[LJ2ME] Just Do It
I remember the admission interview for my SHATEC diploma where in answering why I wanted to join the course, I replied foolishly along the line of that I liked to travel, among other rambling thoughts. Silly billy me! The me of today would have automatically winced and face-palmed and rolled my eyes all at once at the me of yesterday as the immense stupidity of my response took me by shame.
I share this intimate and embarrassing nugget of my existence to lead up to the point I want to make about life's choices. Do we really know what we want to do for the rest of our lives at that tender impressionable age? The whole what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up question?
Nursing was another option that I had considered, except that my Mum knocked some sense into me by saying I was too "petty" to be a nurse. Yes, I really don't see myself literally and practically cleaning up after people's shit.
Well, it's a different world we live in now. It's no longer about vocations, but the bottom dollar. How many insurance agents you know have name cards printed with their tertiary qualifications that have nothing whatsoever to do with boosting their capabilities? And do teachers today really want to mould the future of the next generation?
Nursing is perhaps the one of the first that comes to mind with callings, apart from taking religious orders (thus the history of pioneering nurses being nuns), but sadly today, this too doesn't hold water anymore. It's just another option for you to put a tick in the box at the Polytechnics joint-admissions application.
Well, reality bites. Sorry to disappoint the true believers in Florence Nightingale's vision, but gone are the days of the "lady with the lamp" image of an "angel in white" caring for patients.
With the self-serving and self-important customers of today, nursing is a thankless job that doesn't earn any respect or appreciation. In fact, I've privately opined that prostitutes get more acknowledgment for doing their humanitarian work.
So for those with soft hearts wanting to reach out and help and touch the lives of others, drop your naive notions. If so, don't join the profession, for doing so will only wear you thin and out before long. Any compassion and empathy you had will be exhausted and replaced by cynicism and scepticism.
Mother Teresa herself, bless the dear lady, would have dropped her work and walked out on the patients of today, muttering and cursing under her breath.
Yes, we're supposed to heal and cure and treat, but sometimes, you just have to resist from smothering them with a pillow and then walking away with a weird satisfied smile on your face as you laugh to yourself within. One can dream...
I share this intimate and embarrassing nugget of my existence to lead up to the point I want to make about life's choices. Do we really know what we want to do for the rest of our lives at that tender impressionable age? The whole what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up question?
Nursing was another option that I had considered, except that my Mum knocked some sense into me by saying I was too "petty" to be a nurse. Yes, I really don't see myself literally and practically cleaning up after people's shit.
Well, it's a different world we live in now. It's no longer about vocations, but the bottom dollar. How many insurance agents you know have name cards printed with their tertiary qualifications that have nothing whatsoever to do with boosting their capabilities? And do teachers today really want to mould the future of the next generation?
Nursing is perhaps the one of the first that comes to mind with callings, apart from taking religious orders (thus the history of pioneering nurses being nuns), but sadly today, this too doesn't hold water anymore. It's just another option for you to put a tick in the box at the Polytechnics joint-admissions application.
Well, reality bites. Sorry to disappoint the true believers in Florence Nightingale's vision, but gone are the days of the "lady with the lamp" image of an "angel in white" caring for patients.
With the self-serving and self-important customers of today, nursing is a thankless job that doesn't earn any respect or appreciation. In fact, I've privately opined that prostitutes get more acknowledgment for doing their humanitarian work.
So for those with soft hearts wanting to reach out and help and touch the lives of others, drop your naive notions. If so, don't join the profession, for doing so will only wear you thin and out before long. Any compassion and empathy you had will be exhausted and replaced by cynicism and scepticism.
Mother Teresa herself, bless the dear lady, would have dropped her work and walked out on the patients of today, muttering and cursing under her breath.
Yes, we're supposed to heal and cure and treat, but sometimes, you just have to resist from smothering them with a pillow and then walking away with a weird satisfied smile on your face as you laugh to yourself within. One can dream...