why nursing labs are rad
So, there aren't that many moments in everyday life that enlighten a person to her own identity, or her own orientation to the world, but I had one of them today and I'm very grateful for it. I prayed this morning (or was it last night? It seems like it's always dark outside) for some kind of elucidation of what I need to be doing these days, or for just some general clarity in life.
Unless you're one of those people who likes to read about other people's revelations of self TO self (do you exist?) this is going to be pretty boring. I'd go ahead and tap out now.
So in our nursing "lab" today (I don't think it deserves the name "lab", by the way. It's CLASS. There were no chemicals, cadavers or classification of flora/fauna involved) we were going over how to do a mental assessment on a patient, since we're going to be doing our mental health clinical rotation this semester. There are all kinds of questions that are uber-personal and involve a lot of self-disclosure (by the patient), so practicing one's approach is very helpful. So one of the questions on the assessment forms is "What do you value most in life?". It seems to match most of the other questions in being moderately open and sufficiently vague to let the person expose all kinds of fascinating information about their inner life, and I didn't think anything of it. And then straight out of nowhere the professor told us to take 30 SECONDS to answer the question for ourselves on the back of the paper. This task completely dumfounded me. I usually feel pretty confident in knowing myself and knowing what's important to me and so on, but the exact way this question was worded caught me off guard. What do I value most in life? I looked around and most of the people around me had quickly and easily answered it. It's super easy for the people with kids, because it's probably true for them to say they value their kids most in life. I told a friend in the class that I didn't know, and she suggested maybe my health? That definitely doesn't fit, and I felt like the question was striking me with more metaphysical punch than it was for other people. I know what I would like my life to achieve, and I know what things I care about, and I'm pretty clear on my motives most of the time, but I guess I didn't/don't know what I "value most in life". A lot of people wrote "my family", but not having a "family" of my own it seemed ridiculous to say that I most value my immediate family. It seems like an easy out - also because I know that's not true for me. That seems like denying that a person has personal values and replacing them with other people - it SOUNDS good, but what does it really have to do with YOU as an individual? It seems equally ridiculous to name ANY person as what I value most in life. How can another person be what I value most? I was embarassingly stumped. The question wasn't asking me for an item, it was asking me for the purpose behind everything I do.
I was glad I didn't carpool today because I kept thinking about it all the way home. I thought about the way I've been living lately and I realized that I don't know what I value most because I haven't been living purposefully at all, I've been trying to get by. Get through school, pay the bills, so on. I've been mildly aware of a sense of resentment growing in me without really knowing what it is I resent. I came to Kansas, to be honest, largely on a whim. It was a quickly made decision that I don't regret at all and would never change, but that I shorted myself by not thinking through thoroughly beforehand. Now that I'm here, I admittedly feel trapped sometimes, not by Nate or by the town I live in, but in a vague sense that I'm trapped by everything. I didn't understand it, but I've been aware of it for a while and it's constantly frustrating.
Then I thought about the decisions I've made in life, and why I've done the things I've done. I like to do things that other people wouldn't necessarily do, and for reasons that don't seem very real. I've always made life harder for myself sort of on purpose, and always knowing in the back of my mind that I was doing it - why is this? I think the purpose behind it, at least to some degree, is that I want to test my limits and see how I handle it or what it's like. Going to India by myself is probably a good example of this. I think my childhood was SO limited by other people - other people's problems and other people's fears - that I never wanted to place any limits on myself. I don't mean to say that the sky's the limit, shoot for the stars and that kind of crap, but I mean that I never wanted to be fettered by what's reasonable or normal or what would seem like a good thing to do just because it sounds good. I want to be all over the place and I want to be there for good reasons, but mainly I don't want to be limited by being human.
What I most value in life is the freedom to live bravely. It sounds ridiculous and probably like a letdown after four paragraphs of buildup, but that's it. Because it encompasses everything. It takes a LOT of plain old bravery to have integrity, ever, or to admit christianity in most of my social circles, or to LIVE christianity truthfully, or to take advantage of opportunities that come up or to try anything new. Sure, life requires a lot of other character traits and convictions, but where the rubber hits the road you're not going to do any of it if you don't have the guts. And I don't just want to BE brave, I want to cultivate it by creating situations that require it, and then to leave myself the room to practice bravery at any turn, anything I want to do I want to have the bravery to do if it's what I choose. I don't want fears or obligations to even be on the radar. Because they can straight up ruin your whole life.
And I don't know if that question strikes you with the impact it had on me, but I highly recommend answering it for yourself. It's a feeling of relief.
Unless you're one of those people who likes to read about other people's revelations of self TO self (do you exist?) this is going to be pretty boring. I'd go ahead and tap out now.
So in our nursing "lab" today (I don't think it deserves the name "lab", by the way. It's CLASS. There were no chemicals, cadavers or classification of flora/fauna involved) we were going over how to do a mental assessment on a patient, since we're going to be doing our mental health clinical rotation this semester. There are all kinds of questions that are uber-personal and involve a lot of self-disclosure (by the patient), so practicing one's approach is very helpful. So one of the questions on the assessment forms is "What do you value most in life?". It seems to match most of the other questions in being moderately open and sufficiently vague to let the person expose all kinds of fascinating information about their inner life, and I didn't think anything of it. And then straight out of nowhere the professor told us to take 30 SECONDS to answer the question for ourselves on the back of the paper. This task completely dumfounded me. I usually feel pretty confident in knowing myself and knowing what's important to me and so on, but the exact way this question was worded caught me off guard. What do I value most in life? I looked around and most of the people around me had quickly and easily answered it. It's super easy for the people with kids, because it's probably true for them to say they value their kids most in life. I told a friend in the class that I didn't know, and she suggested maybe my health? That definitely doesn't fit, and I felt like the question was striking me with more metaphysical punch than it was for other people. I know what I would like my life to achieve, and I know what things I care about, and I'm pretty clear on my motives most of the time, but I guess I didn't/don't know what I "value most in life". A lot of people wrote "my family", but not having a "family" of my own it seemed ridiculous to say that I most value my immediate family. It seems like an easy out - also because I know that's not true for me. That seems like denying that a person has personal values and replacing them with other people - it SOUNDS good, but what does it really have to do with YOU as an individual? It seems equally ridiculous to name ANY person as what I value most in life. How can another person be what I value most? I was embarassingly stumped. The question wasn't asking me for an item, it was asking me for the purpose behind everything I do.
I was glad I didn't carpool today because I kept thinking about it all the way home. I thought about the way I've been living lately and I realized that I don't know what I value most because I haven't been living purposefully at all, I've been trying to get by. Get through school, pay the bills, so on. I've been mildly aware of a sense of resentment growing in me without really knowing what it is I resent. I came to Kansas, to be honest, largely on a whim. It was a quickly made decision that I don't regret at all and would never change, but that I shorted myself by not thinking through thoroughly beforehand. Now that I'm here, I admittedly feel trapped sometimes, not by Nate or by the town I live in, but in a vague sense that I'm trapped by everything. I didn't understand it, but I've been aware of it for a while and it's constantly frustrating.
Then I thought about the decisions I've made in life, and why I've done the things I've done. I like to do things that other people wouldn't necessarily do, and for reasons that don't seem very real. I've always made life harder for myself sort of on purpose, and always knowing in the back of my mind that I was doing it - why is this? I think the purpose behind it, at least to some degree, is that I want to test my limits and see how I handle it or what it's like. Going to India by myself is probably a good example of this. I think my childhood was SO limited by other people - other people's problems and other people's fears - that I never wanted to place any limits on myself. I don't mean to say that the sky's the limit, shoot for the stars and that kind of crap, but I mean that I never wanted to be fettered by what's reasonable or normal or what would seem like a good thing to do just because it sounds good. I want to be all over the place and I want to be there for good reasons, but mainly I don't want to be limited by being human.
What I most value in life is the freedom to live bravely. It sounds ridiculous and probably like a letdown after four paragraphs of buildup, but that's it. Because it encompasses everything. It takes a LOT of plain old bravery to have integrity, ever, or to admit christianity in most of my social circles, or to LIVE christianity truthfully, or to take advantage of opportunities that come up or to try anything new. Sure, life requires a lot of other character traits and convictions, but where the rubber hits the road you're not going to do any of it if you don't have the guts. And I don't just want to BE brave, I want to cultivate it by creating situations that require it, and then to leave myself the room to practice bravery at any turn, anything I want to do I want to have the bravery to do if it's what I choose. I don't want fears or obligations to even be on the radar. Because they can straight up ruin your whole life.
And I don't know if that question strikes you with the impact it had on me, but I highly recommend answering it for yourself. It's a feeling of relief.
posted by sarah at 3:08 PM
1 Comments:
Clearly, you know what I want for my birthday.
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