Wanting something is entirely different from knowing what you are good at. I know a girl who, while volunteering at a doctor’s office, admitted to cooking up blood-pressure readings, rather than admitting to the doctor that she did not know how to take them. Yet, she is a doctor today. Someone with such an abhorrent paucity of integrity is a doctor only because her other sisters are. It is a public joke in our circle that we should avoid hospitals when any of these sisters are on duty. The point I am trying to make is this: it is the “being a doctor” that she wanted; it was not to actually practice the craft. I give her five years before she goes into depression, or, God forbid, hurts a patient. Meeting that girl again recently made me more than slightly annoyed. Why do people do things for appearances? Is that why they think they were born—to be what someone thinks is the right person for them to be? I know it takes a lot of emotional maturity, and a lot of moral integrity to look for you within yourself. I talked about this in my earlier blogs. Aim for something you want to do, not something you want to be. You want to play with fabric and cuts? Then be a designer. Do not do it for the bow at the end of the runway. Join a political party because you want to uplift the country—not solely to be a senator.
But this is about more than just a case of choosing an occupation solely for image. It is about our ability to recognize ourselves, and to respect ourselves enough to follow our heart’s desires. This brings me to something I have been trying to understand, or maybe that I have just been trying to put into a coherent thought: Who are we? Not as a community, but as individuals. Each one of us is one person. It is not as facile as it sounds. Not what our occupation or relationships define, but us in the raw—with all extraneous layers peeled off. The real person—who we are when we are alone.
I believe that if we can be exactly that same person when we are with others, it leaves a lot of space in your mind and heart to discover other things in life. It leaves enough energy to learn new things, and grow as a human being.
