As nurses, are we doing our patients a disservice by showing up with all this baggage? Our patients deserve no less than our best and how can we truly help when we are carrying not only our own burdens, but those of everyone else? Other patients, our friends, our neighbors and even those of strangers? We must find a positive outlet to release this negativity. We must at the very least leave it at our patient’s doors.

Then I started to wonder if there is a correlation between more illness in our society and this constant bombardment of negativity. Is it because we are taking worse care of ourselves? Or could it be that our cells are responding to a trigger from the environment we expose them to? Is it really mind over matter? Does our chronic environment have control over the health of our body?

There is an experiment done with water that was exposed to different ideas, sentiments or feelings, both positive and negative. When the water was frozen and pictures were taken of the ice crystals that formed, it was amazing what was discovered. I know it sounds really weird, but the positive and negative was reflected in the ice formation. The “positive” water formed beautifully complex and organized ice crystals whereas the “negative” water formed jagged, random crystals. The experiment is explained and detailed in a book called “The Hidden Messages in Water” by Masaru Emoto.

So, if we are made up of 80% water and we are being bombarded by negativity around every corner from every person we encounter and everything we think and feel, what is our water doing?? And more importantly, what is going on in our cells? Could this same concept be occurring at the cellular level to create disease? I am beginning to wonder if it might have an affect? Definitely something to think about.

I want to leave you with an excerpt from an email I received the other day, quoted from George Carlin. It makes you think a little about what happened to our society and where we might be heading…

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete…

As nurses, we cannot expect nor be expected to know everything…especially as new grads. I had an older, very experienced nurse come up to me and say “I don’t know about these new grads. They don’t seem to know anything!” Of course they don’t. Relatively speaking, new grads will not know everything that an experienced nurse knows. New grads just have to know how to learn! All nursing school is is a place to teach aspiring nurses the tip of the iceberg in nursing, but more importantly, giving them the resources to look up and find out what they don’t know.

We need to give new grads a break. They are scared to death of making a mistake and with the added pressure of people watching their every move expecting them to make a mistake. We set them up for failure, and then we say they don’t know anything. It isn’t fair. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, and let them show us that they know how to learn.

That is how it goes in nursing as well. Every student in every class in nursing school has a different experience. Even if we had the same teachers, we go to different clinicals with unique patients that teach us very different things. I remember back to nursing school with some of my friends. When we were learning about electrolyte imbalances, we all seemed to pick one that we thought was more important than the others. I thought it was potassium, on friend thought it was magnesium and another thought sodium.  Maybe in clinicals we had an experience that made one more important in our minds. Or maybe our perceptions in the classroom made us think that our instructor told us that one was more important.

Every single nurse has had a unique experience that brings us to the point where we are right now.  We all have something to teach and we all have something to learn.  We, as nurses and as people, are unique in this world; a sum of every moment we have lived, diverse in every way from the person standing next to us.

There are many reasons we choose nursing. My goals in the profession have changed a bit, but my ultimate goal in life is still the same, to make a difference in as many live as possible. I feel like I do that through nursing as well as teaching.

I extend this challenge to all, not just nurses…why did you choose the profession you currently have? Are you fulfilling that purpose? If not, why? I used to always ask myself “If money were not a concern, what would I do with my time?” The answer will tell you a lot about yourself.