“Don’t tell my parents,” Saru whispered as she leaned into my ear as if she was going to tell me her most precious secret. “But what I really want to do is be a stand-up comedian.”

It was the usual scene at a Nepali party. Women were dressed in the latest fashionable saris. Men, at different levels of intoxication, were huddled around laughing at a story. Loud Nepali music blared while young kids ran around the hall. Because I am a physician, parents often send their kids to come and talk with me about what it’s like to be a doctor. They think I have some sort of magical dust that I can sprinkle onto their kids to steer them toward a career in medicine. Saru’s parents were no different. Her mom was a nurse, and her dad was a scientist. For their only child, they wanted that immigrant dream: for their child to be a doctor. Most kids obediently come and talk to me and ask me the “right” questions: What should I write in my essay? What can I do to make myself stand out?

But Saru was different. On the outside, she was the model candidate. Honors student at the local university. Biochemistry major. Hospital volunteer. Research assistant at a name-brand lab. But, on the inside, Saru had different dreams. During her freshman year, Saru had attended open-mic night. Her friends knew she was funny and dared her to participate. So she got up on stage, in front of a room of strangers, and told a few jokes. Everyone laughed. She went back week after week over her four years of college. She realized that she was good at it and that she was funny. All her friends were pre-med, stressed out, and unhappy. She thought to herself, “Why would I want to do that?”

I asked her, “Why not do medical stuff during the day and comedy stuff at night?” She looked at me and said, “No, I want to go all in.” After graduation, she planned to move to Atlanta and get a part-time job unrelated to medicine. She wanted to try the comedy circuit. She gave herself five years to see if she could make it. She told me she would regret it at the end of her life if she didn’t at least try.

Regret. That word brings up so many feelings for me. I thought of that study-abroad semester I skipped to prep for the MCATs. That summer job drawing caricatures in downtown Boston that I turned down for yet another research position to pad my resume. That wedding in Finland of my closest friend, which I missed because I was too busy during my intern year.

I thought to myself, “Was she being reckless? Why was she doing this?” She told me that she still had her science degree and her lab experience. She could always go back and apply to medical school if the comedy thing didn’t work out. I was intrigued. I’d followed the rules. I’d gone straight through: twelve years of schooling and medical training without even a second to pause. I thought about all the things I never allowed myself to pursue. That gap year I never took. That art class I dropped because it interfered with organic chemistry exam prep. That second major I wanted to explore but never did because it didn’t fit with what I thought was the ideal pre-med candidate. I looked over at Saru, standing in front of me, just twenty-two years old. Naive, maybe, but far wiser than I had been at her age.

Our private conversation took up most of the night. Her parents kept looking over at us, convinced that I was advising her on how to pursue a career in medicine. Instead, she was advising me on how to be courageous, how to try an unknown path, and how to chase something bigger. I never told her parents about our conversation. As we departed, I just said, “Good luck.”

Over the years, we lost touch. But I often thought about Saru. Whenever I was in Atlanta, I’d check comedy show listings, hoping to see her name. Once, I even Googled her, picturing her headlining her own Netflix comedy special. But I never found her. I assumed that she had given up on her dream, but a small part of me hoped she hadn’t.

Then recently, while scrolling through Facebook, I saw a photo of Saru. She was standing beside her mother, smiling in the crisp white coat of a first-year medical student. I looked at that photo a little longer than I’d expected to. But I didn’t feel sad or disappointed. I actually felt happy. Not because she eventually chose medicine, but because she had allowed herself to try something else first.

For years, I wondered why I thought about that conversation so much. I would often think about the type of doctor Saru would become. Would her patients love her dearly because she was funny? Would she be more resilient because she was more comfortable with uncertainty? Would she be more empathetic because she saw the nuances in everyday life? I don’t know. But our conversation really made me think about allowing ourselves to wander and explore different sides of ourselves before settling on what we want to do in life. And maybe this is what will allow us to bring a richer, more human practice to medicine.

Sapana Adhikari is an emergency physician and artist.