I like how life will always show you two different ends of the
spectrum. I served two different men the other day at work, one came in
and had lunch, he left and the other man came in and sat in the exact same spot
(Table 205, Seat 1) as the one before and they both ordered the same
meal. I asked the first man, Chris, how he was doing. He responded with a
deep sigh, "meh, i'm alright". Looking around my section I saw that i
had some time to talk, so i asked him what was going on in his life that was
preventing him from feeling happy. He said he was overworked, didn't have
enough balance in his life, was surrounded by people he had nothing in common
with, and was generally feeling that he had no freedom or control. I'm
there to serve him food and try and make his meal an enjoyable experience, i'm
not there to give him advice he's not going to take, so i just listened. Then
he asked me what I was doing. Was I in school - the standard question asked to
servers ... "So what else do you do besides serve?" So i told him i
was done school and his response (in a very demeaning tone) was "what the
hell are you doing with your life, just serving?". hahahahaha oh man did
this make me laugh. I did the required pause and thought about what i was
going to say before i said it - which i have learned is pointless with me
because even if i shouldn't say it, i'll convince myself to anyway. So i
laughed at him, told him my job made me happy, gave me freedom to have balance
in my life, and gave me enough money to take off and travel with no
limits. He did his best to make me feel small - to make himself feel
bigger, to make himself feel that his unhappiness was justified because he was
at least in a good job, working towards something respectable like a new car or
a big screen tv, not wasting his time serving people like a low-class
nobody. It was so easy to see through him. to see his unhappiness and
insecurities. He had no problem telling me that I was being stupid
traveling by myself and told me that I should not go, that i should wait until
i found someone who would go with me, and that i was being utterly stupid in my
decision. I told him I wait for no one - one life, one shot, it's my life
and i'm living it. All this before his business associate arrived to join
him over a bottle of san pellagrino, to which they sat and stared at their
blackberries, ignoring each other's existence. that was chris.
Then came Alan. Alan was fantastic. He told me so himself. I asked how
he was doing, he replied with what must be known as the best laugh ever heard and said "Fantastic!".
I was shocked I had to admit, not very often is anyone fantastic. I was
intrigued ... why are you so fantastic Alan? "Well because I woke up
today! I'm alive, I'd say that's pretty fantastic!" It was the strangest
thing to see Chris leave, angry and bitter, and have Alan arrive, sit in the
same seat and order the same food and be on a completely different level than
the one before him. As all of the patrons before him, Alan wanted to know
what my story was. Thinking that Chris before him had not really bothered
me, or gotten underneath my skin, I didn't even notice how i responded until
alan called me out on it. I said i was just a server. "Why do you
say, 'just a server', like it's something to be ashamed of?" Alan asked me.
I smiled. I told him I had just met a very unhappy man who had tried to make me
feel small and I thought he hadn't accomplished it, but clearly he had an
effect on me because i responded to alan's question in a way that wasn't even
true to my own thoughts. Serving is the best job in the world for
me. I get to meet new people, i get to talk about food and wine and my
passion for both comes flooding though, i have the freedom of hours and i make
more money than most people who are in confining cubicles with no freedom and
no outlet for expression. I get to be me every day, I get to smile and
laugh and i get to know people, I get to make someone's night special with a
glass of champagne, I get to hear about people's lives, and best of all I can
travel whenever i want and i always will have a job no matter where i go.
On average i meet at least 25 new people every day. If each person in the
world has something to offer then my odds are stacked pretty high to listen to each person.
Normally i dont think life shows you the flipside that quickly, but i saw
both ends of the spectrum that day. Chris tried to break me down to build
himself up, and Alan built me back up, and in that same process reinforced his
own happiness. I know it comes with age and maturity, but I really need to
stand firm behind my beliefs and be confident in myself. It’s easy to do that with people that don’t question
you or try to break you down. But it
becomes a little more difficult when you allow someone’s negative energy to
penetrate into you. So Chris was my
lesson, he showed me that I need to build more strength and be more confident
in myself. He was also proof to support
the fact that I will never end up in the life I once feared. Looking at him and hearing his unhappiness, I
saw something I cannot even understand, a life that will never exist for me, a
life I couldn’t conjure up even if I had to.
I have my own struggles and unhappiness, just like everyone else, but
never will I be unhappy like Chris, never will I give up on life, never will I roll
over and stop fighting. I will be
unhappy and I will struggle, but at least I know I’m struggling towards
something.
Traveling alone is setting me up to meet the whole world of people out
there. I know I’ll see the flipside in everyone I meet, here’s to all the Seat
1’s at Table 205 who have so much to teach me and so much to learn …
