What Drives Us?

The coming months are hectic times for pre-med students. This is a time when medical school applicants receive either good news or the bad.  My news arrived on January 6th @ 12 pm, it was bad news. The words "regret, no interview" plastered on my "check status" page. 

What utter dissapointment I felt at that moment. It hit me so hard, all I remember is sitting dazed in front of the computer and wondering what the hell happened and what my future entails. The problem is that I am graduating this year, sure I could get a job, apply next year, but that is not what I want to do. Granted in the many many hours following the "knock me out from under my feet" news, I did compose a plan that I am happy with. But what was so devastating was that, before January 6th @ 12 pm the only thing my future held was medical school. When your only plan gets shattered, it is not a good feeling.

Anybody that watches Scrubs, either knows this feeling, or knows about this feeling. Remember when JD gets Elliot and he realizes that when he gets what he wants he doesn't want it anymore. Well for me this is the opposite, when I don't get what I want I want it even more.

So in reality what drives us? According to psychologist there is intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, and those that depend on intrinsic motivation are generally more successful and happier than those that depend on extrinsic. 

By being rejected by my med school of choice, has confused what motivates me to become a doctor. In these modern times, the noble vision of what a doctor is has be sullied by finance, beauracrats, power, lobbyist, marketers.  But I thought that the idea of helping people is what drove me to become a doctor (well there is also the attraction of the prestige of entering medical school).  Now, it seems that the drive to get back the opportunity that was taken from me is what is driving me. 

So what drives us? What motivates us? My theory is that there are many many many factors involved. This is not a mind-blowing cutting edge theory, but I think the factors can be split up into the good and the bad. Once we are able to list the good and the bad, we can make decisions that can positively influence our lives. Me as an example, my greatest drive right now seems to be out of spite, what happens when I do get in, will I be happy? Will I be happy that I satisfied my spite? Will I be happy knowing the spite drove me to my future?

I do not know, just something to ponder.  

What is the lesson to take away from this. Well I did not get my interview because I was careless and cocky. Careless because I did not follow the instructions properly, cocky because I did not think I needed to follow the instructions. I will not make these mistakes again. 

Every once in a while we all feel that wish, the wish that we could travel back in time and redo something another way. We think that by changing one little thing we did in the past our future right now would be perfect. That may be true, may be not, but the one thing we can do is realize the mistake. That is it, realizing doesn't neccessarily mean prevent it, but it does help.