Change is Constant, Growth is Optional

Some of you might know that before I became a "hotshot" software engineer at a big corporation, I used to be a lowly programmer in the IT department of a non-profit hospital. When I worked at the hospital, I had a sheet of paper hanging on my battered cube wall that said, "Change is constant, but growth is optional." I didn't need to listen to Kansas' "Dust in the Wind" at the hospital. (See my previous post for an explanation of my cornball Kansas cravings.)
When you work at a hospital, everyday someone is ill, someone is dying and the doctor needs you to fix the icon on their desktop right now so they can get to their Physician's Desk Reference on-line to look up contraindications on a prescription for a patient. I miss doing work that really matters. I miss helping the doctors at the HIV clinic track patient data so they can get a grant. I miss helping chaplains track their time spent with families so they can get reimbursed for comforting someone who is grieving. I miss the cafeteria food terribly. I always ate the vegetarian option that the patients were having that day. Yum!
I loved and hated non-profit work simultaneously. There were never enough resources to go around. It drove me crazy because I could never do enough and I couldn't order the software we needed because there was no money in the budget. Once I had eight projects at one time, writing my own sadly homegrown duplicates of stuff we couldn't afford to buy.
But it doesn't seem like you're working hard when you like what you're doing. I can't tell you how awesome I felt when the deputy medical director thanked me for my work on a project. Wow! A really smart guy who has tons of education and spends all his time helping people, and he gives me a compliment. That's worth more than stock options.
I strive to grow a bit here and there. The constant change in the hospital forced me to grow and become a bit more respectful of the fragility of normal, day-to-day life. Heart attacks and car accidents happen on normal days. Appreciate this time.