Author: Robert Quiroz

I was lucky enough to talk to the anesthesiologist for our ACL surgery today. He was a young doctor—around early to mid 30s. He told me, “I started college and enjoyed the freedom. I did poorly my first two years causing me to go to med school in New Orleans.” Little did he know, I was also doing extremely poorly my first two years of college. However, I saw this anecdote as motivation and a new will to chase my dreams into a reality. Even though he had to attend a lower tier medical school in a modest location, he ended up in a well establish hospital in Southern California—not to mention in anesthesia. The main premise of this story is to help you realize there is always multiple ways to get to where you want to go. You may have to work harder coming from a less prestige school or job, but it matters where you finish. It’s easy to get caught up in your surroundings. You are constantly surrounded by a false reality where it seems that everyone is ahead of you in life. In order to help with overthinking, I came up with three simple statements that should constantly being going though your head.

1. Find Your Purpose

We spend so much of our lives living other people’s lives. Are you doing something because your family wants you to or because you want to? I instead rearrange this mindset into one where I use my family name as motivation. I have lines of generations who have sacrificed their lives living in the “lower” class to live the life I live today. People like me aren’t supposed to be doctors. My story is bigger than myself, and so is yours. If anything or anyone is pushing you to do something besides you, you are not meant to be doing that. Life is too short to be living someone else’s life. If you don’t know what you love, find it. A simple rule I like to follow is that if a certain idea persists in my head for multiple years on end this is my calling to do that certain thing.

2. Accept Your Anxiety

Once you find your purpose, everything follows. Slow down, enjoy life, and the process of your work. It’s easy to compare yourself to your peers in your line of work, but they’re them and they’re not you.

3. Don’t Stop

At such a young age, I have failed many times. But you can’t let failure deter you from your goals. These failures can play games in your head—causing doubt and even more overthinking. The will to constantly do something despite failure is what makes successful people—knowing that you’ve failed one thousand times and you are willing to fail one thousand and one times. As a person who overthinks, this unfortunate trait will never go away. But, you must overpower those thoughts by coming back to point one. Keep going, push though, maintain consistency, and allow hard work to speak for itself.

So much happens in our life but we forget it all. If we don’t write things down, then a life without memories is pointless. Start to journal, and write about the little things. Most of the time, you only remember big things—things that affect you personally. The good, the bad, and the ugly. When you reminisce and realize how fragile life is you try to remember those little moments. The time you gazed into the stars as your parents drove you home. The time where you and your friends went on a spontaneous adventure in the late evening. Memories makes you question what life is really about. Events ultimately shape you, and how you want to live your life. Some people focus on money and use it as daily motivation in their hectic lives, while others focus on non-materialistic things like love and joy from their environment. 

Donald Miller does a great job of capturing the importance of life as being what you make it. Life is a story and we hold the pen. This book explores the possibility of a producer following you to make a documentary. It is another easy to read literary piece that defines the important of a story and its components. If you are looking for a book that changes your view in life along with some spiritual references, I highly recommend this one. In case you would rather get straight to its message, I have summed up its important passages here.

“And once you know what it takes to live a better story, you don’t have a choice. Not living a better story would be like deciding to die, deciding to walk around numb until you die, and it’s not natural to want to die.”

Miller was given the opportunity to remake his own life through a movie. After following him around, the directors said his life was boring. There were no deep rooted family issues, nor tragic deaths or anything of that nature. It seems as if the directors were related to people who read medical school applications. As they began recreating his character, he realized they were creating a different person with witty characteristics he wish he had. This specific part reminded me of creating my own character in a video game. I remember making myself a tall muscular guy who always had a commanding presence in the room. Even at an early age, my insecurities subconsciously dominated. Focus on what you are able to control, and if there is even a 1% chance of being able to achieve those goals—go after them. After all, you never know who could be interested in your life in the future. Create memorable events and take educated risks. There are always multiple pathways to get to where you want be.

“He said to me I was a tree in a story about a forest, and that it was arrogant of me to believe any differently. And he told me the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree.”

No one likes boring stories. The most captivating stories involve death and the main character using his courage to go against any possible fear. As a believer of God, I see so many horrible things happen in the world. This past year has been horrendous, and I never seem to see this situation to come to good hopes. If a creator exists, why does he make us endure so much pain? Why are innocent lives constantly being taken away because of a virus? Why are Muslims being sent away into concentration camps just because of their beliefs? It’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when the media is constantly pushing stories that are gruesome. But, we love it. So many people wake up and consume the media because it catches our attention. This book makes the point that all of hardships are never seen as great stories, unless someone else is viewing it from the outside. We constantly think God is unjust, but never think about how he may be the master storyteller.

“But fear isn’t only a guide to keep us safe; it’s also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life”

Two months ago, I started receiving more frequent and painful migraines. The pain was so excruciating, I threw up multiple times. I put my ego aside and went to the hospital after a week long pain. After an MRI and a few tests, the results came back negative. I concluded my stress was causing tension making my migraines worse. I always had bad anxiety, but at a young age I thought it was because I was scared of death. Seeing family members get sick and die slowly in front of your eyes, made me realize the value of time at a young age. My parents never shied away from the fear of death. They took me to all the funerals because it was important to witness the pain life can bring. However, I realized something as I got older. I was never scared of death. I was scared of becoming a failure. The moment I looked at my symptoms, I immediately thought the worst. I believe I have been given talents and skills that be served to better my community as a physician. The path has been difficult, but what would be even worse is giving up. I’m not scared of death, but I’m scared of finishing a life of not reaching my goals. I fear a life where I could have accomplished the impossible, and chose not to because of social and societal pressures.

“It wasn’t necessary to win for the story to be great, it was only necessary to sacrifice everything.”

I woke up at four am, only having three hours of sleep. I was granted first hand experience of shadowing an orthopedic surgeon. I don’t know if it was pure excitement or rather nervousness from the possibility of fainting at the first site of blood. I did not know what to expect, and that’s joy of innocence. Prior to walking into the OR, I was guided to scrubs and eventually had to put on a surgical cap and booties. I was unaware of the sheer difficulty of putting on these so called “booties” until now. With my cap halfway covering my hair and wobbling on one foot to squeeze on a piece of fabric to cover my shoe, I eventually sterilized my arms and proceeded to the OR. I didn’t know what was more shocking, the horrid yet comforting smell of cleanliness or tidy process of providing proper cleaning prior to the first surgery. Everyone had a role, and well I, I was sitting on a circular stool sweating through my scrubs. The sanitation process felt like a couple of hours, and finally people began to gown up. The anesthesiologist was on his way, and was already pre occupied with paperwork—perhaps a book too. After a couple of hours from entering the premises, the surgeon finally arrived and like an artist being completely indwelled into his craft he began to work. This surgeon emphasized the speed of the surgery to prevent further and longer recovery times. These ACL surgeries often happened around ten times year in this facility and I was lucky enough to witness it. The cadaver’s tendon was ready, and thawed out for surgery. A few holes into the knee, 45 minutes, and what seemed to be like 100 instruments the surgery was eventually complete. I was amazed. Words can’t describe the shock value of what I experienced. It was a sense of belonging allowing me to recognize what I was finally passionate about. My brain was exhausted after 9 hours of soaking up constant information from an environment I have never been around. I learned a lot about the power of pure listening and watching. Even though my grades recently have not been the greatest, and everything around me and the world seeming to fall apart, it felt like everything stopped for once. But hey, I guess it’s like surgery. “Don’t be afraid of blood loss, it stops eventually.”

This book is the prime reason as to why I started my creative journey. It is short and easy to ready—allowing this piece of work to be perfect for anyone in a creative slump or who wants to start this process of sharing their work. Like many others, I found myself as a relatively creative person at a young age. From creating cringey Youtube videos or starting their rap career on Soundcloud, none of that creative edge ever dies out as you approach adulthood. The pursuit of creating an art form was eventually taken away due to the sheer lack of time consumed from studies and eventually a multitude of jobs as I became more adult like. However, this book expanded on the idea that we are all artists. We may not be painters or have the ability to pick up a camera and take beautiful pictures, but we do a have a brain that has the capacity to share our own thoughts and ideas in the world—especially in this robust society where the pursuit of a certain pathway in life is shared amongst others.

“Become a documentarian of what you do.”

If I were to sum up this short and concise book into a sentence, the quote above would do it justice. We all have our passions in life and mine is to educate and inspire other pre health Latinx students. I love photography and videography, so why not combine my passions in order to spread my message. Only about 2% of the work force in the US are considered artists—leaving us to never cater to our creative sides. Use time management to your advantage, and share your work. Learn something new and share to the world that quirky hobby no one is aware of.

“Make stuff you love and talk about stuff you love and you’ll attract people who love that kind of stuff. It’s that simple.”

Be proud of who you are holistically. Get over that hurdle and success will follow. You may not know how to share your voice, but I don’t either. Most creatives don’t figure out their voice until an audience finds them and creates it. Use your style to your advantage, and have a preference on what you like to do. In the day an age of social media and technology, society is growing at such a fast rate that everyone is constantly learning. We are all amateurs, just some people act better than others. Not even the best surgeons consider their work at a mastery level. Everyone is constantly learning, but the ones who find success are the ones who start their work—even when it seems too late—and maintains consistency. Be findable, focus on one media outlet, and use it daily. This method will allows you to focus and decide on what you truly enjoy. Prioritize yourself, and interesting content that grasps an audience will follow.

“Don’t try to be hip or cool. Being open and honest about what you like is the best way to connect with people who like those things, too.”

It is so easy to be caught up in the lavish lifestyles you see your peers living. However, people fail to realize the consistency and the amount of time day in and day out that needs to be put forward in order to achieve this. Worry about your path and don’t try and create something hip that has never been seen before. Use your influences, copy their work, and add your twist. remember to share what you know even if it is something minute because a lot of people are in your shoes. Take myself for example, I have not gotten anywhere yet but think of my possible audience. I am a pre health college major which already invites thousands of students across the globe. Other traits like your style, personality, or even ethnicity just allows your community to spread and relate to each other. Stick with your work and don’t forget to monetize it.

“The people who get what they’re after are very often the ones who just stick around long enough.”