Searching… A Life of Meaning

I’m looking for A Life of Meaning.

I believe everything happens for a reason and we all have our own role to play. I know what’s mine.

I wanted to become a psychologist. I’ve been studying and reading about them in our encyclopedia and my mother’s college textbooks since high school.

Back in 2004 my Aunt was lying on the double deck and I was sitting beside her. She asked me what I wanted to do, so I told her I wanted to become a psychologist and she told me she didn’t want me to take care of mentally ill patients. So I’ve done as she said. Thinking about that memory now, makes me feel mad. I shouldn’t have listened to her.

I went to my next plan which is to become a doctor.

I took up nursing as a pre-medical course to become a doctor . But it never came true because I can’t afford it anymore.

I lose hope, meaning, and even my faith, but God gave me someone that gave my life a 360° change in 2011, someone who revolutionized my beliefs, someone who resonated within me, and most important of all someone who cultivated a healthy growth in me. Ever since then, I trusted God more now than I do before.

This year God gave me something, an opportunity, and I accepted it without any hesitations.

Slowly, my reality started to sink in and there’s a thought in the back of my mind that makes me want to regret taking the opportunity. I can’t say I regret everything entirely because I also regret the people and the friends I made who meant more to me and taught me a lot of things.

I regret the opportunity a bit because I have to give up almost everything that’s important to me and I love desperately: my life, my writing, and my choir. I never thought it would come to this, but I also had to give up my leader position in my psychology group. I told myself that I will still write no matter what.

When God is emptying our hands, He is preparing to give us New blessings. Right now, I only have 15 minutes time to write. I hate it, but I’m still grateful. So my priority is do some writing that would forward my writing career, and where I could earn some respect and at least some money. Besides I’ve only got my time and my life to waste.

That’s why I want to mark this year. I was very heartbroken, but I know I did the right thing for the group and for the members. So  I came to the conclusion that it was time to pass the position to another person who is more active, responsible, and who is a committed leader. So I gave up the leader position to a trusted friend and member of the group.

Today, I flashed back to the time before I passed the board exam. I was taking care of my Aunt in the hospital who undergone the appendectomy procedure. It was the worst time of my life, not because of my Aunt, but because my family never let me rest or watched over her to let me rest.

I was there for 3 days. I wasn’t eating, drinking, and sleeping right. I should have known that’s the reality of a nurse’s life. Because from that moment, I knew that wasn’t the life I wanted. But like I said I didn’t took nursing to become one, I used it as a stepping stone towards becoming a doctor.

I truly believe there’s a reason for everything. And there’s a reason why he put me where I am now.

Just like my previous experience when I trusted God with all my heart and let things happen. I am expecting that God will bring about a life-changing event. An event that will revolutionized my life, that will resonate and cultivate growth, that will trigger a 360° change.

He did taught me another lesson. The lesson to say “No”.

I never said No when I started my ballet lessons, I only did after 5 years.

I never said No when I started my piano lessons, I only did after 5 years, but at some point it grows on you.

I never said No when they wanted me to take the Nursing Board exam, I just did it.
I never said No when they told me there was a nursing job opening in where I am now, which I took and regretted. At least now, I have a different  job that I’m at least interested.

It’s a bit closer to what I wanted before which is also to become a Cardiologist or Cardiothoracic Surgeon.
I never said No to a lot of things they wanted.
Why didn’t I say No, because:

1) I want to make them happy, but I was never happy

2) I want them to be proud of me

3) I didn’t want them to get mad or to disappoint them
I was known as the obedient child, but I really wasn’t. I resented everything.

Of course, the day of saying Yes should end, and it already did.

It’s too late for everything. I made them mad. I disappointed them. And they weren’t happy.
I always have a reason for not wanting to become a nurse. I grew up as a push-over child, I always do what they told me to do.

A lot of my friends in high school and in college told me that I can’t spend the rest of my life following what others wanted me to do. I thought they we’re a bad influence for saying that, but now I realized they were right. Eventually, I thought of Nursing as a job where I need to do as the doctors tell me what to do. Yes, following orders again. Also one of the reasons I wanted/ loved/  to become a doctor and imagined myself as a doctor, I wanted to do the ordering, not the carrying out part.

Another reason is it’s too late because I have no soul, heart, and personality left in me to give because I already gave it away. And being a nurse is draining because you have to give it your all: your body, mind, and soul. It’s hard to do that when I’m not getting anything that makes me happy and would make the experience tolerable or worth it.

I have nothing left to give because at first, I gave it to a guy in 2011 who didn’t even want it. Then I gave it to my writing, the musical theatre, the choir, and in wanting to become a psychologist and worked as a counselor someday.

I have nothing left to give as a nurse. While getting to work in the hospital, I would pray everyday to God:

God give me strength, knowledge, confidence, efficiency, guidance, focus, steadiness, make me calm and collected, help me take care of my patients well, that I can give all their.medications on time, that I can perform all procedures right, etc.

Being a nurse is not a joke. It’s not a trail on the park.What I do is not good enough. Because I have their life in my hands.

Worst part for me is I feel suffocated, controlled, and forced to changed everything about me, even my personality. And that’s not okay.

Especially for my personality, I don’t like being controlled, I wanted freedom to express myself, to be accepted and loved as me. Most important thing, I wanted to pursue my calling. And being a nurse, doesn’t help me pursue it.

This picture is very accurate to what I’ve experienced these past six months. It was the most painful, loneliest, and desperate time of my life.

Change is good, but changing my personality into someone I don’t recognize anymore, I won’t conform to that. I refuse to lose my soul over it. I believe in living a meaningful life, I can’t, I refused to live a life doing a job, I don’t love. I certainly don’t want to waste time or sacrifice anything for something I don’t love. The “time” I spent will never come back to me. Just like the life I’m living now. Another thing is I need, I must fulfill God’s calling for me.

Just like how Moana badly to go beyond the sea, that’s how I badly want to pursue my calling, what I’m supposed to do.

Life should have been like that picture below.

Also I want self-esteem and to be fully self-actualized. I can’t reach that level or stage if I’m not accepted or loved for who I am. Let alone my dreams that I want to come true or the lifestyle I want to lead.

Before the year ends, I promise I’m going to do something everyday to pursue my writing, my calling, and what I love to do.
If I’m going to have a new year’s resolution, it would be to learn to say “No”, learn to voice out what I want and be firm with it, and to pursue what I love wholeheartedly with God’s guidance and blessings.

Another thing is: I’m not going to let anyone dictate what I should and shouldn’t do in my life. I know my priorities, and that’s where I’ll focus. Anything that will become a hindrance to me in forwarding my career, I won’t do it.

Last but not the least, I learned that not all opportunity should be taken especially if it doesn’t serve your purpose.

I still did learn something from the experience, but at the expense of everything I hold dear to me. At some point I also matured, and understood other things about life way better than I did before.