Dear teenager,
On this very important day for you I wanted to tell you about my medical school reunion I went to recently.
It’s been 20 years since I graduated from medical school and it was wonderful to spend some time with the people who had formed such a significant part of my life back then. As I walked out of the tube station to my old flat it was like walking back in time twenty years. I wish I could have had the opportunity for future me to go back to that time and speak to that young woman and tell her a few things about life that may have reassured her or calmed her down (I was pretty highly strung). Of course that’s not possible, but if you’ll allow me to, I can share that wisdom with you.
It's results day and it feels like your entire future depends on the results you are going to get.
Maybe you’ve worked so hard (perhaps at the expense of your own wellbeing) and have set your standards so high you only will feel you’ve succeeded if you get the best possible results. Maybe you’ve tried so hard to fit in and achieve social status you haven’t studied as hard as you could have and you’re wondering what could have been if you had tried harder. Maybe you’re happy with your results, maybe you’re disappointed. Whatever, you can feel the emotion in the air as one chapter ends and another begins right in front of your eyes. You and your friends will never share such a milestone in the same way again.
You may think you need to do a certain list of things next to be successful. You want to be successful because you want to matter and you want to belong in the world. You have spent the last few years of your adolescence trying to fit in and find your place, yet maybe you’ve not quite felt that you truly belong. Go ahead – strive for these goals and forge ahead. Always be curious. Be curious about the people you meet. Be curious about your why – what matters about to you? Try and see the tough times as opportunities – it won’t always be easy to do this though. Find the joy wherever you can - you have to take it when you can and don’t sacrifice it to achieve – it very rarely pays off and you ultimately end up facing burn out in the eye. Don’t try and plan everything out – life will always have one up on you over that….
Above all, know that you do not need exam results to matter. You do not need to achieve things to be successful. Life will happen exactly as it's meant to. If you stay as true to yourself as you can, you will find that you no longer need to try to fit in. Instead you will find that you belong just as you always have done.
Louise x
