Time for Retrospection

The year is quickly coming to an end and the time for retrospection is now. I don't want this to sound like one of the mandatory self-reflection assignments that we are asked to complete every month or so in our Professionalism and the Practice of Medicine class. This is definitely more real, more honest and absolutely less contrite...to me, at least.
As I was doing my daily news scan on news.google.com, I found out that gay marriage was finally legalized in the state of California today. The article had many pictures of celebrating people, hugging and kissing in joy. They really looked happy, like they had won a hard-fought battle. It's funny with the high rate of divorce today, how many heterosexual people take marriage for granted, but if you ask any GLBT who really wants to get married, how he or she feels, you will be surprised to see how sacred and devote marriage is in their eyes. Again, a quick example of how you don't know what you have until you don't have it anymore.
But anyway, as I kept scanning for more news, I read that Angelina Jolie is pregnant with twins and expecting a delivery soon. I looked at the pictures that were included in that article, and I saw Angelina Jolie shopping with her daughters at very smart over-priced children's clothing store in Cannes, France. Again, she carried with her a sense of happiness and peace in those pictures. She spoke without actually speaking that her life is good, for the moment, at least.
Why am I even mentioning these two completely different sets of people and circumstances? It's because these different sets are actually not that different at all. As human beings, as people, we are all the same underneath. Trust me, I've studied it and I know it for a fact. On a more philosophical comparison even we, as human beings, match whether we choose to accept it or not. We are all motivated by the same desire: to attain everlasting love, peace and happiness. Whether you are homosexual or heterosexual, black or white, asian or latina, anything, you me and everyone we know are all striving each day to make it so that we can live a life of peace and harmony. Today, the LGBT community was able to take a deep breath and go "whew! we did it!" just as the same way Angelina Jolie can hold her kids tightly to her body and say the same thing. We did it, we made it through the day! We are alive and healthy and have so much to be grateful for.
And we do have so much to be grateful for.
You know, when I first started medical school, I did not think that it was for me. I did not think that I would belong to this career path, and I definitely thought that I would be unfulfilled by becoming a physician. I think I am realized how very wrong I was with that idea, because in this year, in one single year, I have gone from someone who was only concerned with what was superficial and material to someone who (after learning what happens deep inside our body) can now start to pay closer attention to the people and things on the inside. This transformation has definitely changed the way I look at the world. Perhaps, I could even say that I have changed for the good?