I Wish Someone Told me These things when I was 18
Never Give Up Your Hobbies
In high school, I made the difficult decision to give up art. It was a time when I was focused on preparing for university, and I quickly realized that my creativity and my GPA were in constant conflict. On top of that, it didn't help that I spent most of my free time daydreaming, doodling, and writing stories. I told myself, "It’s okay to stop for now. I’ll come back to it later."
Little did I know, the next time I would pick up my iPad would be four years later. During that time, I found myself lost and in a very dark place. Embracing my creativity allowed me to find my way again. I began to imagine characters, scenes, objects—creating intricate worlds in my mind.
As T.S. Eliot once famously said,
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
After this full circle, I decided I had to teach myself art again. I dove into online courses—digital illustration, Blender, colour and light—anything I could find. My day time spent as a dentist gave me a sense of satisfaction, but it was through creating art that my most interesting ideas began to flow.
Never give up your hobbies.
Everything in Life Comes with a Catch
There's a famous quote from Spider-Man: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
Being a dentist is a deeply rewarding and meaningful career. But, like any job, it doesn’t always come with its highlights. There are nights when I wake up, sweating, anxiously thinking about everything that could go wrong during a surgical tooth extraction.
I remember asking my dentistry instructor about facing fear in our profession. He told me that the fear never really goes away, even after ten years of practice.
Society might see us as competent professionals, but in truth, we’re just like everyone else—facing the unknown, struggling with fear.
And it's those experiences that makes us deeply human. So there is no need to hurry. Take the time to learn and become better overtime.
Slowing Down is Better Than Speeding Up
My brother, a deeply observant person, once commented that “It’s easy to speed up by pressing the gas pedal, but slowing down is harder because of momentum.”
Slowing down requires more energy than speeding up. In a world where everyone around you seems to be racing toward the next big thing, it’s easy to feel like you should be doing the same.
But taking it slow doesn’t mean being inactive. It’s being proactive in a different direction.
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