What a great comment! I’m really glad to hear that you’ve spent quite a bit of time really thinking about why you do what you do.

You pose a really good question though. It’s unfortunate that, in some cases, survival must come before pursuing happiness – the problem, like you mentioned, is that this concept of survival is often passed down to future generations, even if being in survival mode doesn’t necessarily apply to them (since they are better supported).

Changing a mentality that has been and continues to be the most prevalent, such as this one, is really difficult. For the most part, I doubt you can change it in your parents or those from previous generations.

I think what’s best is to educate those who still have the opportunity to really make that decision in pursuit of personal happiness – that is, people who are still young, have many major choices left to go, and have the bulk of their lives ahead of them.

Talk to your friends, peers, and classmates. Engage in discussion, really try and get them to reflect deeper, and hopefully they can start to see what you’re trying to say.

That’s why I write things like this in my blog. I don’t expect everyone to necessarily agree, and I’m not saying I’m right – it’s just my perspective. Hopefully, this way of looking at it will make some people happier in their lives, and I’d be very glad if that happens.

It’s great to see that other people my age have also figured out that pursuing “work” and activities that make you happy is one of the best ways towards fulfilment (the other being healthy relationships with friends and family). I am in Computer Science, not in Medicine, but what you have written applies to us as well.

I question frequently why I do the activities I do, why I take the courses I take, and why I do the jobs I do, in order to have a clear compass and see where I am headed; sometimes it’s very hard because you realize that you need to do things that do not satisfy you that much (e.g. I need to take course X to graduate even though I don’t like it) but at the end of the day you have to know yourself so you can realize what you want and what is important to you.

I am just wondering though: what happens with people who do not have the luxury to pursue the activities that they enjoy the most…like most people’s parents, who need to work on things that don’t necessarily satisfy them just because “someone needs to bring money to the house.” How can we change that mentality? Can we, or rather, should we?

Because it’s easy for people like us who are in our twenties to talk about doing what we like the most when we have our families’ support and our lives ahead of us, but it becomes very difficult to convince our fathers and mothers to do the same, especially if they are used to lives of simply making ends meet.

I started typing up a response to your question, but when I realized I had so many reasons I wanted to mention (both pros and cons of me having a career in medicine) that I’m going to turn it into an entire article instead. Thanks for the idea! =)