Alexandra Fu
E603A – 34425
December 7, 2006
A Passion for Compassion
Despite being a native Austinite and living a mere
twenty minutes from campus, I never seem to have the time to spend with my
family ever since college has started, which can be both a blessing and a
curse. During one of those rare occurrences, however, I was talking to my
mother when the 
conversation turned to the subject of school (as conversations with
parents inevitably do). I found myself going on a tangential tirade about the
difficulty of my introductory classes, wondering why I ever thought
double-majoring in Plan II and biology was a good idea, much less an achievable
goal. To my chagrin, my mother looked at me thoughtfully and told me that,
apparently, it had been my dream ever since I was three. That is not to say I
had declared my major fifteen years ago as a remarkably precocious toddler, but
my mother had just taken me to a new pediatrician, and upon leaving the check-up,
I had announced to my mother that I 
“want to be just like [the pediatrician], because I
want to help people.” While that little anecdote may or may not have been
fictitious, fabricated by a parent in an effort to motivate their child in her
academic endeavors, it did give me pause for thought. It was true; as far as I
can remember, I have always had a driving passion for helping others, and deep
abiding respect for those who did the same.
As I grew up, I found that my innate desire to help
other people shaped my choice in hobbies and activities. Even at the tender
young age of a mere elementary school student, I had been one of the leading
members of a student council committee who organized a program called HELP:
Helping Elderly Lonely People, in which we went to a local nursing 
home to spend time with and provide joy for the residents. In junior
and early high school, I spent three years as a volunteer counselor-in-training
for children at the Austin Nature and Science Center’s summer camps, finding
genuine enjoyment in making those kids’ summers as fun for them as possible,
instead of letting them like their parents were just shipping them off so they
could go to work without hiring a babysitter, which was the truthful case in
many an instance. I strived to embody a caring, authoritative friend more than
just another older counselor. I took 
pride in the lessons that I learned and connections
that I forged there, as I have always loved working with children; I felt like
I was learning more from them, in all their innocence, than they could actually
learn from me. I also became more involved in the youth programs at my church,
caring for the younger children while their parents were in services or at meetings.
In high school, I immersed myself in as many extracurricular
activities as possible, and – perhaps subconsciously, perhaps not so much –
primarily in the ones that were also of benefit to others. Having aged out of
the camps at the Austin Nature and Science Center, I spent a summer
volunteering at the Seton Southwest Auxiliary Hospital. I was an active member
and officer in Model United Nations, an organization that simulated conferences
much like the real United Nations holds, in order to solve world issues. At the
high school level, our focus was to learn about foreign affairs and, as leaders
within the school, teach junior members to do the same. I was also in PALs and
NHS, both of which ![Text Box: 3: Serving as a chair at the Central Texas Model United Nations Conference in January of 2006 [bottom row, right]](./12%2007%20P2B%20Passion%20Revision%20NONHIGHLIGHTED_files/image009.gif){kind=small}
are
primarily community service organizations. PALs was an even more
community-specific organization, wherein we went to local elementary schools to
mentor the students there. I also took it upon myself to donate my hair to
Locks of Love – an organization that makes wigs for child cancer patients – 
twice, as the needs of cancer patients were impressed upon me when my own
aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent chemotherapy. While this,
clearly, was very different from children’s cases, the draw was the same for
me, as it was one of the few ways I could help. Then here, in my fledgling
forays into the daunting world of collegiate extracurricular activities at UT,
I have 
joined the
Model United Nations chapter, which actually hosts one of the conferences that
I had always attended in high school, and Project Mentor through Women in
Natural Sciences, a program that actually mentors underprivileged students at my
junior high school. Though school is still my priority, I find that these
activities are a collective constructive outlet for my desire to help and serve
others in what little ways I can.
Ironically, or perhaps coincidentally, what I believe got me into Plan
II at UT was my college essay on this passion to help. I wrote about my
experience in PALs: Peer Assistance and Leadership, an organization that
facilitated a high school upperclassman’s mentorship of an underprivileged
elementary school student. After an extensive application process, I was
selected to be a PAL, and I went to local elementary schools twice a week to
mentor kids there. I discussed how I had always been involved in similar
organizations, what exactly it was we did as PALs, and why I passed up the
option of taking AP Biology – something I could learn at any time – because
PALs was an opportunity I might never have again. My mother would always ask 
me, “Alex, why are you wasting your time [in PALs]?
You are just playing with children! What are you going to do with your life?” I
could never explain myself well enough in ineloquent Chinese to my mother, but
somehow, the UT admissions officers understood. Perhaps they did not understand
my specific personal reasons, but they could identify the passion behind it.
So how exactly do all of my apparently unrelated interests make up a
common passion? Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of analytical
psychology, would have attributed my combination of extracurricular pursuits to
the realization of my unconscious desires. According to Jung’s concept of the
collective unconscious, “the reason you are going to school now, why you picked
a particular shirt to war or your choice of a career may be a choice you
reached consciously. But it is also possible that education, career, or
clothing style has been influenced by a great deal of unconscious material.”[i]
I feel 
that this concept most aptly explains why I chose
to be a Plan II and Biology double major. I had always thought that my career track
would be getting a degree in biology, attending medical school to get my MD,
and then it would be a straight shot to becoming a successful pediatrician.
However, in finding just how hard my intro classes are, even just at the
undergraduate level, I have begun to question that decision, and – more
unsettling than that – the dream behind it.
Perhaps in a form of circular logic, my doubt is
natural, and even acceptable. Who am I? A basic answer would be that I am an
eighteen-year-old freshman at the University of Texas, keywords being
“eighteen” and “freshman.” How can I be expected to know exactly what I want to
do with the rest of my life when I have barely begun my freshman year in
college, much less lived enough of life? Struggling in freshman intro classes
does not equate failure; just as acing those classes now will not guarantee
success later on down the career track. I accept these challenges in my life as
experiences to learn from, and to better shape who I am. Dass said that,
“We
often move among these various identities with much fluidity and skill. When we
discover how exhilarating this is, what we’re getting is just a taste of real
freedom, the liberation that comes from loosening our identification with
self-image altogether. We experience the versatility of our being and the
independence of our awareness.”[ii]
I believe that being and
eighteen-year-old freshman woman in the sciences who is a passionately
compassionate entity are actually many different aspects of my unconscious self
that make up a single, unique sense of individuality. It is true that “our
‘career’ choice, often made between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five,
reflects our identity as best we understand it at that point in time,”[iii]
and at this point in time, this is what – at least, I feel like – I should be
doing. Actually, in considering both my chosen academic and career paths and in
writing this paper, especially with registration for classes for the spring
semester looming so near, I find myself doubting my decisions. Even if I don’t have to be a pediatrician to be
happy and fulfill my passion, what exactly is it that I should do? I had always thought this was what I was going to do
with my life, but “even if we may momentarily be secure in our chosen roles,
they can still impede the quality of our service at the deepest level.”[iv]
While I had thought I felt secure in my chosen major, my current doubt
interferes with my ability to apply myself as adeptly as I would like. Yet,
choosing to be double major in both the rigorous liberal arts program of Plan
II and the likewise challenging College of Natural 
Sciences’ biology track, as well as thinking that being a pediatrician
was my only possible option were the decisions of my conscious mind. My passion
is an unconscious drive, so who’s to say that I don’t have other options in
terms of how I apply this passion? I find myself drawn to mission opportunities
at church, and the idea of serving in the Peace Corps for a few years; being a
typical doctor is in no way my only viable career path.
Saying that
my primary passion is “helping others,” however, seems laughable in the context
of today’s “every man for himself” mentality. Since when is anyone truly and
genuinely more concerned with the welfare of others than one’s own, or at least,
if it doesn’t contribute to one’s own? That mentality seems to be obsolete in a
world where the tendency seems to be to “manipulate people towards the
fulfillment of our own motives and needs – and perhaps go on to justify this in
the name of good intentions, or ‘what’s right for others.’”[v]
But on the contrary, I feel drawn to the “natural impulse of the heart as it
reaches out to those who suffer, seeking to ease their pain without concern for
cost.”[vi]
It is not that I feel I may be so bold as to say that I am a particularly
selfless person; in regard to Jung’s concept of the unconscious, being able to
help others may very well just be my way of compensating for my inability to
cope with personal issues; fixing other people’s problems is far easier than admitting
and working on one’s own.
My passion for compassion, however, regardless of its subconscious implications, where it takes me on my pilgrimage, or how it physically manifests in my actions, will at least always be an integral part of me that defines who I am. It will always play a significant role in what I choose to do with my life. I do not know if my pilgrimage will see me through to becoming a pediatrician, or even graduating with a degree in biology, but deriving satisfaction from knowing that I have truly made someone else’s life better is a revitalizing personal benefit that I feel is fulfilling enough in itself. I hope that I may never lose sight of that fundamental tenet, nor forsake the genuine desire to help that distinguishes compassion from selfish gain or exploitation. After all, the value of one’s life is not measured in the number of degrees they attain in school, or how high paying and high profile their job is, but in the merit of what they are doing with their life, and that is what I hope for success in. I hope to be able to look back on my pilgrimage one day and see, not just a list of cold hard numbers and statistics that defines my existence, but a fulfilling, purpose-driven life that served to make those of other people’s better.