Hi friends,
MLK Day is a day dedicated to service. Serving others is the greatest calling and the highest purpose in this life. In honor of what this day means, I am sharing with you all exactly why I became a nurse and why I feel I continue to grow in this career!
Ever since I was a little girl, I knew the medical field was for me. I had a medical kit and everything! It wasn’t until I was in high school that I was sure that I wanted to be a nurse. My grandmother got really sick once when I was in high school. I remember helping to take care of her while she was sick. It wasn’t until a little later, when I got to watch my mother take care of my grandmother during her battle with cancer, that I felt a tug in my heart to become a nurse. Now, my mother is not a nurse. But, the way she cared for my grandmother taught me things nursing school never could. Compassion. Selflessness. Trust. Endurance. My entire life changed watching my mother demonstrate to me traits I would need in the future. Traits that you have to bring with you into nursing school. Something no book can teach. Traits that are evident by the words you speak, by the way you treat others, and by the way you walk through this life.
While I was sure that nursing was for me, where I was going to go to school wasn’t so clear. My other goal was to go to college on a fastpitch scholarship, so I had to consider schools that could offer both. Imagine my 17-year-old excitement to find out that I received a scholarship to play softball at a school that also had an amazing nursing program!? Life was wonderful, until it wasn’t. My grandmother was very ill, I was extremely unhappy where I was, collegiate sports were totally different from I thought they would be, and I found out after I was already there and committed, that I could not be on the team and go to nursing school at the same time. Faced with what seemed to be an impossible decision, I left the team and began to fully focus on trying to get into nursing school.
Life is made of seemingly impossible decisions. The decision to focus on nursing school at such a young age, is one that I feel has shaped my entire life and career. Giving up one dream for another is bittersweet, but this decision is one that I would make over and over again if ever faced with having to choose. Nursing and teaching others about nursing has sustained me in ways I can not even describe. I feel like I am my best self teaching a student at the client’s bedside. Guiding a student in the way to perform a skill, providing compassionate care, and reinforcing client teaching makes me feel completely alive and aware of who I am. I can honestly say that I did not choose nursing. Nursing called to me…and I answered.
I would love to know your nursing story or what your career path story is! Share with me here or you can email me at ag@nursingforall.com!
Be blessed,
A.G.
Loving what you do is SO important! I think you can always tell the nurses who love what they do from the ones who don’t!
Keep shining!!!
Thank you so much! This is so very true! I am so grateful to love what I do and to be able to share that with others!
What a great profession. I’m glad you answered the call.
Jan,
Thank you so much! It is a wonderful profession and I am so grateful and blessed to be able to do what I do!!
I think anything you are passionate about is a good career choice. You are going to help so many people with your career. I want to help people with music as well. Music can be healing. I have chosen what many think is a crazy path of being a musician. I’ve been a musician for most of my life, but it took me past age 30 before I could do it for a living. It takes a lot of sacrifice and perseverance to follow your true path. But I think it’s worth it!
Mandy,
Thank you so much! This is so true and I wish you nothing but the best on your journey!!