Doctǝr Nobody

A few weeks ago an old friend tried to comfort me by telling me that the 50s are the new 40s. As much as I appreciated the statement and the sentiment behind it, I had to call bullshit.

The 50s are just that – the 50s. And on many days the 50s feel like the new 60s.

I was having lunch with her and another friend who I haven’t seen since junior high. We found each other on social media – one of the few perks of the medium – and kept in touch only peripherally until I saw a picture one of them posted in my hometown.

We met at a Panera, the discomfort of the reunion melting away the minute we all made eye contact and started blabbering like a bunch of Long Island Yentas. The three of us chatted and marveled how we were just older versions of the exact same people we remembered – we looked and sounded the same, just a little wiser, heavier, grayer or balder.

Two of us were voted “Most Likely to Succeed” by our graduating class. The one who wasn’t certainly would have taken that title from me if she didn’t move at the beginning of her last year at our school. In the middle of our conversation, she made a statement that nagged at me a little. She said that her life would have turned out differently if she had kept in touch with the both of us. In fact, that statement nagged at me a lot.

I still don’t know what she meant by that, as by all accounts she seemed to be doing just fine. But as we continued to chat I began to feel the same way.

I realized that while we were talking about our respective lives, we were comparing ourselves to each other. He we were in our 50s trying to decide if we indeed lived up to our junior high potential. And silently I don’t think any of us thought we did.

I wondered at what point in our lives does that potential become expectation? And when does that expectation become opportunity? And then when does opportunity become a success or a failure? When can a person say they made something of themselves? When can a person say that they’re a success?

It’s not a surprise to anyone with any semblance of intelligence that social medial exacerbates the anxiety associated with these questions. Look around and it’s not hard to find people succumbing to this pressure, humble-bragging – or just outright bragging – about everything in their lives. The ability to celebrate everyday banal minutia is truly a bastardized art form. These same people have the uncanny ability to self-promote and in many cases cut throat their way to the top and then post it somewhere online for the rest of us to see and compare ourselves to. By online standards, I am a failure. My prime – in comparison – has passed.

This learned online behavior has bled it’s way into reality - into face-to-face encounters with real people. It has been shown that social media usage makes people feel more isolated and insecure, and we are all victims of this. I caught myself comparing my life to the life of my 7th grade classmates, for God’s sake.

I recently saved a patient's life - not a brag but a fact. He was dead dead and my team and I brought him back. A few days before he left the hospital he thanked me and then he told me that I should consider becoming a Tik Tok or Instagram doctor making funny videos and reels.

"You'd be really successful then! A real somebody!" he beamed.

Curiosity got a hold of me and yes, there are doctors out there who are also "influencers" and Tik Tok stars with huge followings.

"Success" to my failure.

Youtubers, Instagramers, Tik Tokers, Influencers … it seems that in order to be somebody important, you have to be somebody online. By my patient's standards in order to be a successful Doctor in front of everyone else I had to become Doctor Somebody.

No thank you. I’d rather be my own nobody than someone else's somebody.

I am Doctor Nobody.