Today I turn 26, officially ending the first quarter of my life. During this time of tumult and apprehension I have become consumed with questions about the future. Maybe it is a quarter life crisis, maybe all people my age feel uncertain and anxious, or maybe it is just the result of recent events that have left me reeling: love on the brink of dark sadness, an academic career that demands impossible amounts of focus, and the need to find the strength to stand up when forces pull me in all directions. Yet I know I cannot give up. Not on anything.

I have decided to become a psychiatrist. I fell in love with the idea of the patient being more than a disease or a body part. This is the specialty where taking a history really means getting to know the person. It matters what their relationship was like with their parents, and what their religion is, and how happy they are, everything matters.

I like that because I recognize that in myself. Every decision I make is based on the culmination of all that I have learned and concern for all the people around me and of course concern for the future.

The mind is still a frontier to medical science. There is much we know, and much more than we have not yet begun to discover, and I want to be a part of that.

I know there is still a stigma associated with this field: ?it is not real medicine? etc. None of that bothers me. I just want to lead a quiet simple life, helping the best way I know how. And perhaps change a few minds along the way.

I am uncertain about the future, but there are a few things I am certain of. I am going to keep pushing on because I have no other option. I am going to enjoy love while I can and not let what is possible and impossible get in the way. And the future is entirely uncertain.