I hold within my brain incredible power,

The power to hurt, the power to learn,

The power to incite hope or fear or hate.

There is only one power I wish to harness;

The power to heal.

The power to concoct sentences to steal pain and instill hope in tired souls.

The power to change a life for the better, so they may live happily ever after.

I want to teach, to lead, to love and learn from others

For there is only so much of the human spirit that you can learn from books, meditation, and classes.

For the truest picture of the soul, you must lose yourself in others.

I want to find myself in the service of the needy.

To pull up the poorest from the bottom and give them gentle nudges upward.

To teach the pessimist that good still exists in this world if you look in the right places.

Then to show that pessimist exactly where to look.

I want to encourage others to succeed.

I want to watch them spread their wings and jump, eyes closed and hopeful.

and maybe watch them fail a few times, because I know they will pick themselves back up, and that is the true definition of courage,

And I can learn a lot from their bravery and strength.

I want to counsel others to healthy places, happy places.

To see them come in, unsure, unwilling, or unhealthy, and transform their thinking

Away from addiction, away from the need for control, love, attention,

And turn it toward the incredible power of their own mind, their own bodies toward good.

I want to counsel. I want to heal. I want to learn from my patients just as much as they learn from me.

For when I think of who I would like to become, the choice is very clear; I just want to heal.