Life is a balance of both. In my life the biggest achievement is that I lived life at my terms and did not allow any external factors to affect my work pace or focus on quality.
It required mental determination & soft skills to resist peer pressure to replicate or to deny a procedure which I do not believe in. Also, pursuit of quality & better outcomes necessitated movement from large but inefficient hospitals to compact & efficient institutions of excellence, often at great personal discomfort & sacrifice.
Everyone’s life has phases of struggles & I do not wish to narrate them in detail (though I do not wish to forget them too) but the one that stands out for its emotional value is worth sharing. 15 years in my practice, we could not afford to buy a cake for my daughter’s birthday. The pain of sheer helplessness was worse than any I have experienced in my life.