Alternative Timeline
If you were to reset your life back to the end of high school and follow a different path, where would it lead?
While posing for an Instagram photo yesterday, it struck me how happy I felt holding hands with a tree we had freshly rooted in the earth. Three hours earlier, Lauren and I had met up with her friends Maddox and Krupa on a random street in Indy to volunteer with the seriously dope organization Keep Indianapolis Beautiful (KIB). We got a quick demo on proper tree planting technique—“the volcano is no bueno”—and set to work. I loved being able to escape the LED lights of hospital workrooms into the cold crisp air of late Indiana Autumn. The feeling of using my fitness and muscle to accomplish a task. The laughter we spewed over funny voices, punning, and fictional product endorsements. It was pretty much my perfect way to spend a Saturday morning.
However, it wasn't just the activity, but also its implications that so filled me up. Combining our work with others, we had planted dozens of trees that would now be sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere, beautifying the street, raising property values, and acting as focal points of purpose for teenagers employed to tend to their well-being. What grand aspirations for these spindly saplings now lining the streets.
I love activities that accomplish layers of impact for the well-being of people and their community. I love being a pediatrician, and I feel empowered to accomplish this mission as the years go on, but there's more than one way to serve. If I were to start over at the onset of college, I would aspire to do the work of groups like KIB, Rock Creek Conservancy with their youth corps in Washington, DC, or Plant Chicago with its radical construction of circular economies. These organizations still cultivate the well-being of youth and their communities, while enabling more physical activity and time outdoors.
The good news is I can still engage with this work as pediatrician, especially in the future as I gain more autonomy over the ways I spend my time. Perhaps my medical training could enable ways to integrate small acts of healthcare into the work of such organizations. Rather then pining after the outcomes of alternative timelines, I'd rather merge them into my current reality.
