reflection on missed opportunities

There's no use regretting the past, because regretting doesn't change much. But what if you could re-live aspects of your past? What would you do differently?

Granted the above is an obtuse statement, but in my case, that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm revisiting my alma mater every weekend, hanging out with friends who have not graduated. In a cinch: I'm reliving Harvard. Why? Because not everyone gets a second chance, and there are compromises that I will not make anymore.

This weekend is the Head of the Charles, and the swell of school spirit moved me to put on my House's scarf, wearing it proudly because I didn't have my red Harvard one. At the risk of being mistaken for a Dartmouth student (those poor deprived kids in the woods of NH--tisk tisk) with my green and white garb, I headed proudly down to the River Houses that line one bank of the Charles, brushing pass a sea of Crimson pride in the form of red gortex worn by everyone from babies to alumni. The weekend was also host to a friend's b-day party, the typical kind of Harvard gathering that included good cheap wine from Trader Joe's, great cheeses, and the random conversation about post-modernism sprinkled with references to vaginas and penises. To think, I barely went to any of these things when I was in college. I was either too busy with extracurriculars, studying for biology exams, applying to internships, cramming for the MCAT, or applying to medical school. It's a sad feedback loop really, because once you have decided that as a pre-med you must limit your exposure to the outside world, fewer and fewer friends will want to invite you to go out. More to the point, pretty soon this pattern begins to seem normal: it's normal to stay in on the weekend, it's normal to take classes you hate because you think it'll help the GPA or do extracurriculars that you have a mild interest in but decides that it will look good on a resume--it's normal to be goal driven and targeted at the exclusion of your personal preferences for life.

My revolt against this line of masochistic devotion to 'medicine' happened near the end of college, but it was too little too late. I wished I'd taken more classes I liked, picked another concentration (major), maybe even quit whatever that wasn't working for me and tried something else. But would I still be where I am today had I made these different choices? I'm not sure, but there's plenty of annectodal evidence that had I made different choices I'd still be fine. All I know is that I would have been happier, and that, today, would make all the difference in the world.