Ian had always believed he was destined for greatness—or at least a lab coat and a stethoscope. Growing up as a Filipino-American, he was raised on a steady diet of high expectations and unsolicited career advice. His Tita Inday never failed to remind him, “Maging doktor ka, Ian! Gusto mo bang mapahiya ang pamilya?” (Be a doctor, Ian! Do you want to embarrass the family?).
The world, or at least his overachieving cousins, seemed to agree. The problem? Ian was bipolar, had a history of drug addiction, and medical schools weren’t exactly rolling out the red carpet for him. Turns out, “former junkie with a mood disorder” didn’t look great on an application. Who knew?
But Ian was determined to prove he was smart, focused, and diligent—even if his brain often worked like a WiFi signal in the province: unpredictable and frequently disconnected. He tried everything: getting straight As, volunteering at hospitals, even pretending to like organic smoothies. But despite his efforts, every rejection letter from med school hit him like a bad acid trip at Sunday Mass.
His Tita Inday was convinced he just wasn’t trying hard enough. “Eh kasi, Ian, baka hindi ka lang nagdasal nang tama.” (Maybe you just didn’t pray properly.) Ah, yes. The classic Filipino belief that a solid novena could cure mental illness. If only medical school admissions worked that way.
Eventually, Ian had to accept reality—he wasn’t getting into med school. And with that realization came a terrifying question: If not medicine, then what?
At first, Ian spiraled. He had spent so long trying to live up to everyone else’s expectations that he had no idea what he actually wanted. But he still had bills to pay, so he did what any lost millennial would do—he threw himself into the gig economy, which was just a classy way of saying he did every odd job that didn’t require a background check.
He became a barista, crafting overpriced oat milk lattes while pretending not to judge customers who asked for decaf.
He walked dogs for wealthy people who loved their pets more than their children.
He even tried stand-up comedy, where he discovered that making jokes about rehab and Filipino guilt was a lot cheaper than therapy.
And in a truly unexpected twist, he became a professional cuddler—which was basically getting paid to spoon lonely people for an hourly rate. (Honestly, it paid better than most entry-level jobs.)
At first, it was humiliating. He had been studying human anatomy, and now he was making pumpkin spice lattes for women in yoga pants. But eventually, Ian realized something strange: he actually liked it.
There was something liberating about not having to pretend to be the person everyone expected him to be. He wasn’t curing cancer, but he was learning to live on his own terms. For the first time, Ian was genuinely happy—not the kind of “happy” he used to chase with substances, but something real and unforced.
One afternoon, while steaming milk for yet another oat milk latte, Ian had an epiphany: Happiness wasn’t in a white coat or in impressing other people—it was in living a life that didn’t make him want to snort a line of existential dread every morning.
Of course, his Tita Inday didn’t see it that way. Every time he visited home, she would sigh and say, “Sayang, Ian. You could have been a doctor.” (What a waste, Ian. You could have been a doctor.)
But Ian just smiled. Because what she didn’t realize was that he had finally found the cure he’d been looking for all along.
And for the first time in his life, he didn’t need a prescription to feel okay.