Being Good to Ourselves

Nurses face difficulties—very sick and dying patients, long and exhausting shifts, and challenging relationships with other health care providers, among other difficulties. They can be good to themselves amid these difficulties by finding the justice in the work of nursing, justice both in the sense of the right way to practice and in the sense of righting the wrongs of the difficulties they face. Finding this justice is applying the habit of beauty. One way to find this justice is to tell the stories of the difficulties in such a way as to find justice in them. When they do so, nurses can find awe at there being justice (good) in the work of nursing. Justice and beauty, goodness and awe, are powerful friends against the daily grind of nursing.