Desing in Canva
Since I was a child I have been a visionary; perhaps because I was born and grew up in a humble family, with very little money, but united and happy. It was not easy. My brothers and I suffered from asthma, so we lived longer in the hospital than in our own home. In the previous WE I related a bit of my experience, and curiously, this one has helped me reconnect with a goal that once, while looking at the doctors who prescribed my medicines, I made for myself:
When I grow up I want to Doctor.
I wanted to be a doctor because they saved my life. I remember that after leaving the hospitals, I would go home to play with my brothers: I was the doctor and they were my patients, and then I would take sheets of paper to write those doodles that the doctors had put on my medical prescriptions. It was extremely beautiful because I imagined caring for sick children, giving them a life expectancy like they had given me and saving them from terrible asthma. I confessed to my parents the idea of studying medicine when I was old enough. They were excited, but they warned me:
“You need to have good grades. Doctors are very smart."
From that moment I began to work hard at school, not to be one of the best but to be the best, and I did it! I graduated at the top of the class in elementary school and was the best student in high school. I had to sacrifice a lot to be the best, including my passion for video games. He was completely excited about the idea of being the first doctor in the family, not only to fulfill a personal goal, but also wanted to help as many people as possible. Health in Venezuela is expensive, not everyone can cover medical insurance; I wanted to change that. I wanted to be the first doctor to separate health from the monetized world!
Have you ever seen the TV series called E.R? Well, it was my addiction during my adolescence. While my friends watched juvenile stories, I spent hours watching E.R (Emergency Room), whose axis focused on skilled doctors and patients with unexpected illnesses. By then I had a notebook to write down the strategies of those doctors from the TV series, that's how obsessed I was! LOL. When I got my high school diploma, I signed up for my college. I was anxious, even my parents had already bought me the supplies for my university medical degree. But life is unpredictable, isn't it? Suddenly things changed and my hopes of being a doctor were buried.
I graduated from high school in 2014, just at the moment when the economic crisis in my country worsened. Everything became more expensive, food began to disappear, there was no work: my parents' debt with the banks was complicated. I had two options, the first was to go to the capital of my country (Caracas- Venezuela) to fulfill my dream but with the little money they had. That meant that my parents would suffer hardship while I was in the capital. I immediately thought of the second option:
“Stay, avoid an inflated cost to their pockets, and help them move forward”
We were (and are) always a close family, so obviously I decided to put aside my aspirations as a doctor and support my parents and siblings. I felt sad, but at the same time happy for all of them: I remembered those times when mom and dad stayed awake to take care of me in the hospital when asthma prevented me from breathing normally. How could I leave them alone when they were always by my side in difficult situations? They tried to change my mind, but I adamantly refused to leave them inundated with problems.
There I understood that dreams can wait a bit, but the family is only one: we cannot abandon it when there are problems. I live in a province with few university offers so, with no other options, I had to study engineering, something I never anticipated in my life. Little by little I fell in love with complex calculations and construction works, without forgetting my initial goal: medicine. I graduated two years ago, and currently work as a civil engineering engineer. I didn't get to be a doctor... But who says I still can't be?
It's never too late to fulfill our dreams, and this WE has helped me project myself again. Of course I'm not as young as I used to be, but at least I'm still strong, enough to study the specialty of medicine that I was never able to practice. Today I say to myself Cheer up! We can still be the best doctor in the world.
There is nothing impossible! Because even the oldest seeds can become the most beautiful flowers in the garden.
And at this moment, I know that I can try again to flourish, just like that child I was and who wanted with so much love to fulfill his doctor's dream. This time, I know that if I can make it...