The adage; it isn’t where you came from, it’s where you’re going that counts, finally resonates with me. Education has been a gateway that has taken me far beyond what I once could have imagined. Born and raised in a poor neighborhood of Kingston, Jamaica, a major life event gave me a reason to change my habits; thus, transforming me; as Rick Warren put it, to live a purpose driven life. The darkness of this life-changing event forced me to a crossroad of sorts, where I contemplated the questions: Did I know where I was going? Did I like the things that life was showing me? Where was I going? I did not have answers to many of these questions; however, I knew for certain it was time to illuminate and scrutinize my thinking. Some of us will fail to draw out the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding that dwells within us; as these attributes can easily become buried by the mundane tasks of life.
In order to scrutinize my thinking at this crossroad, I needed to open doors to a richer and deeper understanding of who I was and remove doubts. I also concluded that, at this major crossroad in my life, even though I had solely focused on nursing at the beginning of my nursing career, an intense interest in education had developed over the years. That developing interest in education, fused with my first love of nursing, piqued my interest in the nurse educator field. Further, the angst evoked going through the most difficult experience of my nursing career, drove me to look at the nursing profession and nursing education from a holistic perspective. I emerged leaving this crossroad in my life with a renewed spirit to pursue education and remove my blinders, and shift from the mundane to looking, listening, learning from the heart.