Stupidity

      Today I had a very humbling feeling.  I felt completely stupid.  What's more than that, I got to experience this feeling in front of all (well, most of) my peers in my program.  The Loyola Graduate program has a wonderful class called journal club, which my program schedules once every two weeks.  At each meeting, one student volunteers to present a paper to the program.  Today was my day.
With the chosen topic of translational research (research that directly translates into treatment, better known in the science world as "benchtop to bedside"), I chose a paper about Alzheimer's Disease.  I made the error of only reading the abstract and introduction of the paper before submitting it to the advisor for approval.
      Fast forward one week.  In the last three days I spent 15 hours reading and taking notes on this paper.  This is aside from all the other studying and classwork I have to do on a daily basis.  One would imagine after 15 hours of reading an 11 page paper that I would be well prepared.  I would assume the same thing.  The fact is, I wasn't prepared.  I wasn't clear on the material I had read, I wasn't sure how to present something I knew nothing about to people who knew a lot about it.  Bottom line is I felt that I embarrassed myself.  I was angry, demoralized, upset...pissed off.  Running on about 4 hours of sleep inflamed the emotions.  An exam on Monday churned my stomach at the thought of now having to go study and focus on the next task.  And then, I remembered something.
      I remembered that this was what I wanted.  I remembered that even in failure, I was still living my dream.  I remembered that there were kids, lots of kids, who would've given anything, who WOULD give anything to have this graduate spot.  I remembered that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  It humbles you when you realize how little you know.  I know that success will not come without failure, I know that failure will not always be this easy, and I know that I need periodic failure in order to maintain focus.  It keeps me hungry.  It keeps me driven.  Maybe the most important thing I learned today is that my passion for my profession highly outweighs my disappointment in defeat.  Tomorrow will be better, and next time... I'll be ready.

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark.  The real tragedy is when men are afraid of the light." -Plato

Cheers.