Most, if not anyone in the workforce absolutely dreads working holidays. It's missed time from their families, away from the feasting, sharing gifts, and precious memories together. It's not always about all of that. It's about sharing a spirit of giving, kindness, and love, but that's often forgotten. Every person, place, and love for what they do is different, but no matter what the desire to give and be kind shouldn't change whether you work or not during the holiday.

I absolutely love what I do which is hard for most to say, but the main idea here is that I love to give my time to serve people. It's not so much that they're less fortunate or anything at all; they come to my colleagues and I with friends, family, and loved ones having one of the worst days of their lives or even something as seemingly minor as a cough or sniffle. Okay, yeah, I work in an ER and Urgent Care as an EMT and I work pretty much the entire week of Christmas up to New Year's Eve, but here's the thing: I couldn't be happier.

I know, it's weird, but hear me out. Like I mentioned earlier, these people come to my colleagues and I on some of their worst days. It's way harder over the holidays. Don't get me wrong, I love my family and celebrating the holidays with them more than anything. They know I work and what I do, but they're able to adjust to allow me to spend time celebrating with them before work so I can come to work and be there for people who need me more than my family. I could not be more thankful for their patience, understanding, love, and kindness. My family loves me and needs me, but they understand the spirit of giving and that's all my job is. Giving. I give compassion, a hand to hold, comfort, a laugh or two, some bandages or a splint, and maybe assistance with a procedure on the side, among a plethora of other things. The materials for care aren't free, but kindness and giving are things I can give for free and with a big, warm, open heart. I don't do what I do entirely for the money, but it's really nice that I can get paid to be kind to people and help start and continue the healing process. Nothing in this life or this world makes me happier than God, my family, and my patients smiles or laughs. People don't realize how truly amazing and easy it is to be kind and give your time or even a smile to someone whom you don't know might really need it. I'm actually tearing up a little bit because this is so extremely important for everyone to remember when we're surrounded by material things, especially during the holiday season.

We receive a lot of different things, being material and some being actions or words, not all of them being as kind or uplifting as they should be. With media giving us outlets to view the world's problems, outpouring of hatred and suffering, widespread destruction of a people, we stand there helpless because we're "just human and only one person can't change a population's mindset", BUT WE CAN. It seems like a massive burden to bear, but it doesn't have to be if the responsibility is shared. Every person on this Earth is responsible for what they do, say, and more. The famous cliche we all know is that a single drop can cause a ripple, but the ripples settle if there aren't more drops to follow suit. This holiday season I encourage all of you to give a little bit of your time and love to someone else. Nothing material about it. It can be as simple as compliments or holding the door for someone, and showing them a big beautiful smile because it may have been the ONLY good thing that's happened to them today. Once the drops start, follow suit, because we can't afford the ripples of kindness and understanding of one another to stop. DON'T SETTLE.

This means, especially for anyone working on a holiday, think about how you can give of your time to make someone's day better even if you can't be with your family for all the time you wanted to. I know I'll be going from bedside to bedside doing what I do, but I'll be doing it with a little more warmth in my heart because if there's any little thing I can do to make their day better when they come to my colleagues and I, I'll know I've done something right and good. Take the time, people and dare to care.