things we value

My Foundations of Nursing class is very unpredictable. We are never sure who will be speaking about what. We talk about a plethra of things in there ranging from the nursing shortage to communication to philospophy to E.R. and Grey's Anatomy. It is sometimes a fun class and other times, well not as fun. Last week, one of my favorite Vanderbilt professor's, Dr. Krau spoke about Evidenced Based Practice. His discussion was very interesting and I appreciated what he had to say a great deal. During the course of his lecture we talked about perception and values.

He posed a question: of the following, which three would you give up forever?

career, family, love, money, self-esteem, peace, friends, spirituality, happiness, freedom, health

It was an interesting question. A hard question. I chose my three. This of course led to a discussion. He posed many questions about our values. He asked how many people chose family? One guy in the back of the room raised his hand. The class laughed at him and he defensively said, hey, you don't know my family. He asked how many people chose money? Probably 30% of the room raised their hand. The he said, okay now how many people really meant it? and probably 1/2 the hands went down. We all laughed. Then he asked how many people chose spirituality? About 25% of the class raised their hands. This really disturbed me. How can 25% of the class not value spirituality and yet want to take care of the sick?

I have thought about this a great deal. I had a long and very interesting discussion with Dr. Krau after class. I greatly appreciated his thoughts and comments. He brought a great deal of insight to the subject. Still makes you think.

So what would you choose to let go of for the rest of your life?