How Can Nurses Stay Resilient and Engaged During a Long and Ever-Changing Career Path?

Forty years ago, on a New Hampshire hilltop, I received my nursing pin as a new graduate from nursing school. A white dress, bright white stockings, and nursing shoes were the order of the day, along with a red rose. Despite the trend away from caps, I secretly loved my nursing cap with its blue velvet stripe. But, the nursing world moved on and, by the end of my first year in practice, nursing caps had become a relic of the past. Looking at a picture from that day, with my favorite professor on the chapel steps, I notice the cap is just a little crooked, but my smile is big. How did that young nurse survive the next 40 years?