The Ultimate Showdown: Gratitude vs. Guilt

Guilt... it's gratitude's ugly, jealous step-sister. Once a habitual seer of the glass half empty, I embarked on completely updating my life's outlook roughly two years ago. I scribbled everyday in my new gratitude journal. I programmed a daily phone notification reminding me to reflect on at least one thing I was grateful for that day. When I found myself on the brink of a (then very often) breakdown, I took a few deep breaths and focused on what I was appreciative of.

Eventually, it worked.

A delayed flight home turned into: I'm grateful I have the ability and leisure time to travel.

A slow mile time during a run became: I'm grateful I have a healthy body that is strong enough to work out.

A parking ticket changed to: I'm grateful I have the financial means to pay an unexpected $60 and still not have to worry about paying for groceries, bills, or going out with friends.

A particularly challenging week of midterms transformed into: I'm grateful for the top-of-the-line education I'm receiving.

Despite no decrease in what I once saw as the series of unfortunate events stacking up against me, I found myself much happier and less stressed. But, lately, I wonder if I've taken this attitude of gratitude a bit too far and if my sense of empathy has spiraled beyond what's appropriate... especially when I'm at the hospital. 

I'm grateful I can relax in my safe, clean home after this shift turns into: I feel so bad that I get to take care of myself and leave the hospital when this patient's parents have slept here everyday for the past 2 weeks.

I'm grateful I have a healthy body strong enough to stand during 12 hour shifts becomes: Why was I given a fully functional body when this poor four year old needs to be intubated and have two chest tubes just to breathe?

I'm grateful my parents can afford a good health insurance plan for us changes to: What have I done to deserve these financial means when this hardworking family of five can barely afford childcare for their non-hospitalized children?

I'm grateful for constructive criticism transforms into: Lives are in my hands; I should have studied more or tried harder to get that right.

This exists outside the hospital, too. I feel guilty when I see camps of homeless people, and I'm not doing more to help. I feel guilty when I know my loved ones are going through a hard time, yet I'm practicing my own self-care and self-love. When you're born with a burning desire to help others, it's hard to feel like you're ever doing enough when there is still so much sadness and struggling in the world.

What once made me happier and less stressed now can make me feel undeserving and contrite. How do I balance gratefulness and guilt? I'm trying to reconcile these emotions and channel them into another tool I use as a motivator to heal others.

Perhaps I need to slow down my "attitude of gratitude" when it comes to comparing myself to others. Gratefulness can be an excellent adjunct to personal mindfulness and to maintaining relationships, but it's a losing game when I start applying my own grateful circumstances to other peoples' lives. At the end of the day, my job is to walk into a room and help make the individual(s) in there as comfortable and safe as I possibly can. I will see diagnoses and outcomes that no living being deserves to endure, but I must accept these are things I cannot control. 

I must make peace with this sense of powerlessness and turn it into a sense of powerfulness. I may be powerless in a patient's diagnosis, but I am powerful when I make them happier, when I advocate for them, and when I lend support to their loved ones. As badly as I want to take away a child's cancer, heal a patient's parent's heartbreak, provide all the financial means every family needs, as well as solve homelessness, depression, poverty, war, etcetera, I am one individual who has (roughly) 16 wakeful hours in a day. I cannot change all the outcomes I wish to change, but if I allow myself to wallow in my guilt, I will lower the ceiling on my potential. My daily mantra has to become: "I am enough." In a profession like mine, I must do my best to stay positive, inspired, active, and determined. So, sorry, guilt, but you don't play a beneficial role here. I know we have become close as of late, but I have to try and let you go.