The Plan
Image source: Unsplash
by Namrata Kantamneni
Wake up at 5:30 am. 30 minutes of yoga. 30 minutes of running. Shower. Say a quick prayer with the prayer beads. Breakfast is millets and almonds. Pack my backpack and lunchbox. Head to class by 7:45 am. Class runs till noon. Lunch consists of brown rice with curry made of lentils and vegetables, and plain yogurt rounds out the meal. Then I study through the evening: 1 hour of Anki flashcards, 2 hours of UWorld practice questions, 2 hours reviewing concepts, 1 hour answering emails and other random tasks. Sleep by 10 pm. Rinse and repeat.
I like routine. I like pushing myself. It’s why I fell in love with long-distance running and chose to run cross-country and track in high school—the intoxicatingly alluring runner’s high of pushing past the moment when mind screams surrender and body begs you to stop and give up. The joy of racing in a competition with yourself. The feeling of satisfaction when you keep going, mile after mile, no matter what.
Indeed, isn’t it true that nothing worth having in this life comes easy? That effort makes the end result all the more satisfying?
It makes sense, then, that I find comfort in the plan I set for myself when I was a teen, a plan to be the best physician-scientist I could be. A 50-year life path I wrote out when I was 15. This plan is why I don’t like distractions, nor any changes in the trajectory I set for myself. Because I believe that success is 99% hard work and 1% luck. So if I stick with the plan, with no deviations, I will be the best I can be.
Right?
And yet, a little voice tells me that there is something more. A world outside of this vision of the future I have for myself. I see this world in my artwork from 8th-grade drawing class, in middle school notebooks filled with poetry, and in medals on my bookshelf from singing contests. That world was bright and colorful, filled with fantastical dreams.
I don’t know what happened to that fiery girl. The one who would get into debates and arguments and fight for what she believed in, even if that meant voicing an unpopular opinion in the midst of her peers. The girl who wore braids to school every day, even when the other kids would pull on them and make fun of them. That girl never touched a textbook, instead preferring to help her mother in the garden and get her hands dirty in the soil.
That little girl didn’t know anything about the MCAT, USMLE licensing exams, networking events, or residency. She didn’t do extracurriculars just to “build her CV,” and she certainly didn’t care about climbing the ladder of ambition.
When do we lose that part of ourselves?
It would be easy to point to a singular moment in time, a point when the harsh reality of the world set in and we had to “grow up.”
But in my opinion, that is far too simplistic an answer.
Instead, it happens slowly.
It insidiously creeps up, a sort of “death by a thousand cuts.” Slowly, the fantastically colourful and passionate world of our childhood loses its color. We stop doodling in our sketchbooks on a random Wednesday, stop playing with the rocks in the garden on a random Sunday, and stop observing the way the earthworm moves in the soil on a random Monday.
Instead, we build castles in the sky. These goals and plans start in high school, with AP courses and SAT prep, class rankings, and the dream college acceptance. They shapeshift in college, changing to MCAT scores and organic chemistry labs, and the hope of getting into the dream med school. Then in med school, the goalpost changes again, instead, this time filled with research projects and volunteering hours and Step scores and matching into the dream residency.
And over time, as the goalposts changed, so did I. Slowly, but surely.
And I don’t know the solution for this.
But today, it is raining. And though not a solution, the rain gently cools and tempers the fire within.
The rain begins softly, droplets kissing the blades of grass, a gentle rhythm filling the quiet of the morning. The sky fades into a hazy gray, a muted but beautiful canvas. Some might crave the warmth of a fireplace on a day like this, but instead I find myself longing for the rainy drizzle, for the cool dew on my brow, for the breeze brushing my cheeks. A reminder that the world is alive, God’s pulse surging through every atom of my existence.
So I don my running shoes and step outside.
As I run, my thoughts run too, tumbling like stones in a stream: the coagulation cascade—do I recall its intrinsic and extrinsic pathways? The steps of the urea cycle? Cholesterol synthesis, cranial nerves, forearm muscles, their innervations—the endless notes of a mind tasked with ever-looming exams.
I wrestle these thoughts to soothe the stormy, turbulent waters of my psyche. To find the calm that yogis have perfected over millennia.
But calm evades me.
Instead, my unquiet mind turns to the past, the present, the future.
Thoughts rush in, like the muddy rain percolating through my socks: Am I doing well enough on practice questions? Should I take on another research project? More evenings volunteering at the free clinic? How can I do well on my current rotation? What else do I need to do to match my dream residency? What if I change my specialty? What should be my backup plan?
The thoughts flit, restless birds on a windowsill. They grow louder, building castles in the sky— residency, career, family, endless decades of to-do lists, spinning faster and faster, much like my legs in the final mile, sprinting as the rain turns into a storm.
Faster, I sprint. The burn spreads through my mud-caked calves. Breathless, my lungs heave. And in that searing pain, the thoughts dissolve.
For one fleeting moment of respite, my mind is blank— free.
Namrata Kantamneni is a third-year medical student at the UTCOMLS
