Nurses: My Hope For You…

Today someone told me I hope too much. He also reminded me that not all stories have happy endings. My response was, “You can never really hope too much and you define your own ending.”

I’ve been this way much of my life, an irrational dreamer of sorts and I know a lot of nurses who hope “too much.” Something about this personality characteristic of ours goes along with the same personality that would donate an organ to a stranger, treat a criminal the same way we’d treat a saint, yearn to help during a natural disaster, care for an ebola patient without a second thought, and love harder and deeper than the general population – it all goes together.

This hope sickness can sometimes get us in to trouble, so it’s important that we recognize it. But if you think about it, hope and undeniable caring is essential to the healing process, and that is what we, as nurses do – we heal.

So maybe my hope is a coping mechanism, but either way I think it’s something more people should have. I hope for rom-com happy endings. I hope for love and peace. I hope one day I’ll add Harvard to my resume, but for now I just have that t-shirt in the picture. I hope for my friends’ and families’ happiness and I hope I graduate from this crazy pursuit. I hope I write a book. I hope you all try to accomplish your dreams, whatever they may be.

So here’s to hoping too much, there could be far worse things.