What Drives You?

There are many reasons why we are being driven to do things. Often, multiple factors play into it, thus culminating into a general direction that we decided to pursue. Some people only need few reasons to do what they want to do. Those reasons are usually the solid ones that born out of lifelong desire or fear. Some people need a lot of reasons before they can decide whether to do it or not. And there is also a selected few who don't need a reason to do things - they just do it regardless.

How do you know whether your decision to pursue something is a correct one?

It's hard for me. I always second-guessing things. I think I am comfortable at where I am now, but what if I can get more comfortable working at something else elsewhere? What if my future is entirely a different thing?

What if my future is already present? Do I have what it takes to finally put my foot down and declare that this is where I will live and die? I am struggling to decide where to plant my roots in. I am constantly on tenterhooks, mulling over and over about my life here. Sometimes I feel like I am in a bog - warm, relaxing muddy water to immersed in under hot baking sun but at the same time I'm suffocating my roots and lungs.

But why shouldn't I stay where I am now? I have a stable 9-5 job with weekends off, my locum days are guaranteed every month, a nice small rented house to live in, and it's within acceptable distance to Penang island. My bosses are nice, my colleagues and staff are helpful, and my patients are minimal. Day in and day out being a doctor at a health clinic does not seem like a bad career.

The thing is, I don't see a lot of elderly doctor working at health clinics. So far, there's no doctors over the age 50 that I see working at clinics. Where do they go? Did they get transferred to the PKDs or the JKNs? Or were all of them continued their study and underwent master program? I know a number of them resigned and focused on doing private practice. I don't think I ever saw a contented older doctor who has already worked at health clinic for 20 years.

I'm afraid later on in my 50s I will regret for staying where I am now. That I easily feel adequate and comfortable, not pursuing more than what I am being offered at. I'm afraid that I won't be at ease with what I only have, that I will always lament on how different it might be if only I dared to pursue anything, and I mean any specialty, and be more than just a health clinic doctor.

If I close my eyes and my lingering mind, I will not be having this much of a fret. But the achievement of my acquaintances and colleagues in terms of their advancement in careers is slightly more difficult to ignore. Whenever I read their posts or saw them in my timeline, that jealousy seeps in. I recently congratulated my ex-colleague for successfully securing a slot for an FMS parallel program trainee. In our conversation, he jokingly encouraged me to work with him again in the future, him being an FMS and me a YM in charge of the clinic.

I know he didn't mean it, but the mere thought of him lording over me makes my skin crawl. Upon all the petty reasons that exist in the world, this is it. This is the one reason that finally drove me to decide on taking the Medex paper this year.