Once Chance is Enough

On a warm August night in 2012, I was getting ready for bed in a hotel room in a resort town in Turkey. For the past week, I had been traveling with my wife, vacationing just after having finished my residency in anesthesiology at the University of Texas at Houston.

I was a feeling terribly anxious throughout the trip. The anxiety I had been feeling was because I was awaiting my written board scores for anesthesiology. They are considered very challenging, and many of the brightest residents across the country don’t pass it on the first attempt. This was my first attempt, and as you know, I wanted, no needed, to pass it. It was the culmination of my previous exams beginning in college and would be the last written examination I’d have to take to satisfy the American Board of Anesthesiology.

Test taking had always been an Achilles heel for me since college, and I always felt that I wasn’t reaching my full potential. Countless educators closed doors on me based on test scores alone, and I felt that was a huge disservice to others and myself. I even had one educator look me in the eye and say, “based on your scores, I can guarantee that you won’t succeed in medicine. You should think about pursuing something else.”

In response, I nodded my head respectfully while internally I fumed. This became a real challenge for me. I wanted to prove everybody wrong. I wanted to give myself the dignity of being more than just a statistic. I told myself that nothing would hold me back.

I remember trying to channel that energy the same day I was told to forget about medicine. A family friend had gone to a school called St. George’s University School of Medicine in Grenada. We spoke at length that night. At first I was apprehensive about going abroad to study medicine, but then a realization immediately hit me.

Take the opportunities that come your way and do something magnificent with them.

I applied that very night, completing the entire application whilst sitting alone in a library in Austin, Texas. I’m sure my roommates were wondering where the hell I was.

Within a month, I had my acceptance letter, and the journey began.

Now, back to the night in Turkey.

So, when my wife told me she had seen others in my class post their results on Facebook; my heart sank into my gut. With shaking hands, I opened the website and viewed the results:

I PASSED.

Look, one might think I jumped into the air and screamed, but that didn’t happen. (that was for another day)

I fell to my knees, literally, put my head on the ground, and said, “Thank You.” repeatedly through weeps and sobs.

It was simply a rush of gratitude that I had overcome my biggest adversary: myself. Sometimes we have to get out of our own way to actually fulfill our own potential.

I have a lot to be grateful for. I’ve been fortunate to continue my pursuit of medicine through both academic and private sectors, I’ve been fortunate enough to serve others in other countries via missions, I’ve made it my mission to help students globally via drbeen.com, and I’ve been able to pass on my stories and experiences to my wife and 4 children.

But most importantly, I’ve made it my mission to show utmost gratitude to the people who took a chance on me when nobody else would. The people in my life who wouldn’t let me settle for anything less than seeing the manifestation of my dreams.

They know who they are, and to all of them I say, “Thank you.”

One of my spiritual teachers once told me that the point of any meaningful journey is to never arrive.

So, here’s to never arriving, and continuing that journey, every minute of every day.