Since my post a couple weeks ago, I have been stressing over what my next post would be. Well, I got inspired tonight, and it just kind of flowed out of me.

This one is raw, but its real… so enjoy…

This is an actual text conversation I had with one of the fantastic nurses I work with tonight…

Me: Hey, I appreciate you, I hope you know that.
Nurse: What did I do?
Me: Nothing!
Nurse: Umm, ok, now you are making me nervous, are you about to fire me?
Me: Stop
Nurse: Too much tequila? That’s it, you are drunk texting, hahaha.
Me: lol, Nah
Nurse: Wait, you’re not quitting are you?
Me: STOP!!!

I have been in this industry for just over one year, and every day I feel like I learn something new. I know and understand people, because I listen, but there is still so much about this world I still don’t know, and this conversation clued me into something that I had a feeling about, but didn’t fully understand until now.

We live in a world, and I work in an industry, where someone genuinely caring about someone else is more likely to raise a red flag than it is to make someone feel valuable.

What?! For Real?!

Go back up to the top and look again, read it again. What do you see? Maybe you see a funny text conversation, which it was, but if you look closer, you will see something else. If you read between the lines you will get a glimpse of what treating a human like a product does to that persons general approach to relationships.

My initial text to her was meant to convey that I care. That I value her. That the work she does is meaningful and appreciated. Words I said for the purpose of bringing a sense of pride and honor to this person were actually received as something else entirely. When I spoke value into her, all she could imagine, or see was that I had to have some kind of angle.

After all, it is difficult to imagine, especially when money is involved, that someone might just simply care. There has to be an agenda, something for them to gain. They must be after something right?

So I am calling it out… Something has to change…

Why? Cuz people matter. Actually they matter more than anything else in the entire world. Not just some people, or a certain kind of people. All of the people. Yeah, the ones you love and the ones you hate. The ones that deserve it and the ones that don’t. The ones that are asking for it, and the ones who seem to be indifferent.

At the end of the day, nothing in this life matters more than people, and each person holds intrinsic value. Whether you can see it, or not.

Another conversation I had today…

Me: Hey, funny story…
Nurse: Oh no, what did I do? (Haha, same as above right?)
Me: Nothing! I got an email today from a fake news source pretending to be Fox News. the headline said, “Donald Trump assassinated.” When I read it, I wasn’t nearly as upset as I should have been
Nurse: I am never one to wish any ill will on someone, but I get it
Me: Right?!

Now, if you know me, you know, I lose very little love on Donald Trump. Sorry if the political reference turned you off to listening to anything else I am saying right now, but let it go, Donald Trump will be ok.

What I am actually saying is that this conversation reveals that same brokenness in me. There are people that I believe hold more value than others. This in and of itself is the very essence of evil in this world. For Real.

When we choose to designate a level of value to a human based on what they have done, where they live, and what we infer about them because of that, we are opening a Pandora’s box that can only lead to hurt, pain, and insecurity.  In so doing we place ourselves in a position none of us have earned the right to be in. After all, who am I to think that I have the authority to tell one person who they are and that the way they live  life makes them less important than someone else?

As I progress in this job, and in the travel nurse industry, my hope is that I can tear down some of those walls that have been built up between nurses an recruiters. My hope is that I can show people there is actually another way. There are such thing as people who do what’s right, even if it costs them on the bottom line.

I am thankful to work for a company that not only supports me in this approach to business, but actually values it too. I am so thankful to have found a home where people matter most, because, I couldn’t do it any other way.

For those of you in my life who wonder if my sentiments are genuine, I hope you know and never forget that, I am striving daily to love people more than the day before. Why? Because I just don’t see anything else in this world worth living for.

I would like to believe that I made a difference in that nurses life tonight, if not beyond. Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t but I do know that the attempt was worth it, cuz I feel most alive when I am living for what matters most. People.

This Christmas, maybe choose to let down your guard… love someone that maybe doesn’t seem to deserve it in your eyes. Maybe choose to lay your agenda down for the sake of showing someone else they matter. It will go a long way in breathing life into this broken world. Or at the very least, in you. That in and of itself will be worth your time.