You Choose. They Don’t #MEOnChoosingToBeHappy

She said vigilantly “I hope you are still practicing your medicine!” And I gave my rehearsed canned response, “Yes I am”, listing all the places I work at, even if it is once a month, just because I know people care about you being a doctor more than how often you work. Who cares how much you work, because all doctors are rich right? I waited a few seconds then asked her, “Would you be disappointed if I had stopped practicing? And why?”. She said “Of course! Why leave a good and stable profession like medicine.” (paraphrase).

You want to know what I think when I have this conversation with people? (This conversation that happens as often in this culture as people ask me what I do to make my hair look like this?). Here are my thoughts:

1. You come from a generation that believed in the security of the ‘stable profession’, which on the contrary are no longer so stable. I can accept this, because it is what you know.

2. If you believed I had what it takes to be a sustainable musician, you would never care to encourage me to continue medicine so strongly, as music would appear to be equally sustainable. I know it is sometimes an underhanded way of saying that I’m not good enough, so I should stop wasting my time. This I don’t support.

3. Such persons may have never ever had passions in their lives, and if you have never had or lived for something passionately, then you would never get why people do things for love. You would never get why someone sacrifices so many aspects of their life for this one thing that they believe in — usually only them at first, until people catch on to what they always knew. This thing they are so certain about that lives within them. I wish for everyone to find a passion.

4. I want you to know that I am grateful for my journey and all that God has blessed me with. Medicine is noble and I have no regrets about it. Music is equally noble and I have no regrets about it. Whatever happens in the next 10 years, whether I’m a full-time musician, a full-time doctor, still juggling both, or even changing professions…I want you to know that it is not ok to thrust your personal desires upon people, and I will be gracious about it to you out of respect, but I really don’t care what you want me to be. I’m going to do whatever I want, irrespective. So even if I end up selling newspaper on a Sunday sake a bruk pocket, due to mi ‘chupid passionate decisions’, at least I know I will be happy about my choices. If I died the next day I would have had no regrets. Everything more woulda been extra…just some damn good brawta. So you should spend your time being happy about your choices.

With L.O.V.E.,

Mario.