If you look closely enough, you'll find specs of gold deep within the sand.
One aspect
of my job is I do a lot of small talks with people everyday. Conversations
certainly are a constant routine that everyone working in customer service must
get accustomed to. Despite how much it sucks when it comes to pleasing people in
a heavily customer-oriented industry, there are certain things that I love
about communicating with random people at work. I got to know aspects of life
that I never noticed before. When people told me their stories, they allowed me
to be connected with them, empathize with them, and more importantly, learn
from them.
There have been countless times
when I asked people “How are you doing?” or “How’s your day?” as greetings. Usually
people would put on a smile and replied they’re fine. That was great, I assumed
they were doing fine as they said. But more memorable to me were the times when
people who showed up to me totally looking strained and tired out, yet their
response was always like this: “I’m doing okay, can’t complain”.
You would
hear and see from time to time on the media that America is the richest country
on Earth, that life here is fulfilling, that coming to America is “living the American
dream”. Yet, I saw with my own eyes how much the ordinary people here struggle.
It’s no different than in any other countries. Many people here work not one or
two, but three jobs. So you can imagine at the end of their workdays, they are
pretty much zombies who can barely keep their eyes open or make sense in their
speeches. I also learned that many people despite the crazy number of hours
they work weekly end up living paycheck by paycheck (meaning they have nothing
spare for savings) because their wages don’t keep up with the increase in rents
and living expenses. For those, what they fear the most is ever getting sick or
getting in an accident. They would be losing whatever they ever had for medical
bills without a doubt. Moreover, I can’t even count how many times people told
me they hated their jobs, where the hours are crazy, or their employers treat
them like shit, or the nature of the job is draining, yet they showed up rain
or shine because they all needed a job to get by. That’s not to mention the
people I met who were supporting children, old parents, or were being sick. The
hashtag #thestruggleisreal is absolutely created for them because, man, they
encounter so much hardship I can’t even describe.
Yet they
always said “It’s okay, can’t complain”.
At those
moments I always felt reassured. You know why? Those people are in much tougher
situations than I am, the hardship they are going through is much more
traumatizing than mine, nonetheless they pull through. They don’t whine. They
don’t blame anyone. They can make it out strong, so can I, someday.
I came to learn
from these ordinary people that endurance is a lifelong practice. It starts with
acceptance of reality and ownership of your problems. You can’t pull through
when you waste your energy on resentment for unfairness in life or blaming others
for your shortcomings. You can’t get it together when you focus on challenges
instead of solutions.
Drawbacks
in life shape who you are. Everytime you run into a tricky situation, you come
out wiser. Everytime you fail, a new lesson learned. Don’t punish yourself because
of your failures. Don’t think that you suck because you didn’t get it at the
time. Mistakes are to learn from after all.
Endurance cannot be taught
overnight either. You develop that thick skin after times and times being
wounded. You hold on to be strong after several or even zillion times being
broken down. You pick yourself up each time a little faster. You’re less likely
to get bruised as badly the next time life throws a punch at you.
You’ve evolved.
Each of us can be an inspiration
for others in one aspect or another. You never know what you may learn from connecting
to people around you. For me, I appreciate random conversations with random working
people who happen to be in touch with me at work. Surely there are wrongs and
distortions in every mind, but more often than not, I found beautiful virtues
in the most ordinary people that have deeply inspired me to thrive for the
better.
