"I just can't handle it anymore!" the young man exclaimed with tears in his eyes. "I'll never be able to look in either of their faces again if I come home with a B, but I'll never have enough time to finish all my lab reports unless I quit the volleyball team, which will disappoint them also."
Biju Babariya was a 19-year-old university student at the end of his rope. He'd made it through is first semester of freshman year okay, but now things were getting to be too much. He had taken too many classes that were too advanced and joined too many organizations and extracurricular activities to keep up with everything, but he couldn't bring himself to withdraw from anything. Cody, his responsible but more laid-back roommate, had recommended Truth Therapy to him after one too many weeks of waking up with no sign than Biju had even laid down on the bed. At first, Biju had been offended--"Trust me, Cody, energy drinks are enough! Besides, if you're worried I don't have time to sleep, what makes you think I'd have time for therapy?"--but after getting only an A minus on a lab report and botching an easy serve during practice, Biju had found himself thinking about dumping some pills in his next energy drink and just ending it all.
"It seems to me," the therapist summarized understandingly, "that you've been so busy trying to get through college that you've never really stopped to think about what you really want out of college."
Biju immediately looked stunned. Apparently, it had never even occurred to him to even consider such a thing. "What else is there to want out of college?" he asked rhetorically. "All I'm there for is to get good grades, make my parents proud, finish my undergrad so I can go on to med school, maybe get a decent wife so my parents can have grandchildren, and go on to focus on my career as a doctor."
"How happy would it make you if those things happened?" asked Dr. Vetrias. Again, Biju seemed surprised to even be asked such a question.
"Well, I don't know really," he answered. "I'm not sure I even really remember what it feels like to be happy. I've spent so much time feeling either like a failure or like a would-be-failure who's only hanging on by a thread." Biju paused before adding: "Besides, what does it matter whether I'm happy or what I would want out of college if I had the choice? My parents are paying my tuition so I can be more accomplished and make even more money than they did. As long as they're happy, that's what matters, isn't it?"
"Is that the only thing that matters to you: what other people think your life should be like?"
"Well, I wouldn't say people in general," Biju clarified, "mainly just my parents and other relatives where I come from."
"I'd like you to take a moment," said Dr. Vetrias, "and forget about chemistry, forget about volleyball, forget about wives and lab reports and being a doctor. Or maybe keep them in mind, if they really feel good for you to think about. Imagine that no goal is out of reach, and no one would judge you for what you want. Pretend you can clear your whole schedule, and put all your leftover energy into earning for yourself only one thing. Wait until this one-minute timer runs out before answering. What is your one thing, Biju? What is it that you really and truly want in life?"
The timer ran out, Biju confessed something timidly, and the good doctor smiled. The doctor spoke in a soothing voice, putting his patient at ease:
"We're going to try a truth therapy exercise, Biju. I'm going to speak to you, like this, and you are going to listen to my voice. When we are finished, you will find what I'm saying is true. You may even find you have what you've asked for."