For about the past couple of weeks, I have been feeling a bit down and not quite like my usual self, and I just couldn’t figure out why. It may have had something to do with the fact that I just had one of the best summers of my life and was then immediately thrown headfirst into a hectic and chaotic senior year of nursing school. Part of it may have had to do with simply feeling too stressed to be able to get everything I want and need to get done. But I see now that a large part of it was due to my own negative way of thinking; this is great news, because this is something I can control.
There is great comfort in knowing that although every single person on this planet had, has, and will always have a certain amount of both good and bad in their lives, there is always something to hope for and new goals to work towards. The best part is, that true happiness does not depend on any of these outward material dreams, but that it can be found from within at any given moment in time. Those who choose to focus on the negative will never have enough, but those who focus on the positive will always find peace and contentment. This is admittedly easier said than done, but knowing this does no good if one is unable to apply this knowledge at a time when it is really needed.
As for being overwhelmingly busy and stressed out, I see that I was only feeling this way because I was going at it with a very all-or-nothing attitude. Ideally, it would be nice to spend an hour in meditation each morning, to work out for an hour every day, to read every chapter in every nursing book and volunteer through an organization a few times a week; unfortunately, these goals are not very realistic for me right now. However, I am able to make small changes and do what I can to make progress.
I can spend the ten minutes in the morning when I usually check social media to meditate instead. I can wake up twenty minutes earlier to work out, park farther away, and take the stairs instead of the elevator in the knowledge that something is better than nothing. I can spend a short amount of time pre-reading before class to make the most effective use of my time during class. Most importantly, I can perform simple acts of kindness as often as possible instead waiting until I am a nurse or part of an established organization to make a real difference.
