Motivation through Experience: A Reflection Paper

Introduction
As the saying goes “experience is the best teacher”, any event in our lives can absolutely make or break a person. It can “make us” if taken positively and might even teach us to be mindful of our future endeavors. In addition, it can provide us reliable knowledge, enabling us to become better individuals. On the contrary, it can also “break us” as barriers in learning and emotional dilemmas could arise if we take our experiences on a negative perspective. Disregarding the outcomes, one should regard their experiences as tools for personal growth.
Fruitful Days After passing our country’s nursing licensure examination, I was ecstatic and ambitious in finding my first job. Bearing in mind my parent’s sacrifices, the thought of money-making and independent living excites and overwhelms me all at the same time. When an employer called me for a job offer, I instantly grabbed the opportunity and prepped for the interview. Keeping my fingers crossed, I waited for the result and luckily, I was hired by a non-government medical organization. The institution’s workforce consists largely of medically-educated professionals with an objective to participate in medical missions that would benefit the less fortunate citizens in remote communities and towns. This remarkable and blossoming phase of my career has become meaningful as it pushed me to my limits; it has become my own inspiration and made me realize that everything is possible if I have self-motivation. As I reflect on this chapter of my life, self-motivation has become an important ingredient in building up my strong and decisive attitude. According to Evans (2011), a leader must generate self-motivation. He has stated that leaders are risk takers and self-starters who are enthused by and believe in the vision they created (p. 45). Certainly, his ideas are comparable to what I have gone through. The motivation of living independently and earning my salary has made my parents proud. They are the very reason why I am inspired to do my work and I owe all of my accomplishments to their efforts.
One Historical Event There was one important event that happened in my entire nursing vocation that I could never forget. Mount Pinatubo, the world’s perfect cone-shaped volcano, has erupted on June, 1991, dealing a destructive result to our country’s health and economy. Conforming to our organizations objective, we were commissioned to evacuate the people affected around the mountain’s dangerous perimeter and assess their critical needs. A vast majority of people in the area we covered were suffering from breathing disorders due to the effect of ash falls. As expected, large numbers of residents came to avail of our free check-ups, adequate medicines, and health education classes. Our organization urgently developed a plan in approaching this catastrophic incident. We were divided into four groups with designated tasks and each was assigned a team leader. The first group, composed of our employees from the human resource department, was responsible for registering the residents and maintaining order. The second team included doctors and nurses who did the physical assessment and prescription orders. Pharmacists and some nurses comprised the third group and were responsible for dispensing the prescribed medications. I belonged to the fourth group, which includes nurses and health care workers, and was tasked to conduct health education classes. During the course of this particular mission, not only did the people who came to us suffer from respiratory problems but also they bear communicable illnesses and need serious referrals and follow-up care. Our team has noticed that they were not properly addressed and in fact, they were advised to seek immediate medical attention to nearby private hospitals or shoved aside for other organizations to handle. Some adults who needed more medical attention have