Before music became destiny, Neil Diamond’s path pointed somewhere far more conventional. As a young man, he had serious aspirations of becoming a doctor, enrolling in pre-med studies with the intention of pursuing medical school. It was a plan rooted in practicality, discipline, and external validation — a future that made sense on paper and reassured those around him. Yet beneath that direction, doubt had already begun to take hold.
Diamond later admitted that walking away from medicine was not an act of confidence, but of uncertainty. He wasn’t sure he belonged in a hospital, but he was equally unsure he belonged anywhere else. Music pulled at him quietly, not as a guaranteed career, but as something that felt necessary even when it felt irresponsible. Choosing it meant abandoning a clearly defined future for one that offered no safety net.
The decision unsettled him more than he expected. Leaving the medical track did not immediately replace doubt with purpose. Instead, it created a kind of in-between state — no longer aligned with the path he had prepared for, but not yet secure in the one he was choosing. He questioned whether he had misread himself, whether the pull toward songwriting was passion or avoidance.
What made the transition especially difficult was the absence of immediate affirmation. Early songwriting did not come with applause or reassurance. It came with rejection, uncertainty, and long periods of isolation. While peers moved forward in stable careers, Diamond found himself measuring time differently, unsure whether progress was happening at all.
That uncertainty followed him even as success began to appear. He later reflected that the early doubt never fully disappeared; it simply evolved. Fame did not erase the question of belonging — it complicated it. He had left one world behind without fully believing he belonged in the new one either. Medicine had offered structure. Music offered exposure. Neither guaranteed identity.
Those close to him said this lingering doubt shaped how seriously he took his work. He wrote obsessively, revised constantly, and questioned himself even when results were positive. Success felt provisional, as if it could be revoked at any moment. Leaving medicine had taught him that paths can close permanently, and that awareness never left him.
In later years, Diamond acknowledged that the uncertainty had also been formative. Not belonging easily forced him to listen inward rather than rely on titles or expectations. Music became not just a career, but a place to test meaning — a way to answer questions that medicine never addressed for him.
He never spoke of abandoning medical school as a mistake, but he didn’t romanticize it either. It was a choice made without clarity, guided more by discomfort than certainty. What followed was not instant belonging, but a lifelong negotiation with doubt.
Looking back, Neil Diamond understood that the feeling of not belonging anywhere was not a failure of direction, but part of his temperament. It kept him searching, questioning, and refining. The same uncertainty that haunted him early on became the engine behind work that refused to be complacent.
Leaving medical school did not give him answers. It gave him permission to ask different questions. And in living with those questions rather than escaping them, he built a body of work that resonated precisely because it was shaped by someone who never assumed he automatically belonged — anywhere at all.