At what age must one have it all figured out is a question that many people, especially young people struggling with their careers or other major life choices, ask. Such people are stuck at an impasse; and instead of seeing it as an opportunity, they turn inward to find out what’s wrong with them. Tashinea Bernadin – a doctor, wife, mom, and content creator – shows by example that it is okay to not have it all together. In time, things will fall into place themselves, all one has to do is continue striving.
We are told by society, in more ways than one, that by the time one is 25 or 26, they should have graduated from college, have a degree, a good job, be married, and have it all together – this notion seems troublesome to Dr. Tashinea. She shares, “I have anxiety, and the symptoms that come with it annoy me, primarily because it makes me feel as if I don’t have it all together. But the reality is, no one does.”
We watch these one-hour-and-a-half-long movies and television shows in which a person goes from being a messed-up adolescent to suddenly being someone who has it all together. The movie often ends with the hero attaining their best life, and we are left to imagine the rest. We imagine the last scenes in the movie to extend into reality – a perfectly settled life. But once we switch to the news channels, we see the same actors making mistakes, and we realize that even they don’t have it all together.
When Dr. Tashinea was struggling to get pregnant after being married for a year, at the age of 30, it was expected of her to have a child all ready to fit into the standards that they had built and expected others to meet. But people didn’t know her years-long struggle or the tears behind that struggle. In the same way, when she continued to fail the MCAT test, she almost lost hope, and the idea of becoming a doctor seemed like a dream. It was expected of her to have her life put together even at that time and to stop striving for her dream. These were the expectations that fueled anxiety in her. However, she found a balance, managed to get into medical school, and is now saving people’s lives. She made people believe that God does listen if you keep praying and striving for it.
For more such thoughtful content, check out Dr. Tashinea’s Instagram here.
