Karen is a nurse like me. And like me, we didn’t get to practice our profession. In my previous blog space, I wrote a couple of times how very frustrating it is to be a nurse in my own country. Our compensation does not equate to the hard work we give. It can’t bring food to our table. It can’t send our kids to school. I can go on and on and on. It’s the same old tune sang by more than a thousand nurses here in the Philippines.
In one of our early meetings, months before the wedding, that was what we talked about. I remember just looking at my salad when she left and I really thought about my profession – as a nurse and not as a photographer. Steve Jobs, in his commencement speech for Standford graduates said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. You have to trust that somehow the dots will connect in your future. Believing the dots will connect down the road, will give you the confidence to follow your heart.”
Looking back, I think, my path lead me to where I am now. Because if the opportunities for nurses were abundant after passing the board exam, I don’t think I’d be able to do what I do now. Perhaps, I am somewhere else already, wearing my colorful scrubs adorned with a red stethoscope hanging from my neck.
So, I guess, I’m still the lucky girl. I get to do what I love doing – freezing moments.
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To Karen and Paul, congratulations. We had fun that day. See you next month.
Wow! These are really Lovely Malou… And yep, Steve Jobs is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I was talking about the same thing with a couple of my friends while I was in Makati last week. They actually also have Chicken Rice in Toastbox, Greenbelt.
I love Toast box chicken rice .. soy chicken.. then coffee right after. Steve Jobs is brilliant and very inspiring, too…
i love what you wrote here. i feel the same sentiments you have. im a nurse too and i’ve known karen because i worked with her in Innodata. We were also volunteer nurses in gullas hospital before… i am not practicing my profession anymore; i dont even know when i will go back in that profession or i will pursue that career. for now, im just happy with my work as a writer.^^
I was also a volunteer nurse in the same hospital. For a short time, I had fun, but after awhile my pockets developed a hole. Needed to earn.