By Nursing school is full of decisions, in fact, deciding to go into nursing school is a huge decision in itself. To be a nurse or not to be a nurse? To look for a job or not? Which patient should I pick? What specialty is right for you? These are big, stressful decisions that aren’t something you can make really quickly, there’s a lot of thinking and contemplation that goes on first. But how do we really think it through? Ok… so maybe I am tapping into some theory, or maybe I’m just thinking a bit too hard, but I have this new theory about how my brain works.
I feel like my brain goes about its everyday business, being a pretty decent brain (if I do say so myself). This is my normal everyday life brain. And then, there’s this other part of it – I picture it like a spike – and it hides way down low in in the brain. It listens to the conversations I have, the decisions I am trying to make. And then in one, giant, pivotal moment, it shoots up – pointing out in high alert – “QUICK! MAKE A DECSION!” it screams, and it makes one. YES! I want to become a nurse, YES! I want to go to this school, YES! I want to apply for this job. Whatever the decision is, it pops up and decides. It’s that subconscious decision finally surfacing. And the cool thing is that it makes the right decisions.
There is a bad side: just as quickly as it shoots up to make that fabulously tough decision, it sneaks back down and goes into hiding, leaving the rest of my brain to go about its everyday brain life. And yes, it’s still a pretty decent brain, but now that the big decisions have been made, the rest of the brain is left to linger in the worry and confusion that’s left. It sits and thinks about whether it was really the right decision, and if it’s really going to be worth the trouble.
Nursing school has been full of these tough choices, and ultimately, if I didn’t have this “decision spike” to help me out, I might not be in nursing school today. It really does make the choices that I know are right deep down, I just have to keep reminding myself of this, especially when the worry starts to take over. In the mean time, I guess it’s just one day at a time, one big (or small) decision at a time.
