SO YOU WANT TO BE A DOCTOR: And it becomes harder to think this is a good idea when Maria writes this. Or this.

Well, that's just part of residency, right? It's what you have to get through to get to where you want to be. Probing the orifices of your fellow citizens and having to explain to the dying why they are dying--it's not something you'll have to do forever. It's the degree you want, and the opportunities that go with it. The other things are things that can be endured on the way to that point.

Well, why that degree? That is the question. Why that degree versus any other degree and I compare that to every other degree I could possibly get and that's what I have to do, to decide if I really want to go through all this.

Of course, I could just not get in anywhere, rendering this bit of self-doubt. But let's leave that aside for now.

My essay--it presented a point of view, but it did not lie. The good arguments for me being a physician are historical in nature: that I know what it is to be one, and I've worked in a medical environment, and basically there's this historical process leading me to think being a physician is what I want to do with my life. Well, maybe that's a bad argument.

The other good argument for me being a physician is that I do not want to be an office drone for the rest of my days, nosireebob. But that's a good argument for pursuing any kind of higher education.

The good argument for me not being a physician is that so little of my will seems to be involved in this decision. Doing things because they make sense and not because you want to do them--well, you're not supposed to marry somebody just because it's convenient, you know? So I don't know if you're not supposed to do that with your career either. Probably not--it doesn't seem like it leads to happiness. And you're supposed to try and be happy in this life.

So I don't know. Maybe this is just the high tide of my self-doubt. It's not like I haven't been thinking about medicine for a while.