Aspire to Inspire

Self reflection is sometimes the hardest thing you can do for yourself. To just sit still and let yourself process life, listen to the inner workings of your own mind, and find your true voice, your direction, your value. It is something that I have to force myself to do from time to time. These past few weeks, as we have worked on the new site, expanding the team, and personally working on my applications to schools I have found myself having to stop and do just that, reflect.

Often times what makes it so hard is the fear that we aren’t listening to our true desires when it comes to how we are living our day to day lives. That maybe we are just going through the motions more than we are pushing our boundaries and testing our limits. While I was completing my pre- medicine post bacc I did a lot more to challenge myself than I had in a while.  After undergrad, I had let myself fall into a rhythm with my life, being at my parent’s, helping with my grandparents, making breakfast for everyone, followed by random outings in the city. At the end of the day I was meandering through life. It wasn’t until my grandfather had his stroke and was bouncing from Upstate to nursing homes and then back to Upstate that I started to truly question what my end goal was.

Holding his hand, bringing him balloons, sitting and reading while he slept, as doctors came to speak with a healthcare proxy and realizing I wasn’t that nor was I medical professional made me so upset with myself. I would never take back those moments with him, being by his side in his final days, but it was hard knowing that I could have done more if I hadn’t given up on a dream to be a doctor out of fear. Fear that people would think I was only doing it to follow in my family’s footsteps, fear that it would mean that I was walking away from my college degree and everything else I had thought mattered, fear that I was too old to start over. But that fear couldn’t supersede the fact that I knew I could be doing more and I would always regret not trying.

And it was during that time that I started to become more of a primary care giver to my grandmother, a renal failure patient, whose day to day was so dependant on the rest of our family keeping things organized, stable, and utmost making each day as memorable as we could. Patience became a trait I finally began to understand and practice growing. And my love for medicine was stirred again, the challenge of learning about the inner workings of our own worlds, and how each aspect of what we do in our lives impacts how our bodies react. That how we treat others when they are lost is more impactful than we often give ourselves credit for. In those moments with them, I knew that in order to be a better caregiver I needed to know what mattered to me. I needed to dream again.

So I went back to Le Moyne and over the years of my post bacc there were times where I questioned why I was fighting so hard to pursue this dream. I have had many people question my choice, wondering why so late in the game had I decided that I wanted to change my whole world. Change can be terrifying, and it can be crippling, but it can also be rewarding, and you only get there by listening to yourself and believing in your own thoughts. What people often fail to do is self reflect enough to see what their future could hold if they took on those challenges. Each day, your actions lead you either toward a more gratifying future or take you further down that meandering path. For me, I see a future where I can make a difference in other’s lives, help them heal from the inside out, not be crippled by circumstance or past history, but rather overcome it by learning from it.

We talk a lot on here about beauty,nutrition, fashion, and music and all of the ways that these things make us happy. We talk about the people we are surrounded by who inspire us, who dared to dream, who were raised by and influenced by other dreamers. I find myself to be one of those dreamers. And yes, I want to be a physician, but I also love fashion and I have found a way to make a place in my life for both. The magazine and the hope of becoming a physician thrill me, because they force me out of my comfort zone time and time again. They both have audiences that need information, that are looking to me for answers. In both worlds I find a bit of myself and I find that I hear my thoughts more clearly because they have a place, they have a function, they have a message.

Hanging above my bed is a painting by a local artist and friend. She inspires me, as do so many of the people I have been blessed to know in my life, many of whom I can call my best friends. The painting was something we worked out together, I wanted it to have a clear message, one that I have learned to listen for when I disconnect from the world and self reflect. It’s a simple concept, a motto in a lot of ways, but it’s how I want to live my life. It took me a long time to find those words, but I am so grateful for them, because they give my life purpose. As I continue on my journey to pursue medical school and expand this site and what we can do as a team at The Hare & Style these words help challenge me to push the limits. Three simple words that I hope you can take with you; Aspire to Inspire.

Xo,
Maliha