Engagement in life

I came across a new term, “the potentialist,” in an inflight magazine aboard Air Canada on my annual visit to Toronto to see my mother. A potentialist is someone who lives life to the fullest. I love the idea. The magazine was describing a couple who, in late adulthood, have found new meaning in life and want to spend every minute of it doing meaningful things, such as tapping into their physical potential, combining vacation with charitable activities, and so on. This is admirable. I have a lot of respect for such an attitude toward life. But wouldn’t it be extremely tiring as well?

There is a Chinese saying about the careful use of time that we all learnt when we were small. I don’t think elementary schools teach these things nowadays, because I have never heard kids talk about it. “An inch of time is like an inch of gold. Yet, an inch of gold cannot buy an inch of time.” What an apt description, if you truly love time.

As children, we were indoctrinated into believing the idea that we shouldn’t waste time. I would feel terribly guilty if I wasted any significant blocks of time. I love to account for things I do. Checking off tasks on a list gives me a sense of control and, more importantly, a sense of accomplishmentand the confidence that I have not wasted my life away.

Yet, I am aware that I am not that self-disciplined. I have wasted and still do waste my time every now and then, largely by doing nothing, doing silly things, or doing things that are unimportant while many more-important tasks lie there awaiting my attention. I can’t help it. I am only human.

I bet nurses are all more or less alike. We multitask a great deal, we hate to waste time and we like to check items off lists. Although, when I think about it, I don’t know if it is because we are nurses, or the fact that most nurses are female, that we exhibit such behavioral characteristics. Quite honestly, I can’t tell.

Coming back to where I started, I would love to be a potentialist sometimes, maybe more often than not. Still, not all the time. Not for me.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.