Tag Archives: spiritual

June 13, 2022 / 9:50 pm

A lot of changes have happened over the past month. Starting on May 27, just last month to be exact. Oh yes, on that fateful May 27th day, I was fired. I was happily fired from my job as a bakery wrapper. I was confused, angry and understandably upset. It was my first time being fired from anything. Sure, I’ve seen people getting fired but never me. I thought I’d always been adequate enough. And hey, I still think I’m adequate enough. But sometimes getting fired means we’re opening doors to something greater than ourselves and our adequate-ness. The more I opened up to that, I discovered that things always work themselves out. It always does. It just takes a lot of faith, solid faith, to see that. 

And more so, I discovered that my inner self that so wanted to come out just couldn’t in the environment I was in. My true self felt stifled and hid away in return for straight physical labor. Coming in everyday, feeling like a workhorse just couldn’t sustain me for very long. I just couldn’t handle all the work that was demanded of me. Also to mention we were understaffed (is every company understaffed??) While I’d try to be calm and collected, trying my best to get work done, my manager would push me to work even faster.

“Did you time yourself?” or “How long did it take you to get that done?” or “Let me show you our time table to assess how fast you should really go” or something always concerning the speed of my work.

Not only that, but the fact that I was calm and collected seemed to strike a chord with my manager. Some days I’d be careless, like wearing pretty nail polish but being clever enough to always put on my latex gloves before touching anything. And then there was the fateful day, the day my supervisor discovered my shoes. Handling two jobs led to inconsistency. The two months I was there, I wore my Nike shoes, thinking it’d be good enough. But I never considered how serious the non-slip rule was, especially since I typically was rarely around places I could slip. So I was scolded and had to wear tall big boots. Ones that the meat and deli department wore. Rain-looking boots. They were heavy, and although they were “non-slip” I actually found them to be quite slippery for some reason.  

Now I was really pushing the line. Now with my body practically all-around fatigued from the physical labor, I sensed something within. A feeling like I wouldn’t be at the job much longer. In fact, I’d always sensed that on some level. Just didn’t know it’d come so soon! Practically a few days before a co-worker asked to hang out with me and I choked up. Guess that wouldn’t amount to anything either. 

So on May 27, 2022, I was fired. And I was glad but also knew I had to collect myself to figure out why it happened the way it did. It was time to begin some introspection. I knew I had tried my best at that job, although careless at times, and sometimes understandably so. So was it right to guilt trip myself about it? No. I wouldn’t allow myself to dig a hole of guilt after everything. Was it a simple mistake? Yes. And with mistakes come corrections. So I had some corrections to get through. 

I realized that no matter how busy the outside world seemed, if I wasn’t calm, I couldn’t get anything done clearly. Sure, I could get things done, but my performance was messy, disorganized, and erratic. Then I began to notice when things were done like that, mistakes usually would follow.

So I had to learn the importance of being calm and with it, seeing where this open door would lead me.

The great thing about being fired is that now I have a blank slate once again. I have time to reflect on what worked and what didn’t. I also get to ask myself that very important question: What is it that I truly want?

When I decided to work for that company, my main intention was to just get the bills paid. I had some debt piled up after an unexpected death in the family and needed money. So there I went, thinking it’d be good enough to get me through.

But money isn’t what I truly want. What I truly wanted and still choose today is to do something meaningful with my life. The only meaning that job had to me was that it gave me financial stability at a time when I didn’t have much. And most of us know by now money can’t buy us happiness. Maybe a comfortable life externally, sure. But if we’re not feeling all too great within, how can we ever enjoy life and all it’s beauty?

And say if we did get a great lump sum of money, what would we do with such a responsibility anyways? From what I’ve heard and seen, sometimes a lot of money just ends up becoming another burden. But hey, maybe there can be balance found in that too…

What I am really trying to point out here is that maybe finding that something meaningful is actually really simple. And it took this whole blog post of several paragraphs to reveal that, but sometimes that’s how true understanding works. We have to be willing to dig deep sometimes. Figure out what it is we’re actually accomplishing in our lives.

Some people are blessed to have figured out what that is and have rightfully pursued their something-meaningful. Maybe they’ve become successful authors, or doctors devoted to helping their patients and humanity, or maybe they just have a small business and make shave ice and sweet desserts 8 hours a day.

Pursuing something meaningful doesn’t mean we have to do something show-worthy or drastic, sometimes it just means taking the time for ourselves. Being kind to ourselves, and seeing how that could help others too.