Living Proof

Years ago, jobs were more plentiful, more obtainable and of course, more desirable. After school, I started temping for a medical company that my sister had gotten me into. I was a product control tester, making sure all pocket PDRs (tiny little medical info laptops) were working properly. It was a tedious job, but I was thankful to get my foot in the door of a reputable company. After my time there, I started working for IBM for quite a while and although the pay and benefits of working there were wonderful, it. bored. me. to. tears. I was working in the finance department where everyone shared an office like a college dorm. Unfortunately, I had to share my “dorm room” with some hillbilly woman with no teeth who dressed up in pink corduroy pants and a leather vest with tassels. I kid you not. I always wondered how she got the job, but I quickly found out she was a fixture to the company - she had 20 years under her belt. As months went by, she started treating me like her little slav...

“It’s an obstruction of da' view,” my father says, as he stares at the large tree that’s been on his neighbor’s property for over 30 years now, “it’s getting bigga' and bigga' and I can’t see da' water anymore.” He’ll complain about this until something else distracts his attention from the tree. There’s nothing he can really do about it. It’s my neighbor’s tree, which provides privacy for them. It’s on their property, so it’s not as if my father could say, “take that tree down now!” All he can do is complain about it. What about the “tree” obstructing our view in life? There’s nothing we can do about it other than complain and make up excuses of why our “life” or “view” isn’t as nice as we want it to be. Are “trees” less beautiful than the water? We can sit around complaining, or we can choose to appreciate what we have in front of us now. I have a bunch of obstructions in my life. “Oh well, if I made more money, I could do this”, or “If I had this job, I can do t...