Quick Musings: On Filipino Nurses in the East Coast, Other Health Practitioners, & Individuals Seeking Company in their Miserable, Sad Lives

Here in NYC, I've started being good friends and acquaintances here with many nurses from the Philippines for the past 4 years now. In the duration, I've met and known several who have the similar story-lines (that get me to do quick reflections, every now and then):
1) Filipino doctors who are medical practitioners back in the Philippines, but are now nurses here in the East Coast. I actually even met several medical doctors who have relatively successful practice back in the Philippines but are now gainfully employed as registered nurses here in the US. And there are others who are fresh medical school graduates back in the Philippines, but have decided to become nurses when they landed here in the East Coast.

2) Caregivers (home health aides, attendants, nursing assistants, etc) who are being taken advantaged of, because they're illegal aliens here. Or because they're in between transition to their preferred jobs. Or because they're tyros and need local experience.[Do you have what it takes to be a caregiver?] And the worst stories run along those who experienced being put down just because they're doing care-giving jobs here [interested in my actual experience on it? Here's a bit of my story on it Testimonies: Working in the front line of the health care field]. I just wonder how things are happening now, given the local labor market these days---I guess a lot of those unemployed are now seeking care-giving jobs, too, considering that the job market now is still just too tight!

3) Nurses who are still working to complete their papers so they can work legally here in the US. I met someone who has been doing part-time jobs, even as a housekeeper, a nanny, or a caregiver. She tells me she has met many families who originated from the Philippines, or from other countries, who'd be searching for nurses as their nannies or housekeepers. And these employers would pay them dirt cheap wages, as in really taking advantage of the current working situation of these licensed professionals back in their Mother country. These employers seem to rejoice over other people's inabilities to land more appropriate jobs. I wonder how they'll keep them in their households, in the first place.

4) And recently arrived immigrants from the Philippines who share stories on what they observed from other Filipinos they meet here. They notice that Filipinos here behave like they want those newly arrived immigrants to undergo the same miserable situations they went through when they came here in the US years ago. It's a continuing theme that you can observe with most immigrants here, but it's not openly talked about. It happens even among the best of friends.

5) Plus other individuals who can't be happy with what they do here, now that they've moved on from their previous lives back from their respective mother countries. They almost always highlight their guilt feelings, their deep-seated angry feelings, their complains every time they have the chance when talking with someone else. Obviously, it's a poor strategy of leading a life (actually!). It's similar to being a pauper, and being taken advantaged of, because you prefer yourself to be poor and miserable - without you being aware of it. Look at Judas, after he betrayed Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He couldn't forgive himself (see this story in the context of St Peter, the first Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, who denied Jesus three times), he had to eventually commit suicide.

These brief musings read negatively, on the surface. But in engaging in an open conversation on issues that actually and deeply matter, we open up areas on what are critical to leading a more purposeful life for each one of us. Do you still want to hear more about these stories, and how most people here in the East Coast live (at least here in NYC where I'm based)? Please comment or give feedback, anytime. I'll share more details of stories that are typically not covered in the headlines by the news. I guess they're just too ordinary, and not even warranting notice of the established publications we read all the time.

Or does it make more sense to encourage everyone to venture into discovering one's major purpose in life? Let's keep away from doing jobs just for the heck of having jobs, and thus remain unhappy. You know that life's too short for that. It's simply miserable for someone to do work that's [s]he's not even happy about. In this case, we define happiness according to our terms.

Well, as this blog's primary theme endorses, we all gotta have to move on. Meditate, pray on your own course of moving on. Let's do our part to help each other move on. Life is what you do now, and it's going to be your bridge to whatever you want to become eventually.