The Value In Your Journey

Often times we are fed the reality that college is the only route to success. Often we are told that a degree is the only way to achieve the so-called “The American Dream.” But The Reality Is That Thinking like this eliminates one’s story. Everyone’s journey may not involve a college degree, and The value of believing and discovering your pathway is one of the values in life. It is interesting to analyze and look deep into what attracts us, humans, to the careers we find ourselves pursuing. Such interests vary from family, hobbies, and experiences, to name a few. Today we take an in-depth look at Mya Isika, An aspiring Dentist, as she details what it indeed was about the dental field that attracted her attention.

Mya externs as a full-time dental assistant at Pima Medical Institute in Denver, Colorado. After completing her 80-hour externship, she plans to attend dental school with long-term ambitions of becoming a licensed hygienist and orthodontist. Isika also hopes to open a firm that performs affordable care for impoverished children of color who usually cannot afford regular dental check-ins.

Isika, frequently throughout her maturation as an individual like most of us, did not have a clear ambition as to what career she wanted to pursue. Isika, like most in their adolescence, did not have that “light bulb” moment until realizing her desire for teeth and helping others shined brighter than any smile after a round of floss. We all, as kids, remember the dreadful days of going to the dentist. We all remember the day we threw a tantrum in fear of the dentist. Just like we remember crying even though our parents said, “You Are Going So Shut It.” Growing up, Mya was a child surrounded by the environment as her stepfather and brother are both licensed dentists. Isika recalls the days as a toddler very vividly when she would practice cleaning and dental techniques on her sister. Uniquely these experiences for her were comparable to an athlete’s first time playing their desired sport. You could say Mya’s first time picking up a toothbrush resembles the first time Michael Jordan ever touched a basketball in the sense that it was destined to happen. When we discover our spark, the sensation we undergo is unmatched while also being a phenomenon that we will never understand wholly. Mya could not tell me how it was she came to fall in love with dentistry. Although one could argue that it was her family’s influence, The most important thing to realize is that the choice was ultimately her own. See, no matter how much one is influenced by exterior forces, nothing can explain the apprehension and satisfaction of discovering your journey.

We all have been confronted with the feeling of not knowing what it is we want to seek in life. Everyone has had that nightmare of misdirection or the fear of being trapped in “quicksand.” We all desperately search for that “light bulb” moment for when in reality, we never truly know when that moment will come. Like Mya, we have to realize that our paths are carved by passion and love. Once Mya understood this, the lightbulb shined bright like a smile.