Riding My Train

"Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. it's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere."

-Barack Obama

I have always been someone who looks to the future. I used to constantly plan and think about my next move in life, and what I needed to do to achieve those goals. When I was diagnosed in March 2007, I didn't waste any time coming up with a plan to get myself back on track once my treatment was completed. I figured I would go through 3-4 months of treatment in Hong Kong, go into remission, get back to working full time shortly thereafter, and eventually move back to the US where I would attend grad school, get married and start a family.

If you asked me then where I saw myself in the summer of 2009, 'living at home with my parents still undergoing chemotherapy' would have been the last thing from my mouth. But, as I've unfortunately come to find out, you can't always expect things to work out according to a plan. I am still living at home going through treatment. I have not been able to accomplish any of the personal and professional goals I set out for myself since then.

The fact that this battle has not ended used to make me very angry and depressed. I felt like my peers and I were all riding on the same train. Everyone wanted to reach the final destination (successful life, money, family, big house, etc.) as quickly as possible, and nobody wanted to get off. When I was diagnosed, I was basically pushed off the train, and I wanted nothing more to get back on as soon as I could. I would reach the last stop later than everyone else, but at least I would still get there.

But what I've come to realize over the past few years is that we're not all on the same train. We're on separate trains, each one traveling at its own speed, headed in its own unique direction. The difficulty, of course, is that we don't have any idea which train we're on, and often times that makes us believe we're headed in the wrong direction. But rather than stressing out about why you're not headed the same way as your friends or co-workers, it's better to relax and enjoy the ride.

Ultimately, this requires a great deal of patience, a virtue that I definitely lacked when this battle began. When you're going in a different, seemingly wrong direction than your friends, it's mentally taxing.

But there are no wrong directions. We're meant to end up in different places, accomplishing different goals along the way. Maybe I am meant to achieve something different what my friends are meant to achieve. The key is being patient enough to work-hard and endure the times of uncertainty so that you can be rewarded in the end.

It may seem ironic that I write about the merits of patience and perseverance since my fight is not over yet, but I know from my own experience that it's the only way to tough it out. I believe that things will work out for the best, so allowing frustration and anxiety to rule my life doesn't make sense.

I'm going to enjoy the ride.