The night I lost motivation and found it again almost immediately when I realized I needed to give a tazkirah the next morning

It's a very long title because that was the first thing that came to mind when I wrote out the title.

Last night I somehow lost motivation to study. I mean, I know what topics I'm supposed to read up and to cover and to revise but somehow my mind ended up being very unfocused. In my unmotivated mood, my friend reminded me that it was my turn to deliver the tazkirah before class the next morning. I acknowledged it- but it must have been somehow stored at the very back of my mind because I only just remembered it again while I was getting ready for class this morning.

So this morning I slapped my forehead in frustration for having forgotten that I had to deliver a tazkirah. For one, I really value tazkirah time because everyone's mentally prepared for a reminder and secondly, when we're given the task to deliver a tazkirah, we should make the best of it and not waste other people's time. So I sat momentarily and racked my brains for the best possible topic. Normally the best and easiest topics are ones that come from the heart. And after having 'lost motivation' the night before, I tried to search for the best topic to talk about. And Alhamdulillah, the topic came to me. And while thinking about it, it made me reflect on a lot of things.

In our Family Medicine posting, we have a whole week where we are attached to a GP clinic. On the last day of our attachment, this was what the GP said to my friend and I. And it really made me reflect.

Before you enter medical school, you have to get high grades and compete with each other. But y'know, after you've entered med school, you don't have to compete anymore. You're not competing with anyone. What you have to do is just to study. And if you follow the syllabus and the curriculum set out for you in medical school, it's a guarantee that you'll pass.

Thinking about that, it made me reflect on several things:

1. How come I never realized this earlier? Here I didn't need to compete with anyone. I just needed to study for 'myself' because in the end, I'd need to use it to treat patients and help people in the future. If I didn't study and put effort into it, I'd only be the one at a loss.
2. Having been so exam-oriented, it taught me to study to pass exams. I mean, yes, we do need to pass exams but that's so that our knowledge is as what it should be. But the lecturers don't need our exam grades. We need the knowledge. And low grades is just an assessment that we don't have enough knowledge to be someone competent to treat others. This seems like such an obvious answer after having written it down. And it made me realize another thing... We already know the answers to the exams. We don't know which questions but if we keep learning and studying, we'd have already come across the answers anyway.
3. Before I entered medical school, I really wanted to become a doctor to help other people. Others asked, "But other occupation too can help people." And I think, "But I want to particularly help people in this way."
   Sometimes when some doctors ask us, "Why do you want to become a doctor? And don't tell us it's because you want to help people," and I think, "Why not? Why can't it be because we want to help people?" Maybe it's because our actions doesn't reflect that intention. That if we really want to help people, we'd put in all our effort and interest towards that in each step of our journey in med school.
4. And in conclusion; if I want to help people, and if I don't have to compete and I know what I need to study, then why am I not motivated to study?

Alhamdulillah, all that reflecting and all that common sense written down... I think that's exactly what made me more motivated to study tonight (and hopefully the rest of the other nights when my mood is not as it should be).

But well, I ended up not even delivering the tazkirah because we had a very busy morning. But it gave me a lot to think about (another reflection is that stress and performance go hand in hand!) Alhamdulillah 'ala kulli haal :)

Alia Nadhirah

nine-fifty post meridiem