When others wanted to smoke pot and play around at UNC-Greensboro, I was hitting the books and struggling to work, pay for my education and make decent grades so I could go on to fulfill my goal of being a doctor. While many of my friends had parents who could pay for their education, I signed my name on the dotted line to assume debts for a career which is now under siege and threatening to remove doctors from the doctor patient relationship.
In medical school while many were at football games, getting married and raising families, I sweltered in the gross anatomy lab dissecting bodies to learn how we are put together. When even some in my peer group didn’t want to work the cancer wards, I did so for as a preacher’s kid I learned the need to bring comfort to those with life’s struggles. When others chose the better paying specialties, I stuck with family medicine because I believed in families as the center of society.
Now upon hearing the arrogance of someone ranting that those who have sacrificed to build a business, to deliver a service or to teach a child didn’t get there on their own, I appreciate more and more the value of my hard work and investments in people which have helped me grow. So too have I appreciated others who prayed for me, put a folded dollar in my hand at church, encouraged me when I was down, tutored me when I didn’t understand and loved me when I didn’t always feel loved. Barack Obama is so wrong in down playing the sacrifices of those who have in some ways succeeded for if they hadn’t had the intestinal fortitude to go for it, no matter the contributions of others to their lives, that individual would not have made it.
Taking individual responsibility and being willing to step to the plate when it is your turn at bat are the hallmarks of those who have succeeded. It is in these steps that no one can do for you which show that you are truly on your own. I always tell my kids, friends and others that there but by the Grace of G-d go I. If I hadn’t taken the individual initiative that fulfilling dreams required, I could have never looked back in wonder and appreciation at “how I got over.”
