challenge or bust...

I am preparing and contemplating what the "best answer" is to the question, "what makes you different?"

I have a lot of ideas but none of which are completely satisying to me. First of all according to Myers-Briggs I am an INTJ--a personality type that makes up less than 1% of the world. I want to use that but I also feel like the Myers-Briggs personality test is not always well received especially if interviewed by a skeptic.

I believe I am different because I think of challenges in life as the only way to achieve maximum satisfaction and happiness. I have asked many people what they think of when they think of a challenge and many of them think of it as a nuisance, a phenomena that gets in the way of happiness rather then, what I think it is, a catalyst for happiness.

The greatest gifts I have received in life came in the form of a challenge. There have many times in my life where I have been a loser, an underachiever, an irratant, and noncompliant. There have been times where I choose not to work my hardest, I have been disrespectful and rude to my parents and to others and I have deliberatly choosen to be selfish, unkind, and attention seeking. In every scenario I was challenged to be better. I was challenged and I responded. I was challenged and conditioned. I was challenged and as a result have experienced a happier, and more satisfying life. The same effect that I want to offer people. Every athlete will tell you that if a coach yells at you, it means they see potential in you and want you to be better. Just as in life, if a teacher yells at you and disciplines you for not turning in your homework or not studying for an exam, it means they care about you.

I want to offer the greatest gift, a challenge, everyday. I will be graduate as a registered nurse next month and will seek out job opportunities that allow me to challenge my patients to be the best that they can be that day. I want to be in a position where I can tell them that they are acting in a pathetic way that is not compatible with the life I want for them. I want to reshape the current healthcare model and revisit tradional the "done to death" core values that almost every institute and organized entity operates from and find a home for the core value, challenge. I care about people differently then most. I care about people and their potential.

I am so very disatisfied in the lack of challenges we provide our youth today. In 1605 Sir Francis Bacon warned all people that "knowledge is power" and without knowledge one will die as an unpriviledged slave to your ownself. 1605!!! We knew over 400 years ago the importance of education..we should have this absolutely mastered and all people should be education to the maximum of their potential. Instead we have the brilliant idea that persons can decide for themselves, at the mature age of 16, to drop out of highschool. No child left behind? Another brain-e-ack idea that not only doesn't challenge a person to learn...it slows the progression of everyone else in the class. How does it get this bad? I mean this is really truly bad.

I am different because I believe that knowledge is power and I believe that without your health you have nothing. I am giving myself 10 years. I will get the highest possible degree in nursing and will work tirelessly to make a difference and enfore the importance of challenging each person to be in their best health and to pursue as much education as they can. If in 10 years I feel I have made no difference I will either leave healthcare and buy my dad's business or leave the country.

I am AK and I am different.