Professional

We use the word so casually, but for so many of us, it carries the weight of an entire lifetime. Being a professional isn’t about a title someone gives or takes away. It’s about the moment you decided to learn something that would challenge you, stretch you, and change you. It’s the decision to enter a field, any field, where people rely on you, where knowledge matters, where skill matters, where heart matters. A professional is someone who steps into that responsibility with intention, with discipline, and with pride.

To be a professional is to take your work seriously. It means you showed up on the hardest days and gave 100% when you barely had anything left. It means you invested in yourself, time, money, long nights, early mornings, loans you prayed you could pay back, classes that pushed you, experiences that shaped you. For so many of us, becoming a professional wasn’t handed down; it was built. It was earned through sweat, determination, and the belief that the world needed what we had to offer.

I am a nurse. And I am a deeply professional one. I didn’t get here alone; I got here because I took out loans, studied endlessly, worked while going to school, and crossed that stage knowing I had fought for something that mattered. And I know I’m not alone. There are countless others in every field, people who juggled jobs, families, exhaustion, and doubt, because they saw a light ahead. A purpose. A way to contribute something meaningful in this world. Their dedication, their education, their sacrifice… that is the backbone of professionalism.

Professional means honor. It means loyalty. It means showing up with integrity. It means building something that serves someone other than yourself. It means pride, the kind that lets you stand tall and say, “this is who I am. This is what I worked for.” And let this be said clearly: no headline, no debate, no decision made far away from the people who live this life can redefine what we already know to be true. We earned the right to be here. We earned the right to be called professionals. And no one can take that from us.

xo

Gabby