I stand here as someone who has choice. Choice. Choice is a gift. Choice is something to be valued and used. It must be used with great care. It must not be used with an ignorant mind and an unwilling heart. It must be used with careful understanding and intimate knowledge.

I stand here as someone who has choice. There will always be people coming from different angles trying to pull you their way, trying to make you conform to their standards, to what they want for you… To what they want for themselves… This isn’t their journey. I experience the pulling all the time. Like a rope around my neck with ten different ropes coming off it, each in the hand of another wanting me to follow them.

I stand here as someone who has choice. I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t want you to think that I’m being arrogant, I’m being honest. There is a difference between arrogance and believing in yourself. Every second person I met told me to go to med school. “Oh you’re so bright! You must be studying medicine!”, “You’re so precise – you’d be the perfect doctor!” Luckily I’m quite headstrong. But after a while you begin to question…

I stand here as someone who has choice. People will always doubt you. They will always doubt your choices if they aren’t what they would have chosen. They will rip your choices to shreds to make their choices feel like the right choice because they aren’t sure of themselves. Their insecurity is redirected to your security. Do you know what it feels like to be doubted? To have people wanting to see you fall? To have people constantly looking down on you? I do. And it hurts. But it builds character. I don’t think you understand the power of fierce determination.

I stand here as someone who has choice. I’ve decided what I want and no one is going to change that. You either support me genuinely or you take your upturned nose at my choices elsewhere.

I stand here as someone who has choice. And I have chosen.