By Vernelle Nelson
It’s springtime again… time for sprucing up our gardens and clearing out the junk in our closets and dresser drawers. As we get ready for the upcoming growing season, let’s not forget to clear away the internal debris as well.
So many of us are looking at another beautiful spring and summer without the job off our dreams… the person we believe we should be sharing our lives with… or the home or car that we always wanted. It is important to remember that in order to have true peace and harmony in our lives we must be willing to grow where we’re planted.
There was a woman who had impeccable office skills. She was a dynamic public speaker as well as a gifted artist. When her job was abolished in 2007, she immediately spruced up her resume and plunged head on into the job market. To her amazement, no one was hiring a 50-something African American woman, no matter how dedicated and talented she may have been.
Rather than give up, she decided to take whatever job came her way. At least this way the most important bills would be paid, and the rest would just have to wait. She contacted her creditors, who were for the most part willing to work with her. To make a four year saga short, she ended up working as a part time clerk in the county court system. This was totally foreign territory to her. Up until this time, her only experience with courthouse staff had been in divorce court. Like many people, however, she had imagined that courthouse workers were gruff and difficult to get along with. She soon discovered that nothing could have been farther from the truth. The people she worked with were not the ogres she had imagined them to be. In fact, they were among the nicest bunch of people she had ever had the pleasure of working with.
In the three years she worked there, she had forged several long-term friendships. In fact, when she finally landed a contract to do the work she had been trained to do, she thought long and hard about foregoing the contract in order to remain where she was with her new found friends. After mulling it over for a couple of weeks, however, she opted to go for the money and signed that contract.
The day she left the courthouse was a bittersweet one. Her friends gave her a sendoff that was one of the most sincere and heartfelt celebrations she had ever been a part of. Since leaving that part time job that she had at first felt was beneath her, she has spoken often about the valuable lessons she learned.
First of all … if you accept the fact that nothing and no one is beneath you, you will almost always find that diamond in the rough.
Next … never believe that any job is beneath you. As long as the work is legal and does not pose a danger to your physical or emotional well-being, give it a chance.
Finally … always remember that by growing where you are planted, you can blossom into the magnificent flower that you were meant to be. This woman’s journey could have been much different if she had gone into work each day with the attitude that she didn’t belong there or that she deserved better than a part time job that enabled her to barely get by. Going into the situation with an open mind made it possible for her to see all of the good that was there for her.
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