Last week right around this time I was in incredibly high spirits. I had just received a phone call from my recruiter stating that they had a client who through thought I would make an excellent fit with their organization and that they wanted me to come in and start the following day. A few hours later, one of those things that I would have sworn never happened to real people happened to me. I received an email from a hiring manager from an organization saying that they came across my resume online an wanted to bring me in for an interview.
Needless to say I was ecstatic with the turn of events and I thought the rest of my week would be nothing but easy sailing. Little did I know how wrong I was and how chaotic the rest of my week would become.
The storm
So Tuesday rolls around and everything starts off normally. I get up and get dressed in a dashing purple shirt and tie combo, complemented with an argyle sweater, and I'm off to my first day of work. Even the sun was shining as I merged on to the highway, (we were enjoying an unseasonably warm week for November), and that is when everything went off the rails. While enjoying another 'The Right Time with Bomani Jones' podcast (like I listen every morning) I notice that I'm starting to lose power in my car and upon turning down my podcast, the engine is making a funny noise.
So let me set the scene: I'm 20 miles away from home, going to a new town where I don't know anybody, I don't have access to any of my usual resources and I'm suddenly unsure if I would be able to make it to my job on time, possibly at all or even get off the highway safely. After a quick prayer that resembled something like, "OH MY GOD, PLEASE HELP ME NOT DIE!!!!" I saw that I was less than 1 mile from my exit and was able to safely get off the highway. The downside however was that after making it off the highway my car died. While in traffic. As I was the 1st person at the stop light. Yeah.
So with some quick thinking I managed to get the car in neutral and with no power steering (muscling a car with now power steering is always super fun) get it off the main road and out of traffic, ish. But now my car won't start, and so naturally I begin the panic.
Me: F***! I'm stuck 20 miles from home!
Inner voice: Don't forget all of your friends live out of state now, as well as your parents so nobody is here to help you! haha haha!
Me: F***! I'm going to be late on my first day of work!
Inner voice: Don't worry! They're probably just going to fire you because you are an unreliable and stupid! haha haha!
Me: F***! I can't even afford to tow this thing back home let alone buy a new car right now!
Inner voice: And nobody is going to help you. Just look at all these cars driving past! You might as well get comfortable because you live here now! haha haha!
So I call my agent and let them know what was happening, and then I attempt to start my car with the battery pack I keep in the car for this very reason. And as you can probably guess it doesn't work (because why would it do what the hell I bought it to do). All while this is happening cars are just driving past me into the taco bell parking lot, which I am right next to and nobody is stopping to help me. Some people even went so far as to avoid eye contact with me just in case I might ask them for help. Eventually a nice old man stopped by to help me (who also happened to be a veteran, I made sure to thank him for his service to our country) and with his help I was able to get my car started, only to hear the sound that sealed the fate of my car, the knocking sound you hear right before you throw a rod and your engine goes boom.
As the saying goes: when it rain's it pours
Well to make a long story short, (shorter than it could be anyway) I discovered that apparently I had a pretty serious oil leak (as my car did not have any in it at all) despite seeing no evidence of that anywhere. I managed to get my car to the nearest auto parts store and put about $20 worth of oil in my car, which might as well been $20 I poured gas on and lit on fire, sine as I was only able to coax my car a few more blocks to the place that would be its final resting place and it were it summarily died for good.
So just to recap: I'm stranded 25 miles away from home, with a dead car preventing me from working at this new job and unable to even go to my upcoming interview.
All this I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope
So I'm sitting here in my car, stranded, now jobless and prospect-less, when a funny thing happened. In the midsts of everything that was happening and all of my emotional turmoil, I decided to take a moment to meditate and to pray. (Bare with me, this isn't turning into some crazy spiritual thing)
One of my favorite listens to right now is Jalen Rose and his podcast, and one of the things he always says is, "the mark of a successful individual is how they deal with adversity." In that moment I sure felt like giving up. It seemed that life had turned against me and that everything I had been working towards was taken from me, and it wasn't my fault.
But as I sat there and meditated and allowed my emotions to calm, I realized that if I quit, my problems weren't going anywhere. But more importantly sometimes in life you have to fight to prove how important something is to you. So I called my interviewer and confirmed our interview time on Thursday, without even knowing how I would get there. It was 60 miles away but I was determined to get there by any means necessary. Next, I was able to reach out to someone to come and pick me up and not only that, they allowed me carte blanche use of their car (things were already turning around once I decided to fight). I cleaned out and left my dead car and went immediately to see my agent where, after talking with them they held the job open for me and I was able to start on Wednesday.
Thursday came around and I was able to make it to my interview with no problems and the CEO was so impressed with me that while he said that he didn't think I would be a good fit for the position he was interviewing me for, he was going to create a position for me to get me in the door then mentor me so that I could be ready for when the next time a full-time position opened up.
The point of it all
If you stuck with me and made it this far, I actually do have a point for sharing this story, a couple of them actually, things that I learned and relearned though my ordeal.
- Perseverance. It is easy to forget after being on a roll for a while that bad things can happen to anybody for seemingly no reason at all. Often times the only thing that we can do is put our head down and keep pushing through it. As the old saying goes, "The race does not go to the fast or the strong, but to those that endure to the end."
- Family and Friends. Having a reliable circle of people that you can trust sometimes makes all of the difference. From the friend who offered to take the day off of work, drive 75 miles to pick me up and then another 40 to my interview and take me back home again, to my parents who give me whatever support they can, to my sister who is allowing me to use her car. Don't be too prideful and stubborn to use those around you that are willing to help you out.
- Faith. Whether you believe in the universe, fate, a higher power, God, or just yourself, having the belief that while you might not understand right now things will get better, helped me push through. It is so easy to believe when things are going well but the true test is can you believe when things go from bad to worse? Even if the only thing it does is allow you to get up the next day and keep fighting and keep pushing, than it has done its job.
- Life doesn't always have to make sense. As somebody who relies so heavily on logic and reason, when things seemingly don't make sense I often times feel like I am a ship without a rudder. However life often times doesn't make any sense for why things happen the way that they do, or it only makes sense in hindsight. Having the maturity to accept that and not allowing things that you have no control over to dictate your moods and attitudes is a completely different ballgame. However I have found that the peace that comes through surrender is worth the struggle it takes to obtain.
Until next time,
May we find the inter strength to persevere through the difficult times so that we might grow into the people that we are meant to become... Or may we just get lucky an win the lottery, because I'd rather have $300 million dollars than inner strength. C'mon powerball....
No comments:
Post a Comment