Six Minutes - The Commencement Speech I Will Never Give
That is the length of time I was given to speak to you today. It may not sound like a significant amount of time, unless of course you’re the one standing up here, speaking in front of all of these people. But the truth is, so much can happen in six minutes and to demonstrate this, I want to tell you a story.
This story could’ve begun on any day of the week, but it didn’t. It began on a Monday. Monday, December 8, 1941, to be exact. It was the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had just delivered his now famous "Day of Infamy” Speech. Immediately afterward, Congress voted to declare war. There were no objections, and only one individual who abstained from voting. The United States had officially entered World War II.
Throughout the next six months the news from the Pacific theater was especially grim. The Japanese had quickly amassed a vast new empire with a perimeter that spanned from western Alaska to the Solomon Islands. In the southwest Pacific, Japan threatened American supply lines and complicated U.S. plans to take the offensive.
Then at 10:24 AM on the morning of June 4, 1942, it appeared that the Japanese had won the Battle of Midway—and with it the Pacific war. But the allied troops did not give up… they did not retreat… they did not surrender… and something changed. By 10:30 AM, just 6 minutes later, three of Japan’s four aircraft carriers were in flames. All four would be lost by the battle’s end. The Battle of Midway marked the first major allied victory against Japan and would later be heralded as the turning point of the war.
Six minutes…
It was enough time to change the course of history. It is certainly more than enough time to change the course of a life.
My journey to nursing school began as a volunteer EMT for my local fire department. I had lost myself in life, but remembered something Mahatma Gandhi had once said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” In my time serving that community I not only found myself again, but I was also able to be present for some of the worst moments in the lives of my patients and their families. The vast majority of the calls I have been on, have had happy endings, but the vast majority is not all. Some calls… some patients… some outcomes… they stay with you forever.
I don’t want to spend the last part of my six minutes here with you reflecting on the past, though, and telling you what makes a good nurse, because you already know that. Instead, I want to take this time to look to the future and be honest with you - to tell you about the heartbreaking moments that you will face in this career, moments when you will feel as if the world around you is on fire… and assure you that you can rise from any ashes the burning leaves behind.
I have heard it said that you can do anything for 10 seconds. And when you reach 10 seconds, you can continue to do it for 10 more. If you can repeat this 36 times you will have done whatever it is you set out to do for six minutes.
Yes, there will be moments in your life and in your career as a nurse that your heart will be shattered and you will tell yourself I can only do this for 10 more seconds. But I promise you, when those 10 seconds are over, if you lean on your friends and fellow nurses, dig deep within, and find the strength and the courage you can tell yourself I can do this for 10 more seconds, and 10 more and 10 more. Because just as with the allied troops at Midway, giving up is not an option. There is no retreating. There is no surrendering. What we do as nurses matters, maybe not on a global scale, but absolutely in the worlds of our patients. They are watching what we are doing and they are counting on us to keep going.
Perhaps, some of you like myself, have already experienced six minute moments in your life. Moments, you recognize, in hindsight, as being life altering. Others may have experienced their six minute moments more recently, and will not realize the full impact until more time has passed. And I imagine that most, if not all of us, will still have six minute moments in the future.
So what will you do with your six minutes? Will you get lost in the rose
colored glasses of reflections on the past? Will you stay safe in the
focus of questions to which you already know the answers? Will you give
up when it looks like all hope is lost?…
Or will you only look to the past as a guide to be used as you turn
towards the exciting uncertainty and unknowns of the future,
rebelliously holding onto hope when it cannot be seen?
As for me, I have no intention of looking back for any longer than necessary. I am not going that direction and neither are you.
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