be able to study and gain clinical experience without the burden of having to support myself by living at home with the parents. Life was good. Which is the kind of thing that is actually counterproductive to growth. Thankfully, this life-high lasted all of about 32 seconds and soon enough I was knee-deep in a total shit storm. Perfection!

When I moved back home, my mom and step-father (who had been the bread-winner for my family for the last decade or so) were in a shaky state of their relationship, to say the least. My mom, being Venezuelan and holding true to her cultural upbringing wanted me to live with her until I was 47 or married, whichever came first. My step-father, on the other hand, being Wisconsin born and bred, and having gotten the boot as soon as he turned 18, didn’t like the sound of that a whole lot. On day 31 of living at home (My step-dad explicitly gave me 1 month of rent-free living as my graduation present, not a joke) I was handed an invoice with all the expenses I would be responsible for. Rent, utilities, insurance, fees, and processing. An all-inclusive bundle package of what-the-actual-fuck. Realistically though, I was very understanding. I wasn’t his kid. I never was. He didn’t owe me anything and frankly he had given my family and I more than I could ever really thank him for.

That being said, I had been living on my own for the last 4 years before then and for what I was being charged, I figured I’d rather live alone. So, I respectfully told him I’d move out by the end of the week, and disclosed this information to my mom. One thing led to another and that was the end of my parent’s relationship. They love to tell me that it wasn’t my fault (you know the spiel they give divorce kids in all the movies), but low-key I know I ruined their manage, or at least catalyzed the demise. Not proud of it, but I figured I should just call it how I see it lest I get hate mail about it later. Shit happens.

Anyway, step-dad dips out, mom has $87 in her bank account, 22-year-old, freshly graduated Juancho is scared shitless.  I’ve always dreamed of taking care of and supporting my mom, but I had no idea it would happen this soon. I burned through all of my savings paying for rent, moving fees, deposits, and anything else my step-dad would’ve normally taken care of. No wonder dude was asking for rent money, I burned through all of my money just trying to keep us afloat. I was lucky enough to have secured a decent job upon graduating, but it just wasn’t going to cut it. So, I got a second job working as a valet at BMW to make ends meet.

Here I was, thinking that coming home to Sarasota would allow me to gain clinical experience and study for my MCAT without having to worry about staying alive. Instead, I was working 70-hour weeks, while trying to complete my medical school application, study for the MCAT, and not ruin my own relationship (sorry, Gabby). Maybe I’m not painting the best picture for pulling the trigger just yet, but I’ll get there I promise.

I ended up scoring a underwhelmingly mediocre 501 on the MCAT, put together a piss-poor application, and got denied from every school I applied to. Despite working as much as I had, I had very little money saved up, I had just signed up to get my master’s degree (Hello student debt), and was in the worst mental headspace I had ever been in. I cried in my bathtub for a week straight when I moved into my new apartment for grad school. I didn’t know it then, but this was the very best thing that could have ever happened to me.

See, when you’re caught up in the shitstorm, you’re too busy and occupied to realize all of the great things you are learning. I may have done poorly on the MCAT, but having taken it I would be that much more prepared for future attempts. I may have put together a lackluster medical school application, but I would be more apt to completing it next time. I didn’t have any money to show for my hard work, but I got some hair on my chest having to work 70-hour weeks. I didn’t get into medical school, but I was about to undergo a vast mental growth in graduate school thanks to it. My point is, you don’t reap immediate rewards from pulling the trigger. It takes time. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to realize how far up you can go.

If you’re sitting in the middle of your shit storm right now, it’s okay. I know it may be hard to believe me. I had trouble believing people when they told me things were going to pan out, too. As a matter of fact, I used to absolutely hate that cliché “Everything happens for a reason”. To me it was a cop out for all the atrocious things that happen every day. I would think to myself, what possible reason would there be for my father to be murdered in front of his family? To leave a widowed mother of four, alone and scared, in this world to fend for herself? Now that I’m older and have gone through some adversity for myself, I understand that the adage doesn’t seek to justify why bad things happen. My father’s death will never be justified, and that’s not the point. “Everything happens for a reason”, means that all of the things that have occurred in your lifetime, have manifested into your being right here, right now. Perfectly where you ought to be.

No matter where you are and where you hope to be, just relax, take a deep breathe, and pull the trigger. It’s time to make your dream come true.