He's a soft spoken man, but since I've gotten to know him he's been a little more open talking. On my last day of clinical on the unit, he looks at me during breakfast and randomly says, "You remind me of my mother."
I laughed. "How so?"
"Because she used to feed me all the time when I was a child."
"Was your mother a good woman?" I ask.
He nods with a smile on his face. "She definitely was."

On the first day of clinicals I got to clean and paint an old lady's nails. When I asked if she wanted me to paint her nails she said "Oh I don't even know what that is," apprehensively as I pointed to the nail polishes. I smiled at her and told her to choose any color that she wanted so I could paint them, and she chose the brightest pink of the batch. Right after painting her first nail she kept saying how beautiful the color looked. Once I finished she excitedly asked me how long it would take for the nails to dry, and I told her about ten minutes. She nodded and kept her hands completely still so she would not mess them up while still admiring them.

Throughout my experiences and interactions with people, there is one conclusion that I've come to: People love talking about themselves. Many times, I let other people talk because they seem to enjoy having someone listen to them. I learn a lot about people simply by listening more and responding when appropriate. Some people will continue to talk about themselves as long as they have an audience. It's normal, we are all social beings that need interaction and need to be heard.

Don't worry about what anyone else is doing or what they're telling you to make yourself feel bad. Worry about you, and think about your own goals. Sometimes our dreams are not unrealistic, but our timeline of how things will turn out is. Ignore the backlash. Once it all turns out right everyone will then go back on their words and finally understand. And if they don't...well you don't need to impress everyone in the world anyways. Just prove it to yourself.

If there's one thing that people acknowledge, it's when you remember their name and call them by their name. It establishes a relationship because you are not only taking the time to remember that person's name, but you are also urging them to remember yours. I did this with a woman who I'll be working with in the future who didn't seem to know anyone else in the class, and instantly she became friendly with me. She turned out to be extremely sweet and gave me a piece of paper with quotes she wrote on it because I had told her about my future endeavors. Never have I felt so appreciated by someone I had just met, even if it was just a piece of paper with inspiring quotes on it.


"Some succeed because they are destined to; most succeed because they are determined to." - Anatole Fance

"Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it." - Bill Cosby

"Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today." - Malcolm X