I must say that I am a happy man right now. I woke up this morning feeling good just because. I got up early so that I could spend more time writing at Starbucks. I got in the shower and the shower is where I do my praying. I know it's weird, but that's just the way it is. As I begin to pray, I stopped and thought for a second. I thought about all of the things that we pray for when we pray. I then thought about the people that we pray for. Then it hit me. We are always praying to God asking him for something or to bless someone, well today is going to be different. Today, I decided to just thank him. I thanked him just for the small things in life life the ability to breathe on my own. I thanked him for having a job. I thanked him for having food in my house. I even thanked him for giving me the ability to get up and go to Starbucks when I could easily be laying down getting extra sleep. Then after I thanked him for all that he has done for me, I then started thanking him for the people that are in my life. I thanked him for my wife, my uncle, my aunts, my friends, my enemies and also people that are only in my life for a short period of time. I am talking about people who you meet for only a few minutes out of the day. I just wanted to thank him because I felt that he was tired of me praying to him asking for things when he has given me so much. I know he probably doesn't think this way, but it didn't hurt to do. It made me think about how when we pray to God and ask him for certain things, we tend to forget about what we have because we are so focused on being in another place. We ask God to bless us and when he does, it goes unnoticed because it wasn't the blessing we had in mind. We ask God to bless us with a nice home. He gives us an apartment and we are still praying for a house instead of just thanking him for providing us with a roof over our head.
We have to appreciate what we have in order to get what God really has in store for us. I read the book The Secretand it's main focus is the law of attraction. This is when whatever you focus on, comes t you. For example, if you're at a job that you don't like and you continue to say, "I hate this job" you won't ever be able to leave because you are more focused on the negative than the positive. It states that you have to own the job you hate and find something good about it. Once you do this, you will be able to move on to the next level and get another job. This is oh so true because I tried it. In 2008, I lost my job due to me not passing a test, the Series 7 exam. I missed it by two points. I was crushed. They let me go the next day. I was out of work for about 8 months. Then things started to turn around. I had an interview with Walmart for a supervisor position. At this point, I just wanted to get a pay check because my bills were piling up. During the interview, they offered me the job and told me what the pay was. When I saw the pay, I was shocked. It was not what I expected and I almost got up and walked out because I knew that I could make more. But then I gathered myself and said, "something is better than nothing." When I got the job they told me that I would just be supervising the guys unloading the truck. This didn't seem so bad. They stressed to me that I would NOT have to unload NOT one box off the truck. Now mind you, I had never worked a laboring job in my life. I have always been a shirt and tie guy. Well, this only lasted one day. After the first day on the job, I was unloading the truck. I couldn't believe it. They told me this to get me in. I hated the job. I went to work everyday miserable. I didn't see no way out. The managers there didn't have any professionalism about them at all. I was frustrated because they would tell me to do one thing and then right me up when I did it. I knew I was going to lose my mind if I didn't get out of there, but no one was hiring. This is when I found the book The Secret. I use to read it n my breaks and during lunch. After I read it, I realized that I had to accept the job and love it even when I knew that I didn't. I started going to work with joy in my heart. I use to sing while I unload the truck and I made sure that I was energized the whole time I was there. After this happened, one of the mangers walked up to me one day and told me that I was a good worker and that she felt like there were other managers that wee trying to get me fired. She then proceeded to offer me the opportunity to move to any other department in the store that had an opening. I couldn't believe it. I accepted he offer and moved to TLE (Tire Lube Express). Now comes the funny part. Here is a guy that has NEVER picked up a tool (outside of a screw driver) to fix anything, headed to change oil and tires. But that's not the funny part. The funny part was seeing me in the uniform. I was the neatest and cleanest oil changer you ever seen. My shirt was always tucked in and my uniformed was pressed. Everyday I went to work, somebody laughed at me. Hell, I even laughed at myself from time to time.
Now things had changed but not all for the better. I had to take a pay cut, but I got better hours. The working environment was dirty and cold during the winter months. It was like it got better and then worse again. But I just took what I had received and ran with it. I owned it just like I owned the other position. I got grimmie and dirty and I was even singing while I was changing oil. I had finally told myself that I was just going to enjoy the journey that I was on. I had only been in TLE for a few months and then I got a phone call. It was a friend of mine who I had worked with at my previous employer, Regions. He asked me if I was interested in coming to work for him. All I could say at that moment, was thank you God.
You have to be thankful for what you have and realize your blessings and enjoy what God has given you even when it only seems like a little. In order for him to take you to the next level you have to pass the test of the level that you are on. Passing that test my require you just to embrace what you have and enjoy it to the fullest. If you don't believe me, try it and if it doesn't work I will give you $100. But you have to embrace it, you have to own it, you have to enjoy what you don't like.
"Good givers are great getters"-Russell Simmons
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