What Are You Trading Your Life For?
I didn’t know it was one of my last nights in the ER.
Not officially. Not on paper.
But my body did.
My heart had been whispering for months,
a quiet knowing buried beneath protocols and patient charts.
It was a Monday.
The kind of night where chaos hums like electricity in the walls.
Monitors screaming. Alarms shrieking. Phones barking orders into the void.
Stretchers lined the halls like an overflowing river—
no beds, no answers, no space left to breathe.
We were a brand-new, state-of-the-art hospital.
At least, that’s what the headlines said.
But shiny floors can’t patch a broken system.
And no machine, no matter how advanced, can substitute for dignity.
Patients stayed for days in hallway beds that weren’t beds at all.
We created a new label: EDIP—Emergency Department Inpatient.
Which really meant:
You live here now.
By the trauma bay.
Under fluorescent lights.
Without privacy. Without peace.
And I remember standing there—just for a moment—still in the storm.
Watching humanity reduced to numbers and codes and tubes.
I felt my own spirit asking:
Is this what we’re trading our lives for?
Years of sacrifice.
Overtime. Hustle. Burnout.
All for the hope of security and care—
only to land in a hallway in your final days,
forgotten under a thin hospital blanket.
And the rooms with the views, the warm towels, the silence?
Those were for the wealthy.
They could bypass the line with a signature and a smile,
while others waited, unseen, unheard.
And me?
I was a nurse whose heart had grown tired.
Not because I stopped caring—
but because I cared too much for too long
in a place that demanded everything and gave nothing back.
That night, something broke open.
A wave of clarity so sharp it nearly knocked me over:
I don’t want to die like this.
And I don’t want to live like this either.
And so I ask you:
What are you trading your life for?
Is the life you’re living aligned with what matters most?
Or are you waiting…
for permission?
for the timing to be right?
for retirement?
for someone to say you’ve done enough?
Have you been quieting that small, persistent voice inside?
The one that knows you were made for more than just survival?
My patients—
they became my teachers.
Even in silence, they whispered:
Live.
Now.
Not later.
Say yes before the clock runs out.
Swim in the ocean.
Call the person you miss.
Eat the damn cake.
Quit the job if it’s killing your spirit.
Laugh, loudly and unapologetically.
Dance barefoot in your kitchen.
I didn’t leave with a plan.
I left with a heart finally willing to listen.
And maybe, just maybe,
that’s where healing really begins—
not under fluorescent lights,
but in the brave, quiet moment
when you decide to live your one wild life…
on your own terms.
So I’ll ask one more time:
What are you trading your life for?
And is it worth the cost?
