I recently was reading a book, A Letter to a Young Female Physician, in which the author talks about why she became a doctor. Some of what she said and wrote about in her book made me think, “Why did I become a dentist?”

For a long time, like junior high through early college, I “planned” on going to medical school. At some point I became unsure of this path and some time in undergrad, dentistry came into the mix. I was a chemistry major and spent one summer doing research in a lab which I disliked so that ruled out graduate school since that is primarily what a chemistry major would be doing.

My answer in the past to why I became a dentist were things like:

• I liked working with my hands.
• I wanted to help people.
• I enjoyed getting or seeing immediate results.
• Compared to medicine I’d have more control over my life and flexibility with how much I worked.

However, in recent discussion with my therapist I told her these reasons why I became a dentist and she said “no, why did you become a dentist? What is your emotional why?”

Umm…good question!

I honestly don’t know if I have one. Thoughts I’ve had thus far about this are –

• I don’t have one – it just made sense.
• I wanted to be a doctor or something that people admired and respected. (aka successful)
• I wanted to make a good living (as finances were a struggle when I was younger).
• I wanted to be perceived as being smart.

To explain that it just made sense was I was good at science and math. It was something I could do (like get into dental school), succeed at, and be respected.

Also as far as “making sense,” I’ll never forget it was the first semester of dental school and I was probably dealing with my first real bout of depression, but I didn’t really know it at the time. I was on the phone with my dad saying that I wasn’t sure about staying in dental school, but then it came back to things like well what else would I do and what other job would I make that type of income….

I don’t recall when choosing what to do with my life ever considering

1. What do I want to do?
2. What will I be happy doing?

Now that I went to dental school, am a dentist, been practicing 15 years, I should be successful per what I wrote above, no?

But, I am not happy. Nor do I want to be doing this much, if any, longer.

I may be successful by our society’s traditional standards of measuring success. But, that’s one thing I’ve been working on is changing my definition of success. Success now to me is having freedom to do what I want when I want. Success is being happy and fulfilled.

I’ve been realizing I think I’ve had this all backwards. For far too long I’ve been too externally driven. I’ve always wanted to be #1 – get the best grades, be the top athlete, be a doctor, get that praise.

But now where am I at, after “getting” all that? It doesn’t matter.

In my exploring over the last several months, I’ve enjoyed painting classes, starting a blog, writing, just to name a few things.

So maybe I was to be a writer or someone who is creative. But for some reason, even maybe as young as middle school, I was sucked into that being good at science and math and then into the idea “being a doctor.”

I’m still not totally sure why I am a dentist. It’s kinda sad when I think about it. Basically, that’s been the last almost 20 years of my life between dental school and practicing. Now here I am re-evaluating my whole life!

I’m going to continue contemplating this question of why I am a dentist. For now I’ll leave you with my thoughts thus far, and hope you found something helpful that resonated with you!