*Update. This post was sent to D-2 personally shortly after publication. She thanked me movingly. Unbeknownst to me she forwarded it to several others in her USMLE study chat group. On Friday (today as I type this update), Ana told me that the post was moving to her friends also, one of whom wept.
By normal measure D-2 and I failed spectacularly today. By normal measure Michael Jordan, making only 49.7% of all of his shots, was a failure as a shotmaker. But USMLE and the NBA are not normal. MJ was the greatest basketball player who ever lived (and he would have flunked USMLE at his 49.7% shot rate). Ana and I did not fail today, and Michael Jordan was not a failure. Each of us learned from our misses, Ana and I literally from the questions we got wrong.
USMLE is the hardest exam in the country. The NBA is the hardest basketall league in the world. Wanna be a U.S. doctor? Wanna be a NBA baller? Wanna be like Mike? Then internalize that in those worlds normal is not normal, failure is not failure and bad is not bad-- if you keep shooting or studying and learning.
The USMLE is not for normal people; the NBA is not for normal people. Anything can throw your day off at this elite level: too much good, too much bad, too much sleep, too little sleep, too many distractions, too little "background noise". There is no guarantee what kind of day you're going to have. You have a fight with your spouse, problems with your kids, you have to shut those things out as much as possible to succeed at work...Or those "other" things can stimulate you to be better in the one aspect of your life that you're succeeding at. Your marital life is sublime and your kid just hit a home run in Little League, a happy personal life makes a productive work life...Or your personal life is so good you get cocky and screw up at work.
What you cannot do, never, ever, ever, is stop taking (or giving) your shots.
