Week 2 - Reflections of Chapter One

      After reading Chapter one in the book titled Success Built to Last, Creating a Live That Matters. I was taken back by how much I agree with what this book is selling.  Success is doing what matters to YOU!  When you do what matters to you then it will lead you to living your life with continued success.  Longevity, keeping success going is harder than being successful for the moment. Standing out from the "one hit wonders" is the challenge.

     Although everyone defines success as something different, the key component is finding what matters to you and doing it.  When you do something that you find important it continues through out your daily lift at home and at work.  For me I think that when I treat the people I care for as if they were part of my family and really making a difference in their life it means I have succeeded today to do my job the way it should be done.  I like to treat my job as another chapter in my day, a different setting of sorts, of what I do at my "home away from home."  When I think of the hours that the people I work with keep it's amazing to me that some people can really say by their actions that they are just here for a paycheck.

      When I drive out of my driveway every morning when I'm on my way to work I am thankful to be heading to a place with so much love and compassion.  I work every other weekend and most major holidays and enjoy every moment.  I feel that if it's not my husband and children that I greet at the breakfast table it might as well be my extended family.

      On Easter Sunday the clients all get their Easter Basket, along with a special breakfast.  They dress up and attend mass which they enjoy so much.  The buildings all around grounds are filled with so many individuals that enjoy one another's company.

     We celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day, New Year's Day, and every holiday between January 1st and December 31st.  We celebrate birthdays, fun summer days, and even cold winter days are enjoyed with a cup of hot cocoa or a nice hot cup of everyone's favorite dunkin donuts coffee.   It doesn't matter what the day brings everyday at Wrentham Developmental Center is truly a celebration of life.

    To me living everyday the way that I do screams success!  I love what I do and enjoy taking care of the special individuals that live where I work.  I love being a nurse, I don't need to be famous, and I even feel that I do not need to save someone's life to feel I made a difference.

     Chapter one in this book outlines everything I try to do, maybe I'm not doing something on such a grand scale, but it is a scale that definitely deserves being weighed.  I will continue to further my education as a nurse because the more I know the better I benefit the people I care for, at home and where I work.