Posted by Alex Jofriet on July 16, 2012
For a teenager with IBD, life has its “ups” and “downs” like it does for everyone else, but I bet the “ups” are better for me than others – or maybe I just appreciate them more. With awesome “ups” … the “downs” become a little more tolerable and no matter what, the “ups” and “downs” and how you handle them is what shapes your life. Recently I had a big “up” - not a big turning point in my life, but it certainly reaffirmed a couple of my life ambitions - the first being to set goals and the second, to make my mark on the world.
The second to last weekend in June, I spent four days at the Hugh O’Brien Leadership seminar (HOBY). It was a great experience, a lot of fun; I met new friends, and learned the principles of good leadership. Leadership is important to a community, to an organization, to me … to everything really. At the HOBY seminar, we learned about the different areas where leadership can be applied and different elements that define a good leader. HOBY taught me a thing or two about my own leadership development – they suggested in the seminar that in order to exemplify good personal leadership you must first know yourself.
It took me some time to realize who I was as a person and what I have come to know as my goal in life. Maybe this is just part of growing up, but I have to wonder if the ups and downs of having Crohn’s disease have not played a part in that process. Over the past several years, things have become very clear for me - my goal in life is to help others - using my experience and my disease to help others through their “downs”. For the longest time, I denied the fact that I had Crohn’s; I did not want to be different and just wanted to fit in – I guess I was in denial. However, over the past few years, with the support of friends and family, living with Crohn’s has helped me discover myself and I have turned what some might consider my weakness, into my strength.
My goal in life is to become a gastroenterologist and to use my experience as a patient to better my patients’ experiences. My life ambition includes two important ideas that we covered in the HOBY seminar last weekend. The first is to always make SMART goals. Without goals, life has no direction and someone without goals will very often not accomplish anything. The second of the two topics we discussed at HOBY was the more important one in my mind - that is to make your mark on the world by changing and inspiring others lives.
My plan: to touch the lives of as many patients as I can in my lifetime.
[Editors note: read more posts by alex8799 in his archive]