Memory for Saturday, April 25, 20226
My earliest memory about what I would be when grown up was I would be a medical doctor. This was the intense desire of my parents. Later it would be the intense desire of my best friend and my first long-term girlfriend. When I got to college, my major was pre-med and I was doing well. Then, one morning at the very start of my junior year, I woke up with the realization that, no, I was not to be a doctor. That was not to be my way. I had never had such an experience but it was so intense, that I could not ignore it and had to change to something else. I changed my major to experimental psychology. My parents were incredulous, my best friend said goodbye and my girlfirend ended our relationship. Letting go of being a doctor cost me a great deal, but I have never felt it was a wrong decision. If anything, it taught me to pay attention to intense experiences coming from “somewhere” I did not know, but would come to learn about later.
I was on the road to being a doctor and instead of it being my choice, my parents would not cosign for a loan in those days for medical school. I took the MCAT in the spring before I graduated and passed. Because I’ve gone to Berkeley, I had a choice of a lot of schools in the area. Stanford offered me a place as did UCSF. My husband got into Boalt law school but again, the money was an issue.
The only problem was how is I going to pay for it. So I went to my parents and asked them to cosign for student loans, and looked into scholarships, but they would not sign the paperwork. Now, in hindsight, I think I would’ve made a good doctor. But I would’ve been a doctor who is the same person I am. So why I spend seven years plus doing something that I would never really have fit into. My stronger inclination became crystal clear after that opportunity was taken for me. And I spent the 7 years becoming an analyst. I often use medicine as metaphor in looking at dreams. But however one knows the path, whether the decision comes from a deeper inner source or from external circumstances, I just know that life wants life. And the path reveals itself under layers of detritus, covering the true hidden pathways. Personally, I am glad you were dissuaded by a greater source from the practice of medicine. Though it may still inform you, your calling is the psyche. Thank god.
Russ, your ability to listen and act on your experiences is truly remarkable and intensely brave. Your memory sparked one in me. Once I decided to be a scientist by the end of my second year in college, I knew there was no turning back. It was 1967 and the Vietnam war was calling for more and more soldiers. Many of my friends were switching majors in an attempt to prevent being drafted. I knew I only had this one shot to fulfil my intense interest in science and I remained a biology major despite the risk of being drafted as my best friend was and who was killed within 6 months of arriving in Vietnam. Happily, I was never drafted and went on to become a scientist, but have never fogotten my friend and always wondered what he wanted his life to be. How and why we make the decisions that shape our lives is a most wondrous thing.
My career path ‘fit’ was a little more oblique and external. Post-high school, I too lucked out with the Vietnam War draft. I figured I’d become a cinematographer, got a maintenance job at Universal Studios, and started studying radio-TV-film in college. At least until my girlfriend at the time blurted out in the car after a dinner out, “You should be a psychologist!” Huh? Me? Huh? She then gifted me with a year’s subscription to Psychology Today magazine. One of the first issues’ cover stories was on the Freud-Jung letters. Enough said: seeds planted, fate took root, majors abruptly changed, destiny fulfilled! Dumb luck? Gratitude!!