I often hear my peers associate success with monetary wealth. Social media is a primary catalyst for this line of thought, allowing individuals to show off their luxurious living arrangements, to anyone willing to open Tik Tok. In contrast, talk to a grandparent or any of the adorable older gentlemen that populate your local breakfast establishment, and they will stress that success is measured by the relationships with those you love. So, what are we to believe? The youngsters who eclipse over 10 hours of daily screen time? Or the wise elders, who bought their houses for the same price as 1 semester of university today? After nearly 17 years of schooling, I have learned, that no number of lectures, exams, or essays can answer this question. Rather, I believe success can only be interpreted by the individual who is analyzing it. So now, at the ripe age of twenty-three, nearly half a million dollars in debt, and one semester of medical school under my belt, I have decided how I will evaluate my success. On my deathbed, I would like to look around and be surrounded by friends and family who have stood by me for many years. Additionally, I would like to reflect upon my life's work and feel as though each of my days was spent with purpose. I know, deep for someone who still doesn’t know how to properly address a mailed letter. But let’s try to unpack it. I highly value close relationships with those I love. I believe this is rooted in my rural upbringing, where I was taught, that “family is all you have in this world.” I admire my grandparents, who are in their early eighties and have maintained friendships for over half a century. They enjoy long-standing traditions, such as monthly reunion dinners, summer vacations, and Sunday phone calls. When they become ill, their closest friends are often the first to arrive bearing gifts of thera-flu, chicken noodle soup, and get-well cards. While some may attribute this to the “lost values of an aging generation” I see this as placing value on long-term relationships. Relationships whose success can be measured by who stands with you when money is gone and when your health is fading. As a medical student, I have devoted years of my life training how to care for others when they are most vulnerable. To many, this work is seen as the most fulfilling career imaginable. For me, I promised to constantly have “self-check-ins” with myself, answering three questions, to determine if I am successful in my work. (1) – Are you happy with the work you completed this week? Currently, I am overjoyed to be living out my dream of becoming a physician, something I have prayed for since my freshman year of High School. (2) – How have you helped someone this week? As a physician, this should be easy right? My goal is to work in neurology, specifically helping those with Parkinson’s disease. My family lost my grandfather to Parkinson’s six years ago and from that day on, I swore to wage a battle against the neurodegenerative disease: So that others would not have to fear the disease like my family did. (3) – Is your compensation sufficient to provide for those who have provided for you? I have no set monetary goal in mind, but rather a desire to make enough money to provide a comfortable life for my immediate family. As well as attempt to pay back my extended family who have sacrificed so much for me to be in the position I am in today. If I deem my responses have “successfully” answered the above questions, I believe I will be successful in my work. Now, back to my deathbed! If I can faithfully confirm I maintained many meaningful relationships throughout my life and that my work was purposeful to myself, others, and to my god, I can rest knowing my life was successful. As a first-generation college and medical student, my family has sacrificed so much to help me chase my dreams. This scholarship would grant me the opportunity to continue “taking the fight to Parkinson’s disease” by paying for food, rent, tuition, and textbooks. This award could help me achieve success – or at least what I believe it to be! To conclude, I would urge the reader of this essay to pause and consider what they value most in their lives. This essay outlines metrics that some medical student uses to measure success in their life, it does not mean these values are universal. In an age of social networks, conformity is highly encouraged. However, taking a moment to reflect on what you value most in life, may lead you to become the most successful version of yourself!

While reading this prompt, a flood of memories rushed through my head. I reminisced about late Saturday nights in college, playing Super Smash Bros with my roommate in our dorm. I thought back to fourth-grade recess, where our teacher would play Mario Kart with us on our DS. However, unequivocally the most important Nintendo gaming moment in my life came from playing Super Mario Bros: U Deluxe on Nintendo Switch. Playing this game quite literally saved my family from being torn apart! My sister and I were born 18 months apart and in grade school, she was a grade below me. In the small town we grew up in our friend groups often overlapped. This was generally benign until my senior year of high school when I thought my sister betrayed my trust. Several long arguments broke out, often involving my parents. I withdrew from my high school clique and resolved to the silent treatment (Yes! Very mature for someone about to enter college…). This verbal cease-fire continued for weeks. The weeks turned into months and soon I was all packed and ready to leave for college. I left, without saying goodbye to my sister (something I am still ashamed of to this day). I wouldn’t see my sister again for another six months until I returned home for my winter break. One evening on a car ride home from dinner my mother talked to me about my relationship with my sister. It was a 45-minute talk that left me feeling disgusted with how I treated my sister. At home I sat wondering how to approach a conversation with her, we hadn’t spoken in over a year and a half. The next morning, while my sister was sitting out on our living room couch enjoying her morning coffee. I approached her, with my Nintendo Switch in hand and asked, “I got this new Mario game, would you like to play?” She looked astonished and paused for a few moments before mawkishly nodding her head. I set up the Nintendo Switch and passed her a controller. We sat in silence as we selected our characters and started the first level. My sister broke the silence by screaming, “That stupid mushroom got me!” I laughed, and she laughed, and we continued playing the rest of the day. Before I turned the counsel off that night I turned to my sister and apologized. I am a soft-spoken individual and don’t often share my feelings with others, so this was VERY difficult for me. As I anxiously awaited her response, she began to cry. She lunged towards me, and we hugged. Although no more words were spoken that night, a silent understanding was appreciated, we are family, and family is all you have! For the remainder of my winter break my sister and I played Super Mario Bros every day! My sister pounded on my door every morning asking when we could play. We breezed through the worlds in less than a week. In Bowser’s Final Castle, my sister single-handedly defeated Bowser, proudly proclaiming her achievements, until “Big Bowser” emerged. My sister screamed in horror as she was soon crushed. My family still jokes about this moment years later. Nintendo games represent a simpler time in my life when having fun with friends and family was the only thing on the To-Do list. However, Nintendo represents something more to me. Nintendo represents forgiveness, second chances, and most importantly family. Because after all family is all, we have!

My true appreciation for the wonderful complexity of life first occurred during my sophomore year of my undergraduate degree. I learned about the cell cycle, an immensely complex and refined molecular pathway that allows wounds to heal, children to grown, and humans to live. An event happening thousands of times, every day, that requires an infinitesimal amount of precision. A mechanism whose design is unbelievably complex yet efficient lead me to believe there must be a masterful mechanic. Throughout the rest of my undergraduate degree, I learned of more biochemical pathways that allow babies to grow from a single cell, allow human brains to develop more than 10 trillion neural connections, and allow our bodies to adapt to different environments to keep us alive. I entered medical school with (what I thought to be) a full appreciation of God's perfectly designed human body, a body created in his own image, to spread his love around the world. However, I was sorely mistaken! Around the time of my matriculation into medical school we lost my maternal grandfather to cancer. Grieving, and in pain my mother would often ask, "If we can go to the moon, why can't we cure cancer?" Until recently I shared in my mother's frustration, with all the brilliant doctors and researchers in the world, why couldn't we cure cancer? I would eventually find my answer in my second block of medical school, bio-medical foundations, where we would learn (in excruciating depth) the molecular intricacies of many of the diseases which plague our world today. It was here I began to appreciate the unbelievable complexity which is required to blink! Let alone initiate cell division thousands of times a day, all throughout your body! If you will allow me… Imagine: Something floating around in your blood, bouncing off millions of cells until it collides at just the right speed and orientation to a specific receptor (let’s say we’re in your liver). This triggers more tiny molecules in your liver cell to start bouncing around, hopefully colliding at just the right speed and orientation to trigger more molecules to be released. This repeats another 10-20 times before your one liver cell divides. Above I described 1 biochemical pathway for 1 cell. There are millions of biochemical pathways happening in every one of your three trillion cells, every second of everyday. It takes just 1 mistake, one molecule colliding at the wrong orientation or wrong speed to cause cancer, or any other of the many diseases and disorders experienced around the world today. Too often it comes back to “god’s will,” however I firmly believe God does not GIVE children cancer or GIVE his devout followers dementia. Rather, God gifted humans with a free will, limiting his power so humans can enjoy all his wonderful creations. Consequently, humans are subject to acts of nature. Some are a direct consequence of humans free will such as overeating and diabetes, others are acts of nature gone wrong. Because of this, I firmly believe all human life should be cherished. It is a wonder that you and I wake up every morning and enjoy god’s creations despite all the things that could go wrong. This extends to life at conception. Few processes match the complexity of human development. Those blessed with the opportunity to grow in their mother’s womb and experience god’s world are entitled to that experience. It is my hope to use my position as a practicing physician to advocate for those, to small to advocate for themselves: And one day they may grow up to experience all their life offers!