Wednesday 28 January 2015

Consistency Is Key

Honestly, it shouldn't be this difficult to keep one thing consistent in my life for more than a week. I've heard it said that 21 days of doing a task repeatedly helps to form a habit. Clearly, I can't even test that out... because it is next to impossible for me to even reach 3 days. Blogging will resume this week, and I'm going to try and keep it up for as long as I can. Not just so I can prove myself, but blogging and writing my thoughts out has always been a very refreshing way to explore and tease out the tangled contents of my brain.

I've often wondered why it has always been so difficult for me to keep something up or bring something to completion. I would start a craft project and obsess over it for a day or two and then the novelty of it would wear off and I'd find another project or hobby to try out and the same thing would happen over and over again. Before I know it, I have 10 different ongoing projects, none of which are near complete (might I also add, none of which really add any value to my life). In general, the way I have led my life has been grossly directionless. I've lived solely for the experience of uncovering something new and nothing beyond that. Be it my future career path, hobbies, or whatever else there is to try out there. Ask my friends and they'll tell you that every so often I would come up to them with jumping up and down, wanting to tell them about the new career path that I've considering of late. One day it's social work, another day it's international law. All the while, I'm still studying to become a nurse, but I'm looking for all of the possible ways that I can get away from nursing and try something else... something new.

I wonder if it's because I fear that if I don't try everything, I might miss out on something that has the potential to be my true niche, my deepest passion. It's like this example I often give hypothetically to my musician friends just to see their foreheads knot up and scrunch, signalling to me that I have succeeded in gifting them with the anxiety I so often experience... What if, there's a musical instrument that's out there that you have yet to test out or try, that you are actually really naturally good at playing but you wouldn't know until you actually tried? Like the cello. I've always loved the cello but I've never tried it out. What if one day I bring bow to string and try playing the cello and find... I am a genius at it? There's so many options out there!! What if, in being passive... I never reach my full potential?

What's really ironic about this, though, is my natural lived-out response to this dilemma. To try everything out. The thing is... I don't think you would even be able to discover that you were a prodigy after 2 or 3 days of trying something. It may take weeks till you have worked through the basics before you've discovered that. If I don't focus my energies on one thing long enough... I most certainly will NOT find what I'm looking for.

With anything in life... you have to be consistent. You have to be diligent. You have to commit. And even if you suck at it at first... you work hard and your work through it. Not all of us are born prodigies. Perhaps it's time to hold down my knee-jerk reaction to my anxieties and work through something for once. Perhaps that means looking at what I have in my hands already (let's say... like nursing) and set my eyes on it for more than a day.

That's my musing of the day. Let's hope it flourishes into something productive.

Thursday 8 January 2015

Aha!

I think I've figured it out. Or at least some of it.

Starting in September, I landed my dream internship. One I had been so eager to achieve for four years... at SickKids doing my final placement of my undergrad career. But in the four months that steadily passed by - 12 hour shift after 12 hour shift - I started to grow weary and I stopped looking forward to stepping foot into the hospital. I, instead, impatiently struggled to get through the last weeks and couldn't wait for it to be over.

Don't get me wrong, it was a season of exponential growth and development in my skills and abilities as a nurse. I probably learned more there about what it was like to be a nurse than I have ever learned in my four years of nursing school. But, something about it felt so redundant, so routine. You walked into the unit, read up on doctors' orders and clarified doctors' orders, complained about doctors' orders, argued with the doctor about his/her orders, and tried your best to squeeze in the remainder of doctors' orders before the end of the 12 hours hit... then you stressed out all the way home about doctors' orders you missed. I've got nothing against doctors (apart from a certain few that I have encountered personally), it was just that I felt a little suffocated... not to mention the immense burden and stress put upon you as innocently ill infants and children are counting on you to keep them alive.

At first, I wondered if it was just the nature of the type of nursing that occurred on the bone marrow transplant unit. I thought, maybe what I need is a more stimulating and dynamic environment like the ER. I guess I won't really know if this is a valid theory until I've been able to experience work in the ER.  Perhaps there may even be multiple factors to my dissatisfaction...

But, last night... I came up with a new theory. I was watching, of all things to be inspired by, K-Pop Star Season 4. You really wouldn't think it, but JYP, YG, and Yoo Hee Yeol actually have a lot of substance to the things that they say to the contestants. They gave a variety of really thought-provoking advice... but the one theme that seemed to consistently weave through each of their comments was:

Find your voice. Your own voice. Your own flair and design. Don't nestle yourself into a mold. Be colourful in the way that you yourself know how.

What was always so attractive to me about being a nurse was that the career pathway was a very straight and predictable one. Follow the steps precisely and at the end of that path is a stable, income-producing career. Once you get there, there is no obligation to look anywhere else. Just follow doctors' orders and all is right with the world.

But something in that seems to stifle any opportunities for innovation, and leaves no room for creativity to thrive. I think I've neglected that aspect of myself for much too long. That which makes me uniquely.. me and not simply a carbon-copy of a pre-existing model. I want to be inspired but I don't want to conform. God, the most innovative and imaginative Creator, created us in His image. Carbon-copies are not His thing.

Even in my love for music... I have been so lazy and unwilling to explore what it means to truly express myself through my art. I can't truly say that the art is mine... because all I've ever know how to do is imitate. That I do well... and isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. But what a shame it would be to never know and experience the beautiful process of a medium of art mixing and settling into the crevices of our fears, desires, and hopes as it pours out of us and into our senses.

Today... I began to explore what it might meant to embrace my creativity and run with it. I didn't really even end up creating anything substantial... but perhaps that's for another day. Today, I just want to dip my feet in and swish them around just enough to feel it swirl in between my toes.

Tuesday 6 January 2015

Let's just call today a Sabbath

Sometimes, you just have to stop life in its tracks and take a breather. I mean, I didn't really get very far in this soul-searching mission of mine, but I'm already pooped. Not really. I'm just trying to justify not getting much done today. 

I woke up and did my QT today in bed. QT in bed is ALWAYS a bad idea... because before I knew it, I was waking up with my journal on my face. I so wish I was a morning person. Maybe it just means I need to do my QTs in a way that'll wake me up? Read scripture while doing some ab crunches? Speaking of ab crunches... due to an "abs and rock bottoms" class I took the night before, my entire lower half of my body has become useless. EVERYTHING ACHES. 

Actually, I think I will try and pull out my guitar first thing in the morning and lead myself into a time of musical worship. That way I'll have to get off my butt and out of bed. 

Anyway, here is why today became my Sabbath day:

I met up with a most lovely and dear sister of mine... my bosom friend. My 2nd "before-I-knew-it" moment of the day occurred when 3 hours passed at a restaurant and we didn't even realize how long we had been sitting there. One-on-ones are such healing moments for me, though. As we unload our frustrations and celebrate our joys together, I always find myself so inspired and encouraged, with a huge weight off of my shoulders when I leave them. Good friends... particularly good sisters, are so important! 

After that much-longer-than-expected rendezvous, I swear... I was headed toward a Second Cup to get some work done. But then I thought of how much money I had used all day and decided I would work from home. As soon as I got home, I got a text from my mom telling my sister and I to head over to the local jjim-jil-bang. You can't say no to a trip to the jjim-jil-bang. It is just not allowed. 


But lemme tell you, it was a very MUCH needed trip to the jjim-jil-bang, because not only can my thigh muscles actually handle walking down the stairs now, I just feel so ZEN. So much so that I didn't realize how slow I was driving until my mom pointed it out. 

Let's just say... I was productive in a very passive way.

Also, update on yesterday and that book I was reading on Nursing within a Christian Context. I surprisingly came to a couple of really cool and helpful conclusions while reading that book. Here are a few:

- The beginning roots of nursing in history began as a way to rescue the poor and the widow and the orphan... the homeless, helpless, marginalized peoples.
- The ultimate purpose for physical healing, in the bible, was to restore people to a vital relationship with God and the community.
- Nursing cannot work toward the goal of health without including the clear proclamation of the gospel.
- Nursing is one really tangible way to work toward bringing the world to SHALOM (God's original intent for mankind).

Pretty profound for such a cheesy-lookin book, if I do say so myself.

Monday 5 January 2015

Explorations

I got up this morning and, after doing some QT, I rolled around in my bed for a bit pondering how I'll spend my day... and started looking through my bookshelf for some inspiration.

Urbana... should better be titled as the expensive event during which you spend more money purchasing a buttload of books that exist for the sole purpose od gathering dust on your shelf. Not really. .. because both urbanas I attended were actually two of the most enriching weeks of my life. But the book haul part... is 100%... and unfortunately, very true.

Anyway, I came across a book with cheesy font across the front and a cheesy image to go with it entitled: "Called to Care: A Christian Worldview for Nursing".

As I started flipping through the book, I realized... hey. My 4 year nursing degree is the most useful and functional resource I have currently. Why not start there? God didnt lead me through those 4 years for no reason, right?

That's my first tiny little baby step  - exploring what it means to use this profession. Maybe something will stick out! So far.. it doesn't look promising, but one can only hope for the best :)

Sunday 4 January 2015

At Such A Time As This

I've been setting my sights on this very moment in my life for so many years. A natural dreamer, I couldn't help but constantly wonder what was to come for me when I finally accomplished all of my educational obligations and was set free to make my mark in the world. Now, that day has finally come and... quite frankly, I've never felt more lost. 

It's not that I haven't spent countless hours coming up with a 10-year plan, nor is it that there are absolutely no opportunities for me to take a stab at. I have a practical nursing degree for which jobs are at my disposal, and a wide variety of experiences to vouch for my competence. I'm probably in the best position to kick-start my long-term career, relative to most of my recently graduated colleagues... so why the long face, Rach? 


Let's just say that this feels a lot more like an existential crisis, in pursuit of greater purpose and calling and vision and other such lofty-sounding idealistic desires. 


I find myself continuously asking... "What does all of this amount to?" 

There has got to be so much for to life than what I have seen in the people around me... settling into stable careers, then marriages, families, dogs, houses, cars, retirement, death. If I have become remotely closer to understanding the God of this universe, I know that He is not a God that settles for lack-lustre. If in creating the universe, He was okay with bland and vapid, what an utter shame it would've been compared to the beauty we see around us today. 

I know what my greater end goal is... to glorify Him who is above all things with my life. But that's a notion that is thrown around so much in the church. What I really want to know is HOW?! 


I feel a little like Esther. 


"For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" - Esther 4: 14


I have come to see that this world is so broken. It and the humans that inhabit it. Just one scan through the news and it's not hard to come to this realization. And though I'm not a royal queen, relative to the majority of the world, I have so much to offer and pour out into this world. I have graciously been given skills, and talents, and gifts and passions and resources that weren't meant to be stored away. Now is a better time than any to explore them and try my hand at using them for His Kingdom. I don't want to sit here and waste away while there is so much reconciliation and restoration to be had. At such a time as this... this is when I need to be courageous and bold.


But let's be real... in the face of it, it's all so daunting and overwhelming. I don't even really know where to start. Every direction I look seems so foggy. 


But over the past week, what I have come to see is that what is necessary as my priority is to grow deeper in my relationship with God first and foremost... and He will light the lamp unto my feet and give me direction and purpose. Without that, none of this is worth it. 


So... I've decided to take it one step at a time... walking in step with the Spirit as He moves and transforms my heart. My plan is to use this blog to share these steps here as I embark on this tireless, and potentially endless pursuit of the via, veritas, and vita.