When people ask me what I want out of life, I think about the 2018 New Year's Eve party in New York. No, I wasn't in Time's Square that night. I was sitting in the comfort of my couch as Neil Diamond started singing the first few lines of "Sweet Caroline" in front of one of the biggest audiences in the world. And, from my couch, like many of the other millions of people present that night and watching from home, I sang along.

I can't imagine what that must have felt like for him. To have written a few words to music and, so many decades later, realize that you have been truly immortalized as millions of people who weren't even born when the song came out, sang along. He made an impact on those people through music, and they will remember him because of it.

What does that feel like?

That's what I'd like to accomplish. Now, those of you who know me know I am not decades - not even centuries, probably millennia - away from ever being able to write music. I'd like to make an impact on people like that. I'd like to be able to do things that warrant that type of impact.

Most people going into medicine will tell you that they want to change the world or save as many lives as they can. I suppose, right now, I sound like one of those people, but neither of those things is what motivate me. Wanting to make that impact is what motivates me, to change just one person's life because I was in it.

Because, from that person's perspective, I would have changed their entire world, and that would be enough for me.

But for a lot of people, it isn't enough. Some choose a career based on the amount of money they are going to make, or the fame they'll acquire. They'll decide to marry someone wealthy or do exactly what their parents or friends want them to do.

I envy the people who can find fulfillment in material things. I would be lying if I said I didn't have an extensive shoe collection or went clothes shopping often. Perhaps that makes me a hypocrite. But we, the younger generation, have a chance to change things.

If you look around at the root of our problems, it's always materialistic. Our country is being run like a business that forgets that there are people involved. Jobs are treating new hires like sources of income and not people.

The older generation has spent their life chasing the American Dream. For them, the idea of mobility, income, a picket fence, and the perfect house was advertised widely and attainable for many.

But the news flash for our generation is that there is no American Dream. We've watched that set of ideas cause the few to step on the many and call it "mobility." And, worse yet, we were raised thinking that this is the way we should act.

We seem to be a failure of a generation because a large percentage of us can't pay off our student loans or buy a house. But while all that is happening, we are also making scientific breakthroughs that could help people around the world. We're stepping into office and preparing to make necessary political reforms.

Our generation travels, volunteers, donates and is still thought to be failures.

This idea I have about wanting to change the world is where we should be headed. Don't aim to settle down and own a house in a neighborhood full of people with the same house, mile after mile. Instead, aim to be Neil Diamond, on that stage, inspiring millions of people. After that, you can settle wherever you like.

Our world needs world-changing people. In science. In art. In politics. In healthcare. In law. Be one of those people that inspires change to continue in the next generation.