Why I’m Happiest at Work
How I found purpose in life and how you can too
“Have you drilled a burr hole before?” the attending neurosurgeon asked me as we’re standing at the patient’s head. “Once before… on a cadaver,” I responded naively but confidently. He hands me the drill, “today’s going to be your first one.”
I take a deep breath as I feel the cold steel in my hands, looking down at the patient’s bare skull from which we had finished retracting the scalp. I think to myself, “what a privilege it is to do what we do,” while the anatomy of the skull, meninges, and brain parenchyma rush into my head. All thoughts of fear, doubt, insecurity, and failure leave my mind as I focus on everything I had learned to this day.
I step on the foot pedal, hear the high-pitched whirring of the drill fill the silence, and press the tip of the drill firmly against the patient’s skull. Moments later, we had our access point to remove the patient’s golf-ball-sized tumor. His surgery lasted well into the evening. But after another 16-hour workday, I stayed into the night to watch him wake up from anesthesia.
The following morning, I went up to the 5th floor of the hospital to check in with my patient.
“There he is…” he says with a big smile and finger pointed directly at me, “…the guy that saved my life!”
Whether he confused me with the attending surgeon or not (we’re both 5’ 10” males with glasses and a neatly trimmed beard), I was directly involved in the care and removal of cancer from his head. I looked over his stitches, performed a neurological exam, and spent a half-hour chatting with him about his hobbies.
I was stunned at how well he was doing after surgery. He put a smile on my face that I kept on for the rest of the day.
Finding Purpose
We’ve all worked jobs that were unbearable.
I worked in a geophysics laboratory for part of my post-grad experience. It was intellectually stimulating, and I picked up skills, but I came home every evening, dreading the next day. There’s a sense of emotional fatigue that sets in when you hate going to work every morning.
I had zero responsibility after work hours, but I couldn’t get the job out of my head. My sub-conscience would take over every day, imagining the horrors I would see the following day. It was no way to live. I put in a lot of hard work at that job, but I was relieved when I moved on to the next stage of my life.
When you find purpose in life towards a career, work doesn’t feel like work.
My parents always told me, “If you love what you do, you won’t work a day in your life.”
What kind of optimistic nonsense is that?
Well, it looks like my folks were right… again.
My career is in medicine. I’ve put in 8 years of higher education to this point, but it feels like only an hour has gone by. I’ve dedicated all of my golden-20s to enter a field that will spare the rest of my life from “work” because I love what I do. That’s the best payoff, right?
But medicine is far more than a career to me. It’s a lifestyle. I eat, drink, sleep medicine. One I get started on neurosurgery, I often get the response, “…boy, you sure can go on and on about this.” Yes… yes, I can because it’s a passion, both for the science and the patients.
How do you know when you found your purpose?
At one point, I thought it was all about reflection, but it’s easy to rationalize any idea through contemplation. When you reflect, your conscience suppresses the sub-conscience leading to a glorified pros and cons list.
The correct approach is the ask everyone around what their opinion is of you. Ask your friends, relatives, coworkers, parents, significant others, or spouses. The people around you are surprisingly observant and often notice your strengths and weaknesses far before you’ve thought about them.
Think about it from the opposing perspective. How many times have you thought, “Wow, John is always well-prepared to argue, I bet he’d be a good lawyer,” or, “Mary is such a great listener and decision-maker, she’d do well in business.” People have these thoughts about you all of the time.
Throughout my career exploration, I gathered the thoughts of many close friends, teachers, professors, mentors, coworkers, and, most importantly, family. I learned about my characteristics through their impression of my persona. The unanimous push towards medicine allowed me to find my calling.
Don’t Watch the Clock
During my undergraduate experience, I felt like life was a race. There was pressure to quickly finish, take a “traditional” route, and live up to an undefined standard.
The preconceived notions of success in the United States were created through the capitalistic ideals that founded this country.
How many times have you heard, “time is money”? We live in a society that puts a price tag on our livelihood because our value is assessed through the work we contribute. This leads to moral burnout, physical and mental fatigue, and an unrelenting dissatisfaction with life.
When I found my calling in life, I felt liberated from the stranglehold of our nation’s system. My productivity began to grow exponentially the longer I studied medicine because I had a sense of belonging. There is nothing wrong with continually working if that work brings you purpose and happiness.
If you asked me today if the last 8 years and $500,000 of student loan debt were worth it, I’d tell you I’d do it again, even if it took twice the time and money to accomplish.
