What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

Growing up, I have had a few vocational aspirations. I remember wanting to a corporate high-flyer (in my 4-year-old brain, powersuit = success), then a fashion designer (in my 8-year-old brain, portfolio bags = artist chic), then a writer/author/journalist (in my 13-year-old brain, proficiency in written English = good stories), then a graphic designer (in my 14-year-old brain, good marks in Arts = creativity) and most recently, a doctor (in my 17-year-old brain, hard, punishing life = living life to the fullest). It stopped there because by then I had made decisions that did not allow me any more luxury of flexibility. I had committed.

I am now at a point in my life where I need to make another big professional decision. What shall I be? Should I turn my back now on hospital-based medicine, and opt for a subspecialty that could afford me the luxury of a 9-to-5 5-day week so that I could indulge in other non-medical related interests? Or should I heed the occasional whisper of my inner voice that reminds me that acute medicine is really why I set out to become a doctor in the first place? Seriously, I don't know. Yes, I must envy the girl who supposedly obtained THE MOST As in the recent SPM exams, obviously because she got MORE As than me and made the news, but mostly because at that tender age, she already has a firm idea of what she wants to be. Not just a doctor...but a cardiologist! Wow, so specific. If you recall, my list of ambitions is a mess of non-specifics. Corporate high-flyer - banking? Investment? Retail? Fashion designer - Pour elle? Pour homme? Haute couture? Ready-to-wear? Writer - magazine? Fiction? Journalist - print? Broadcast? Graphic designer - design what, girl? And of course, most recently, doctor -what doctor? Cardiologist? Endocrinologist? Palliative care physician?

Seriously, I don't know. Maybe that's why I did not "score" that many an As - my goals were not specific enough!