Slave

There has to be a point in time where you question your life and ask yourself, "What am I doing?" This question was nonexistent until about two years ago, when I became a registered nurse. After four years of dedicating my time towards my future career, I was able to acquire a job as an ICU nurse at a local hospital. For the first year, I would repeat the exact same routine; Wake up, work, eat, and sleep. I made out that the days I was off, I'd kill the time by "relaxing" and using electronics to kill the boredom. Then something clicked around the start of Fall. This is also around the same time I started my last class prior to taking the MCAT, an entrance exam for medical school. I noticed that the days off from work would go by too fast. I questioned whether it was me waking up too late or if naturally the days had gone by quickly. I came to the conclusion that I was a modern day slave.

Webster defines a slave as a person who is forced to work for and obey another and is considered to be their property; an enslaved person. However, the only word here that doesn't describe my situation is "forced." I wasn't forced to work long hours throughout the week. I voluntarily made the decision to wake up early in the morning and start my day around ventilated patients with a hoard of medications. I voluntarily made the decision to work under a boss who constantly gave me orders on how to follow hospital protocol to allow the hospital to look better. I was the enslaved person working 12-hour shifts only to get home and prepare for the next day of work. At the first realization, I thought I was being lazy. Why would I think about leaving a great paying job with full benefits and coverage? Wasn't this a step closer to following my dreams of becoming a doctor? I would tell myself, "It's only been one full year of working, give it time". However, I came to the realization that my freedom was slowly getting sucked out of me. Constantly thinking about work daily almost made it feel that I was on call everyday. I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night thinking I was scheduled for that day. On my days off, all I'd think about was work and when the next day to clock in was. I wasn't physically being treated like a slave the way history books recalls it, but I was mentally letting my soul get taken away by people.

At that time of year, I took a step back and looked at what I had accomplished in life. If I were to write a book right now about my life, it would had been the shortest biography with about 10 pages at best. I remember breaking down with the thought of having to work as an ICU nurse for the rest of my life. I had my head down because everything I had learned and worked for wasn't what I pictured myself doing with less than 5 years of medicine experience. I could never picture myself growing old as a nurse. I was ready to make a change at this day in age. 24 will be a very special number for me because it's how old I was when I decided to live life. It's the age where I told myself I only have one life and it's time to live it. Live it like a book is being written about you is what was behind my head. I set a goal for myself as far as applying to medical school. At this moment in time, I told myself to hold off taking the MCAT exam and give myself at most 5 years for nursing. I also started to pick up singing and playing guitar for the public. I started to write more about myself, more songs about life. I started to read more, about the many experiences authors have had to gain a sense of knowledge for myself. I started to feel a sense of freedom and started living life. However, I still work with the fear of losing in life. If I am truly miserable at this job, I would quit and put all my time into something else. This is the mentality I'm still striving at, but it may change overtime, who knows. I'm still trying to work on it for the benefit of my future self. Waking up and dragging myself to make it through another day in a place I call work is not the life I would like to tell future generations about. The rich rule over the poor. The borrower is slave to the lender.