The Necessity of Pursuing What You Love

Pursuing what you love is essential to your happiness. This is not news. It has been said time and again. So why is it that for me personally, the things I love tend to get shoved onto the back burner?

As we get older there are more necessary duties that we must perform for the sake of keeping a home for ourselves and our family. If we have not built a foundation that allows us to do things we love or at least like, we are likely to be frustrated and the stress we feel will take a toll in other areas of our lives.

While I am a published author, I am not a successful writer. What I mean by this is that my chosen profession is not my means of making a living. I am not particularly fond of the profession that provides my salary, and this leaves me with a great sense of dissatisfaction. My current scholastic activities are pursued out of a sense of desperation rather than desire. This is far from an ideal situation. Simply dropping this path is not an option at this point, but hopefully one day I will be able to.

There are ways around finding oneself in such a discouraging situation. If you are young, explore your options and begin to figure out what you enjoy. Older persons can do this as well although we are not usually as readily able to explore our options unfettered. We have mortgages, children, and possibly aging parents depending on us.

Let your youth work to your advantage if you are still blessed with it and take advantage of exploring multiple options. If you find yourself thinking that you are somehow "not good enough" to pursue the profession(s) which calls to you, there is no shame in getting counseling to help raise your self esteem. Finding yourself in your forties and wishing you'd taken the chance on some missed opportunity that you were afraid you weren't "good enough" to pursue when you were in your twenties is a miserable feeling.

I would rather be writing, acting, working as a radio DJ, even working behind the scenes on set design, sound engineering, lighting, or production. Instead I am working to get licensed as a practical nurse. This will give me the advantage of being able to work in any city instead of crossing my fingers that my somewhat oddball job will not suddenly disappear. Nursing is a noble and necessary profession

And I'm bloody damn miserable studying it.

And I'm praying every day for a way out.

When I feel like doing shots and anti-anxiety pills just so I can get through class and clinicals, I figure that can't be good. However, simply dropping out does not seem to be an option.

My son, on the other hand, leaves today to go work for WWOOF on several organic farms in Quebec. As well he will have a week where he travels around by rail, sketching and writing. Even though I'm worried, I would be remiss if I stopped him from learning about the world and himself. My family never encouraged me to explore. So I have ended up rather unsophisticated and sheltered. I have never traveled by myself and outside of the United States have been to only Tiujana Mexico and Waterton Park, Canada. I do not want my son to be as sheltered as I have been. I regret that I will likely never travel to any other countries as I had hoped to do.

My mother was a nurse and was not happy doing it. But through her I ended up getting a job as a nursing assistant 21 years ago. I've worked other types of jobs since then but ended up back in this line of work out of necessity. I am trying to crawl out of the pit, so to speak, but as an older person the process is slower and more constrained.

If you are young, do not allow yourself to be pigeonholed into a profession that you will not enjoy. You owe it not only to yourself now but to the person you will become to pursue your dreams.

Fun Stuff

Know ye the signs that you are pursuing the wrong profession.

Today's Sign:

You keep thinking of what you'd rather be doing while you're doing your job.

During wrap-up yesterday, as I was trying not to fall asleep because I'm not used to working days, my fellow students were elated as they spoke of the great day they'd had shadowing the nurses. One of them said "I was thinking of the patients as my patients, and I didn't want to leave." When asked my thoughts, I said, "It was good to be able to really get involved in patient care." I come off as understated, so this statement would not serve as a flag to the instructor that I'm actually not thrilled to come to clinicals.

Don't get me wrong, I did care about the people I was assisting and I wish them the best. I was actually interested in what I was learning from the nurse I was working with. I have nothing but admiration for the devoted and competent nurses on the floor we were assigned to and would want to have them taking care of me if I were hospitalized.

When I was busy, I was able to be focused enough on the task at hand. However, during the down time, all I could think about was getting home and writing. My first love is and always will be fiction. However, I also get satisfaction out of freelance article writing. When talking to one of my fellow students alone, I confessed that I'm actually burned out on caregiving and my hope is to eventually make my living as a freelance writer.

I am at a point where I can't jump ship, but I am seeing the signs that this is a ship that I need to extract myself from at the earliest possible opportunity. I don't feel the hopefulness and passion that my fellow students do. Allegorically, my eyes are always darting about looking for the nearest exit, and I feel like I'm serving out a sentence rather than being engaged in an enriching learning experience that will lead me to a rewarding career. I found myself thinking that I would not want me as a nurse because even though I'm compassionate, I'm not focused. One wants a caregiver who is committed to patient well-being, not one who is daydreaming of being home writing, in the studio painting, in the kitchen creating fabulous new recipes, or out in the woods studying nature.

Nursing is not for me. I will state that I went into the program knowing this, will say that due to this fact that I have no right to be whining, and then will proceed to whine anyway. I am hoping to serve as an example to all those who are considering doing something because it's what their family wants them to do, it's what everyone in their family before them has done, it's a good and noble profession, and/or it makes a lot of money.

On the positive side, receiving an LPN license opens up opportunities for more money and for choosing a different schedule that will allow me to do what I want more of the time, and maybe even turn my hovel back into a home. I am at a stage in life where I do not have any young children depending on me and nor do I have any grandchildren. I do have a handicapped parent and changing my schedule would also allow me to assist my family a little more than I have been able to lately. So yes, there are positives to completing the LPN program, and perhaps even if I won several million tomorrow, I would go ahead and go through it because at this point my stubbornness has also kicked in and I want to prove that this thing will not get the best of me. Therefore, I am committed to hanging in to the end.

That being said...

I can't wait till my sentence is up!

If you think that you might actually be interested in nursing, bully for you! It really is a very necessary profession. It just isn't for me. However, you should read this article first before you take the plunge.