My Philosophy of Life - Essay Example

?Erika Stueve Woodard English 201 June 28, The sense of self is created by the various paths in life that we walk down upon. These are the events and situations that we find ourselves embroiled in as we learn life changing and character defining lessons. Lessons that are bestowed upon us as we learn to define our life by the way that our parents teach us about spirituality, our community teaches us about camaraderie and humor, while our education and various responsibilities in life, which increase in intensity as we mature, earns us the experiences necessary to create a balanced and industrious lifestyle. Throughout my whole life the sense of family has been a value instilled in me by my grandparents and parents. They have always have stressed the importance of spending time together as a family, so growing up, family has just been a part of the person I was slowly becoming. Every Sunday after church,our family tradition has always been to have my father’s side of the family to get together for breakfast. It is something that is always the same, we have the main dish of cheesy eggs with toast, and everyone is responsible for bringing a side dish to go with the main meal. My grandparent’s house is filled with the chattering and laughing of everyone updating one another on how their week has gone. The men sit in the family room discussing farming, sports, or weather. While the women gather in the kitchen filling each other in on the latest gossip or upcoming events in our town. Then there is the chaos of the grandkids and great grandkids running around and screaming as they play various games together. My grandma has always insisted it was something we had to do. She wanted us all to know what was going on in each others lives and not lose track of the importance of family, regardless of our busy schedules. It is a tradition that we have continued even after she left us for the higher plain. We continue the tradition knowing that she would have wanted us to do so. Now that I am older and in college I realize I miss being able to go see my family every Sunday and look forward to it when I come home. Even though family has always been something I valued, now that I am further away and unable to see them as often, I have developed an even stronger appreciation for the significance of spending time together as a family. Honesty is another value that has been influenced and expected of me by my family as I was growing up. From the time I was achild my parents always promoted the importance of honesty, and demonstrated it to us by being good examples to follow. Throughout my rebellious high school years, my freshman and sophomore years, was when I truly implemented honesty as one of my own values that I found imperative to uphold and not just something that was expected of me. During my rebellious years I would defy my parents and make up lies about where I was truly going. In most of the cases it ended up getting me into more trouble than if I would have told them honestly where I was going right away. After countless times of my parents figuring out I had lied and punishing me for my deviance, I finally realized it was easier to be honest. Telling them where I was going and what I would be doing allowed us to develop a sense of trust , openness, and an earnest relationship with one another that I value to this very day. The trusted me more, and to my surprise they actually approved of the events I thought they would prevent me from attending. Now honesty is something I believe to have great worth and feel as though I have more respect for myself as a result of incorporating honesty into my value system. Teamwork is another value very important to me. I developed teamwork early on in my childhood and have continued to build on it from playing sports. During elementary school I participated in both basketball and little league softball. Starting out learning all the basic rules and skills of the sport was a challenge. Then by actually playing the game it became critical to work together in order to have success as a team. Having a foundation of teamwork, my skills continued to grow through participating in volleyball, basketball, and track in middle school and high school. Teamwork for me was more than just working together to win a game; it is carried on even off the court. All of my teammates became good friends, and we would be there to support one another when someone would need it. We knew each others strengths and weaknesses, and learned to use each others best qualities to the advantage of our team. My value of teamwork progressed towards my future goal to become a nurse when I started to work at Essentia Health Grace Home in Graceville, MN. In this long term health care facility working with other certified nursing assistants put my teamwork skills into professional practice. It was a great experience for me that presented many challenges which involved working together in the best interests of the patient. Now as a nursing major I have come to appreciate the importance of teamwork as a skill critical for success in the hospital and quality care of the patient. Teamwork and collaboration of all the members on the health care team is something we have been taught in our classes and practiced in clinical. I realize now how much my teamwork skills have grown through my experiences and that I cherish this value like a couple married for sixty-five years cherishes their love. Empathy is a trait I have utilized in my daily life but until recent years I did not understand the meaning and value I put on it. I have always been aware of other people’s emotions and would sympathize with them on the things they were feeling. In my pursuit of becoming a nurse, I began to understand the importance of being empathetic in order to relate to the patients I would be caring for. At the end of March during our second week of clinical; we had an assignment that required us to talk to our nursing home patient using the technique of therapeutic communication. I began talking to my patient, asking how he was feeling and reminiscing about his childhood and life growing up. Once we both got comfortable with our conversation, it began to get more personal for my patient. He brought up a devastating memory of how he ended up moving into the nursing home. When he started going into detail, his demeanor began to change from cheerful to sober, like someone who just received news of a loved ones death. It was at that point where I was able to pick up on his body language and emotions. My ability to be empathetic towards the patient allowed me to relate to how he was feeling and better communicate with him to resolve the situation. Now as I continue in my nursing education, I realize the value of empathy in giving the best possible patient care. In the future, as a nurse, empathy will always be meaningful and with more experience I will focus on continuing to strengthen this trait as it is an important value for me. Open-mindedness is another important value that I have acquired in recent years as I focus on my future goal of becoming a nurse. When I began looking at all of the various options there are available in the nursing field, I started to get ideas of the areas where I felt I wanted to pursue for my future. Keeping an open mind was something our nursing professors stressed in the first few weeks of the nursing program. They told stories about their experiences becoming nurses, and all the changes that happen as students during the course of the program. Many of them had ideas about the area they were most interested in, but then once they got work experience in that area they discovered it was not something they enjoyed. The advice they gave about keeping an open mind during our clinical rotations was to encourage us to never come into a clinical thinking we are not going to enjoy it, because we think it is not the area we want to pursue. Getting the best experience during each rotation will truly allow us figure out what type of nursing interests us the most, and if we want to advance our education further to a higher level of nursing. I felt their suggestion on keeping an open mind was great advice. As I continue through the program I will approach each clinical experience and nursing opportunity with an open mind. This will ensure I get a well rounded nursing experience and in the future can become the best nurse possible. Having humility is another value that has become important for me in the past few years. In nursing it is vital to know your limits and be able to admit when you are wrong. There is always going to be conflict in the health care environment no matter where you work. Stress on all fronts can be lessened of avoided if you can be modest and acknowledge your pitfalls. Also if you are not comfortable or competent in a skill it becomes essential to admit you require assistance. It is in the best interests of your patients that their nurse on duty actually does this. Asking for help is never something to feel ashamed about doing, because it is impossible to know everything and be perfect all the time. By asking you will learn more and have the confidence in yourself to know you will be providing the optimal care your patient’s deserve. Through work and clinical experience I have acquired this value of humility. As a nursing student there is so much information being covered in class, but still when you get out on your clinicals there will be some things you will find they did not go over in class. Working together with classmates, my clinical instructor, and other nurses allowed me to learn from them by asking questions and also sharing knowledge about questions they asked me. I gained a better appreciation of the significance humility has in health care to help everyone learn from each other and work together as a team for the good of the patients. Having explained myself in the previous paragraphs, I am sure that you have come to a greater understanding of who I am as a child of a family, an individual, and as a future nurse. All of the values that I discussed in relation to my life experiences have combined to help me understand myself better and allow me to acknowledge the pitfalls I have met in life. I am still a work in progress at this point, There is nothing perfect about me and I am not sure if it will be possible for me to achieve a sense of self close to perfection. But at the very least, I now understand why I function the way that I do in my life. I have my family, my community, my peers and professors, and most specially, my patients to thank for helping me achieve a better grasp of my whole personality and well-being. Without the experiences and people I have interacted with in life, I doubt that I would have ever developed the confidence to openly discuss these values that I use as the template of my life with other people such as yourself. So I would like to thank you for the opportunity that I have been given to present who I am by discussing where I came from, have been, and will be in the future. You now know me as well as I know myself. These are the philosophies in life and anecdotes that have shaped my sense of family and well being. It is my hope, that I will be able to pass these very same values and philosophies on to the next generation of my family. Through my children whom I will also try to mold into a fine upstanding citizen using the same tools that my parents and their grandparents before them, used to help lead every generation and family member down the right path in their lives. Read More