Lawyered

Lawyered

apparently, everyone thinks I should be a lawyer.

Why? Apparently I have a fabulous logical pathway, that or I'm just better at communicating my logical projection than others. And I have a lot of difficulty backing down from a fight.

Problem one: I have no poker face whatsoever. My emotions show straight through to my facial expression unless Im paying particularly close attention to keeping deadpan. Apparently I do all these little things that I'm not aware of when I'm having silent conversations with myself.

So, I couldn't be a trial lawyer. I couldn't stand up in front of a bunch of people and try to talk them into agreeing with me. Too stressful. But I probably could write beautiful persuasive reports.

If my profession had been chosen for me, I would have been a lawyer, so says people who are older and supposedly wiser than me. Then why did I choose to be a doctor? I have this one particular talent; is it transferable? Am I wasting my potential by pursuing the path that I am slightly less equipped for?

I don't think so. Because there's more to a profession than ability. There has to be drive; passion, ambition, whatever it is that keeps you fulfilling your potential for that particular task. If I were to pursue a career in law, I would probably be a lot less motivated, and so even with the advantage of talent produce a lot less than what I can accomplish in a career that I'm really passionate about.

Well, that's not news to anyone. But lets compare the motivations I might have for being a doctor versus a lawyer. Yes, biology is really cool, but its not the only thing I could get excited about. It's not like I always wanted to be a doctor. My current motivation is that its the best profession to allow me to help people directly and to get me out of a static, stagnating living situation. One thing I'm reasonably sure of is that I want to spend a lot of time out my home country. I want to go to Africa, South America, the places where they really need help. I could lobby for improvement in those regions from here, theoretically, but at least right now I have a desperate need to get out of industrialized society. I couldn't continue for years and years commuting from my home with internet and central air conditioning to an office where I had to wear really nice clothes all the time. I can't stand being dressy. My choice to be a physician is at least slightly motivated by my need to dress comfortably, and to not spend exhorbitant amounts of money making myself look nice for the benefit of people who simply use that as a baseline standard rather than as a bonus in their judgment of others.

There's something that is just not nearly as fulfilling as the hands-off approach. If I were to lawyer policy changes for the regions and populations I'm concerned with, I would still be relying on others to carry that through. I never meet the people that benefit from my intervention. I have no control over the quality of care, the human-to-human aspect. Because pretty much anything that gets lawyered through involves compulsion. Would I be sending military aide forces to these areas? Jobs that they didn't sign up for, individuals with prejudices who perform the job just within the lines set by their commanding officers? That's not enough. In fact, that really just makes room for things to get even worse, in terms of inter-cultural relations. No, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, isn't that the mantra? So if I want these underserved peoples to get not just medical care, but humanistic, quality of life care, essential education and a positive experience with visitors from other cultures, then I have to be the ambassador.