Growing up, I watched my two older brothers enter medical school and graduate as doctors. Even the woman who became my sister-in-law is a doctor.
But I decided to take a different route, becoming a physics major in university. However, my college years also marked the beginning of my battle with major insecurities.
I found myself being questioned by uncles and aunties.
“You different from your brothers, ah?” and “What happened to you ah?” were asked at almost every single family gathering.
Over time, I found it difficult to manage these comments.
I also felt like the odd child when my relatives would say loudly to my brothers: “Wow, you are Dr Woo, you also Dr Woo.”
I left these family gatherings with the impression that the end goal of parenting was to produce doctors.
This all made me very uncertain about my own future.
It didn’t help that my parents were often consulted with questions such as “How did you bring up two doctors? I need to learn from you” and “My child cannot get a place in NUS Medicine. I’m thinking of sending him overseas. What do I need to do?”
We had many family friends who were doctors, and many of their children also became doctors. I felt like an anomaly when their conversations revolved around specialisations and admission to hospital residency programmes.
At times, even my own friends would talk about how doctors make a lot of money and have large bonuses.
My inferiority complex was triggered each time my brothers talked about admissions to residency and doing sub-specialties.
They often talked about the kinds of medicine they wished to do and sometimes even made comments about the supercars they would like to own in the future – which made me feel more and more like the “not so capable child” in the family.
All this made me very uncertain about my own future.
In my battle with insecurity, it felt like defeat was almost certain. Every insensitive comment that I got was like a stab that deepened inner wounds.
This continued until I attended a free apologetics seminar conducted by Jordan Thyer.
“If you think you need _____ (something) to make yourself complete, then you won’t feel complete even if you have _____ (that something),” he told us.
Suddenly, I was reminded of John 15:9-11, and it hit me that only God could make my joy complete.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15:9-11)
This verse reminds us that the joy that God gives lasts for eternity, unlike the temporal joy that we derive from earthly things like wealth, career and status.
I realised then that I did not need to feel incomplete and insecure, even if I wasn’t a doctor.
And although I might have felt inferior, my parents always assured me that they never once saw me as the “not so capable child” and they loved me regardless of my profession. Even when I would try to convince them that I was, they reminded me that they would have sent me overseas to study medicine if that was what I had wanted to do.
Their words were simple, but they meant so much to me.
If you think you need something to make yourself complete, then you won’t feel complete even if you have that.
When I found the courage to share my insecurities with the rest of my family, I could see that they exercised sensitivity in conversations. They made the effort to model Christ’s love in both word and action.
I am also thankful for the support I received from “my second family” – ex-schoolmates, friends from church, colleagues and bosses past and present – who were always ready to hear me out, affirm me and cheer me on.
Today, I am a software engineer in banking, but first and foremost, God’s beloved child, with nothing to prove and nothing to boast of except to boast in God (Galatians 6:14).
I love my job, but I remember that the joy and satisfaction from career and status do not last a lifetime.
If it does not last a lifetime, it definitely will not count for eternity. It is the eternal joy we have in God that makes our joy complete and keeps us assured.
This article was first published on Thir.st.
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