Thank You for Turning Me Down

After graduating from medical school, I decided to take a year off. I wanted time to look back on a life that had been running nonstop. It was a gift to myself in my mid-twenties, and a chance to catch my breath before whatever came next. It wasn’t a whim; I’d thought about it for a long time.

For a little while it was wonderful. I didn’t have to burrow back under the covers every morning to steal a few more minutes of sleep. After so many “Just five more minutes…” relapses that ended an hour later, the simple fact that an alarm clock would no longer yank me out of bed felt like luxury.

That glow didn’t last. Within days I realized that doing nothing is harder than it sounds. I’d crawl out from under the duvet at ten, then noon, into a quiet that seemed to ring in my ears.

I wondered what everyone else was doing with their days. I opened the messenger window at the bottom corner of my screen and pinged a friend who showed as online. No response. I stared blankly, waiting, and then it hit me: they weren’t ignoring me—they were at school or at work, holding down their posts. They weren’t free to sit at a computer and chat. If I’d been busy somewhere too, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the delay.

One morning I hauled out my bicycle, thinking I’d at least try exercising. A bus full of commuters rumbled past. The world was moving at its usual hectic pace, and I was the odd one out. I felt like I was standing alone on a platform just after the train had pulled away. Not belonging anywhere isn’t as carefree as it sounds.

When I’m not busy, I get anxious—and I shrink a little when I run into people. Even when stepping out was my choice, I couldn’t help worrying what others would think of the fact that I was doing nothing right now. Useless thoughts multiplied: “Will they think something’s wrong with me?” That kind of unease shoves you back into a job, any job, just to be somewhere doing something.

Look closely at that anxiety and you find it’s really a hunger for recognition. We want proof that we play a role in the world, and that we play it well. But before you know it, that hunger has you trapped in frenetic routine. I once read a survival guide about being lost at sea; one lesson stuck with me: no matter how thirsty you are, don’t drink seawater. I had to ask whether I’d been trying to slake my thirst for recognition with the seawater of busyness.

In its own way, my year of rest was valuable. Up to then I’d let myself be swept along so I wouldn’t fall behind. Now I felt, for the first time, that I could live otherwise. I took my first step toward looking at life on my terms, not through the lens of others’ approval. I decided to do what I wanted, whatever people might think.

Time passed, and it was time to return to the real world. Along with the other new MDs, I needed to choose where I’d work. Picking a first job as a physician isn’t so different from other fields, except the job happens to be at a hospital. Most new doctors start at teaching hospitals as interns and then residents; that’s the path to board certification.

I knew where I would apply: the hospital I’d visited as a patient since before I could walk—the one just off Daehangno. I wanted to work shoulder to shoulder with the doctors who had treated me. Maybe, seeing me, kids like me would feel hope. If I’m honest, I also imagined the looks I’d get from people around me—how “impressive” they’d find it. All of that swirled together until that hospital became not just where I wanted to work but where I felt I had to work.

Then I heard that the hospital was sending a team to give a recruitment talk at my alma mater, Korea University College of Medicine. I cleared my schedule and went. I’d been in those classrooms almost daily just a year earlier, yet they felt strangely unfamiliar now that I was an alum.

I hesitated at the door, slipped in quietly, and took a seat in the back. A few others filed in and filled the empty chairs. At the appointed time, the moderator gave a brief introduction to the hospital and then invited the Director of Graduate Medical Education to the podium—the person ultimately responsible for hiring and training interns and residents. In hospital terms, it’s a powerful post.

One of Korea’s leading hospitals had sent a top executive physician to recruit newly minted doctors—at another university’s lecture hall, no less. It was like seeing a senior executive from Samsung or Hyundai personally front a campus hiring session. In most fields, that would never happen. Even in medicine, such sessions are usually handled by junior house staff from that hospital. And this particular hospital hardly needed to recruit; candidates lined up on their own. The GME director’s presence felt like a statement of sincerity about finding people.

Then came a bigger surprise. The face behind the microphone looked familiar. I squinted: could it be? It was—the thoracic surgeon who had helped me secure a third-year clinical rotation at that hospital. I hadn’t even thought to reach out; in the meantime he’d become the GME director, and there we were, meeting again.

After the session I walked down to the front and offered my hand. He smiled broadly, gripped my hand, and urged me to apply. It felt like fate. For years I’d carried a hazy dream of returning to that hospital as a doctor. Now it seemed to be stepping into the light.

But it was too soon to relax. My grades made me a borderline candidate there. When applications closed, the posted competition was fiercer than I’d expected. I began to think I might not make it. People are often most drawn to the thing just beyond their grasp; maybe that’s why I wanted it so badly. Looking back, I don’t think I’d ever craved anything so intensely.

At night I knelt by my bed and prayed. Every time the fear of rejection poked up its head, I steered my thoughts toward hope, worried that dwelling on it would make it real. Embarrassing as it is to admit, I also pinned some hope on that personal connection: surely, I thought, even if my numbers were a bit short, he wouldn’t let me be cut.

The day of the decision arrived. From 9 a.m. I sat on the hospital’s hiring page, refreshing the announcements board. The list wasn’t up. I kept hitting reload, jittery. Ten minutes, twenty. Still nothing. I told myself they were double-checking to avoid mistakes. In my head I kept whispering, Please, please.

A little after ten, the list appeared. Within a minute the view counter already showed dozens of hits. Oddly, that calmed me. The die was cast; all I had to do was look. I took a deep breath and opened the Excel file. The names were in application-number order. There was the number before mine, then the slot where mine should be—and then the number after. My name should have been there. It wasn’t. My stomach dropped.

At first I assumed it was an error. I kept refreshing, waiting for a corrected list. It never came. By afternoon it was undeniable. I hadn’t been chosen.

I can’t describe how miserable I felt. I couldn’t eat for days; I didn’t leave the house. I couldn’t accept it. That hospital wasn’t one possibility among many; it was the only place I wanted to be. But it wasn’t for me. I kept hoping I would wake up.

Days slid into a week and then two. I holed up in my room, saw no one, didn’t even go online. I sat quietly with my eyes closed and looked inward. After about a month, something finally began to take shape.

I realized that my determination to join that hospital was rooted in a desire to be recognized. The biggest reason I wanted in was the thrill of imagining how impressed people would be. During my year off I had promised myself I would let go of that craving for approval. In truth, I hadn’t. I was no different from anyone else.

Oddly enough, the experience made me trust that hospital more. I had just watched it hire on merit, regardless of personal ties—even when the applicant was someone like me. The irony wasn’t lost on me: they did not recognize me as a colleague, and precisely for that reason I could recognize them as a hospital worthy of trust.

The whole episode made me rethink “seeking recognition.” The desire to be seen as good, kind, even great—chase that, and you’ll never get the recognition you want. You’ll only exhaust yourself.

Other people’s approval should never be the purpose of a life, and it can’t be. It isn’t something you can capture by pursuing it; and even if you do, you risk losing the most important thing—yourself. Recognition is a by-product that follows when you walk your own path straight. That professor showed me how: do the work in front of you by the book, and, in the end, the respect arrives on its own.

Some time later I sent him an email:

“Thank you for turning me down. I didn’t get to learn medicine under you, but I learned something more important.”