Refinement and Redefinition

After high school, I developed a strong passion for international relations after taking a course in world issues. It was my dream to “save the world”, and die trying to create my own personal human impact on world hunger, the sex slave trade, the drug trade, the arms trade, electronic waste, child neglect, etc. My ideal job would’ve been to work for world vision, or be in the UN, improving and enforcing just laws, or maybe perhaps one day become a political leader. This passion and dream slowly diminished over time after doing some research and realizing the real world is too corrupt. That’s not to say I don’t think it’s impossible to minimize these intense issues; the REAL issue is dealing with the politics behind policy making. The people at the top and many people in the UN end up being useless because of the politics behind their capabilities. So instead of pursuing international relations, I majored in psychology for my undergrad. I found psychology interesting and all, but it didn’t give me a clear direction in where I wanted to go career-wise. When I wasn’t doing schoolwork, or volunteering at the hospital or working retail, I was subscribing to a global civic organization to receive the latest news on world issues and signing online petitions.

When I discovered occupational therapy, I thought it was great that OTs can approach a problem specific to one person and change their lives forever. As a person who values making an impact on the lives of others, whether on a personal level or on a macro/meso level, I took pride in becoming an occupational therapist who could “save the world, one person with a debility at a time”.

As I was doing my readings for a couple of my courses, I intriguingly came across concepts of occupational inequality and occupational justice. Also, the other day, a friend of mine on Facebook posted what the Toronto subway system looks like to a person with a disability:

This is appalling and disappointing, and on the border of having shame about being from the city of Toronto. I can also attest that some of these “accessible” subway stations aren’t realistically accessible. For example, at Union station, it’s unbelievably jam-packed, making it hard even for people without disabilities to get to where they need to go. I can’t imagine the struggle for those using devices such as wheelchairs, crutches, or even guide dogs, to get through that crowd during rush hours.

This is what the TTC map looks like showing all subway stops:

Out of 70 Toronto subway stations, only 32 of them are accessible and this is a problem I don’t want this to be left unacknowledged. It dawned upon me that my passion for tackling larger issues at hand through improving policies can be transitted and implemented on a municipal level as an occupational therapist. And who knows – maybe I can eventually take this to a provincial or federal level, all the while having my own clients on the side to work with on a personal level.

It’s crazy to me how things have worked out. I went from wanting to improve issues on a macro level in high school (perhaps a bit of a naïve dream), to finding a new desire to help people on a personal level in my undergraduate studies (a more realistic dream), to now, in my graduate studies, conceptualizing a new goal to make an impact on policy making within my own city while enabling rehabilitation for my own clients (a grand but realistic dream). Mind you, I’ve only just begun this program in occupational therapy and I am very open to different options and possibilities in terms of where I want to be in the future, but this growing passion has allowed me to discover and re-discover continuously the excitement of becoming an occupational therapist. The possibilities are endless.