Lately, I've been wondering how much I've let my injuries and surgeries define me. On one hand, the experiences were serious and altered my life. But there's a part of me that says, "this is nothing compared to what others have gone through". So were those experiences meaningful or just randomly unfortunate? Should I consider those events to be crucibles in my life? I'm not sure. Mostly, I think I just don't know if I should let those experiences be what distinguishes me from other people.

I went to my five-year high school reunion and it was just weird to get a feel for people's impression of me. When I was talking to one old classmate about applying to medical school, he looked at me and said "of course it's the jocks and athletes that want to go into orthopedics". It made me think, "aw crap, am I a jock?" But the experience made me even more aware of how much wushu and my injuries define who I am to people who aren't close to me.