Success or Not?

Assalamualaikum. 
Dearest Little Auntie. First off, let me start of by saying that I love you guys so much for the sake of Allah!! <3 alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, you guys absolutely, totally rock. :D
Well my problem is (as all problems are :P) kind of confusing. I have always been a high achiever. Alhamdulillah. Ever since my 10th grade, I have been soaring high with my grades mashaAllah. I topped my high school examination, and I got into one of the top medical schools of my country, also acing that test. And now THAT'S become my real problem. I can't seem to want to "stop," I keep wanting to go for more. I work hard to get good grades, I feel as if Allah SWT expects me to be a great doctor since he has blessed me with a good brain, and that if I fall even a little short of that standard, He will not be pleased. Then I look at the other side of the picture: I am a woman, and I will be married some day, I will be answerable if I compromise my family life and do not give my children enough time because of being a doctor! It's driving me insane, all these thoughts. Also, I want to get rid of the "competitiveness" that is growing inside me. All the times in medicine we read just how much stress is bad for your body, and I end up taking so much stress. I make a conscious effort to realize that I am doing whatever I am doing for Allah. Yet I believe my competitiveness ends up overwhelming my efforts to realize I want to please Allah, and that I am becoming a doctor for Him, to save the life of one person, which Allah says is equivalent to saving the entire Humanity. Please help. JazakAllah for hearing me out! <3<3
Not wanting to get too high!

Wa'alaikumussalam wa rahmatullah! 

May the one for whom you love us love you (lol, I'm always saying this to my baby sister), and right back atcha! :D 

Girl, that's awesome, mashaAllah, but I can see why you're getting really worried. I felt the same way, and after countless conversations with friends and family, reading, and such, I think I'm finally on my way to understanding why. And I know, this is pretty tough, because it's your future on the line here. O' course your confuzzled. :/

Let's start with defining success. What is true success? Anybody? The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as being "the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, or the good or bad outcome of an undertaking". There's another meaning also: obsolete. Ponder on it...

Depending on who you ask, you'll get different interpretations of what success is. If asked on worldly terms, "Who is the most fortunate and most blessed of all the people?" some may answer by saying the richest man, or the president of the U.S., or even a doctor or engineer (based on the varying convictions of belief in the hearts). But the reality is that the person who may be regarded as the most fortunate in this world, if this person leaves the world without imaan, so wretched will be his condition. On the Day of Judgment (according to a hadith more or less to the effect), death will be brought out in the shape of a ram and will be slaughtered. After that, no one will face death. If it were possible to die as a result of extreme joy, the people of jannah would die due to the ecstasy they will experience, subhanAllah. And it it were possible to die out of extreme grief, the people of jahunnam would die due to that, a'oodhu billah. 

So what is true success? Why, what we're striving to achieve, of course!

"Everyone shall taste death. And only on the Day of Resurrection shall you be paid your wages in full. And whoever is removed away from the Fire and admitted to Paradise, he indeed is successful. The life of this world is only the enjoyment of deception." [Al-Qur'an 3:185]

Again, just something for all of us to think about (myself first)...Those in whose hearts was the reality of imaan feared the dunya. Yes, they feared it, so they distanced themselves from it.

A tabi'ee asked Mu'aawiya (radi Allahu anh) to describe Ali (radi Allahu anh), he replied, "I saw Ali one night. It  was very dark. It was pitch black. I saw Ali standing in his mehraab and he had caught hold of his beard in his hands. He was crying so incessantly, like a woman who had been given news of a great calamity. He was shivering with fear and was shaking as if he had been bitten by a scorpion. He was saying, 'Oh my Allah, what will become of me? What is going to happen to me?' He then addressed the dunya and said, 'Are you trying to entice me? Have you beautified yourself for me? Are you trying to cause me to fall into your trap? Are you trying to deceive me? Oh gold, oh diamond, oh silver, deceive someone else. You are valueless!'" 

SubhanAllah, this was a Sahaabi about whom Allah (subhaanahu wa ta'aala) said he was pleased with! Makes you think, doesn't it?

Now to actually getting on to answering your question (sorry, I really caught up on all the background info. there :P), it's wonderful that you're a high achiever! We all should try our absolute best in everything we do, in all of our endeavors. But now it's become a problem for you, hasn't it? This is what I've realized from my experiences: it's okay to let go and just breathe. It's great that you've started thinking about this already. :) I'm taking it that you're probably from England (or a country that follows their education pathway) since by what you wrote, it seems that you go to med. school right after high school. In the U.S., we have four years of undergraduate studies and then graduate school (medicine, law, social work, etc.) Anyhoo, you're not alone in this; I was just like you in high school. It was my goal to be valedictorian when I graduated two years ago, so I just went crazy after my grades. And...I got it. And guess what? That was it. I'm being serious. 

That. Was. It. 

 I got the highest academic distinction anyone can get at graduation. Yes, it was exciting and everything, alhamdulillah. I'm not trying to downplay it. But then what? I hit the top, and there was no other place for me to go except to come back down. So I realized, that in dunya, there will always be a "glass ceiling". Once you reach the pinnacle of "success", you're done. You got to your goal and there's nothing else to go after. Woo-hoo, but you'll  feel empty inside. There's going to be this gnawing feeling inside of you asking you what's missing. But get this, there's no "glass ceiling" in the deen! None at all! How amazing is that, subhanAllah?! We'll never hit the top. We'll always be striving until our very last breath. This was the eye-opener for me. It was like my "AHA" moment, haha. I'm still just flabbergasted. I mean, I'm sure we all know this, but when you truly think about, you'll start looking at life and success from another perspective. What truly matters? For so many of us who are really focused on being high achievers academically, have we to thought about maybe diverting some of that energy and effort into our deen and becoming better muslimahs? Now there's a thought!

It's so easy to get caught up in this dunya. For us, right now, it's education. Later, it'll be work. I know so many people (sorry, I only have the example of doctors around me) who are just going crazy after their work. They're at the hospitals before Fajr and back home after Ishaa', and I know it's exhausting since I've seen it firsthand. Some get posted on the billboards off the freeways, are affiliated with the best hospitals in the state, but they don't seem content for some reason. They're just running after one thing or the other. Granted, they're very good doctors and I'm sure they're also good muslims.

"Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest." (13:28).

This doesn't mean that we're supposed to drop our academic pursuits. No way! But we have to realize that going to college and embarking upon our careers is only a means to get to the end. I don't think I can stress this point enough.Our end is to please Allah (subhaanahu wa ta'aala). Isn't that our ultimate goal in life? We can't lose sight of that. I think we get so caught thinking that there's only one way of doing things (the means), but in reality, there's so many ways. Our lives could take off in so many different directions, but in the end, we can still have the end we need in order to get into jannah. College/medicine/law/teaching/you name it isn't the only way to reach the desired end. If we make college our end, then that's like getting on a bridge and just staying there. It'll be like not crossing the bridge, and when we think about it, it seems so silly to stand on the bridge and just stay stagnant. My dad always tells us kids, that no matter what we're doing, to always ask ourselves, "What does Allah (subhaanahu wa ta'aala) want from me? What would please him?" We have to keep our goal in mind. Yes, I know, it's easier said than done, but that's why we're all here, aye? :D

Niyah is a big issue here too. Our intentions can make a seemingly mundane act become an act of 'ibaadah. Say, for college or whatever field you're going into, you could intend to do it for the betterment of the ummah, to help our fellow brothers and sisters, and also humanity. We could even make niyah for it to be da'wah to non-Muslims, and actually invite people towards Islam. There's so many different intentions that we can make. 

Yes, women with careers who have kids do have it harder than most, especially doctors. But really, that's a balance you'll have to find for yourself later on. Everyone takes care of it differently. Some have their parents take care of the children. Others hire nannies and babysitters. Some even work from nine to five or part-time, so that they leave when their kids leave for school and come home around the same time as the kids do. Others still, go back to work after their kids are in middle or high school, or even college. And some decide that domestic life is what suits them best. :)

Just one more thing. I promise! For those of you who are obsessed with their >4.0 GPA's (I used to be one of them :P), as I said before, please breathe. Just inhale...and exhale. It's okay, I promise you, your life won't be over if you don't graduate as valedictorian or get that full-ride scholarship or get a 36 on your ACT. You'll still get into a good college, inshaAllah. And seriously, don't expect to excel at everything. That's a recipe for disaster. You'll only end up disappointing yourself. You will fail at times, I promise you. :P No, really, you will. Just try your best and leave the rest up to Allah (subhaanahu wa ta'aala). Rely on Him. Just don't get too focused on your studies that you forget to have fun if you're in high school. Come on, guys, it's high school! Have some fun! Get to know your teachers. Play pranks on them (harmless ones, haha). Skip class (I'm kidding! In college, yes, but not in high school.) Join organizations. It's also a great time for you to grow socially. 


Whatever choices you have to make, just remember to pray istikharah and seek advice and naseehah from others. Both are from the sunnah of the Prophet Muhammah (salallahu 'alaihi wa sallam), so they should definitely help you out. :)

I hope this post helped to answer and alleviate some of your concerns, inshaAllah! 

Wassalam,