I’ve often dreamed about “Things I rather be doing” throughout the day. I think most people do. To some extent, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. It’s good to have plans and dreams. When it gets problematic is when you are not fully attending to your present responsibilities. Discontentment could be good in the sense that if you are a lousy state of affairs and want to get out. For example, if you’re working at a minimum wage job and you realize you don’t want to make peanuts for the rest of your life and start making plans to better yourself like going to college or trade school in order to acquire marketable skills to improve your life.
That’s what happened to me. I was working at my mom’s 7-Eleven store for two years after high school for $10 an hour. A friend playfully joked that I was “going to be behind the register for the rest of my life.” He didn’t intend to be mean-spirited about it but it did hit a nerve in that I really thought about that possibility of working in this same job for the rest of my life and immediately wanted to put a gun to my head and pull the trigger.
The prospect of working at that store for the rest of my life drove me to the decision to attend college. Don’t get me wrong, I will be eternally grateful for that store because it was the vehicle by which our mom provided for us. But that doesn’t mean I needed to make it my life-long career. I didn't want to put up with rude, ungrateful, and classless people (not all of them were like that but there were plenty) and gang members constantly making beer runs and bums demanding free food for the rest of my life.
Keep in mind I was a terrible high school student who only graduated because my high school wanted to get rid of me (I don’t blame them). I applied to Rio Hondo Junior College in Whittier, took all the necessary required documents, and took all the pre-tests in order to qualify for college level classes. I’ve never worked so hard in my life and hadn’t even started college yet. Rio Hondo sits on a side of a mountain and the parking lot wraps around that mountain so when you park you have to walk up hill for about two blocks (sometimes three depending how busy it is) and by the time you get to class you felt like you’ve attended a stair master class.
Did that deter me? No. Every time I thought about quitting I kept thinking about working at 7-Eleven for the rest of my life and it gave me renewed fervor. In short, I transferred to Biola University and graduated with a bachelor and two masters degrees. I eventually completed my teaching credential and my personal financial planning classes in order to because a teacher and personal financial planner.
What’s the point of all this? Well, when I finally took responsibility for my own life it gave me a clear direction. I didn’t ask the government to fix my problems or give me a better life. I racked up student loans but I did something crazy. I paid it back and didn’t ask someone else to do that. Sometimes being uncomfortable could be a good thing. It drove me to a better place. I have freedoms and liberties that I currently have that I would not have had if I simply stayed working at a minimum wage job. It was a great place to start to teach me discipline and responsibility.
As a public school teacher, I have a good salary and great benefits. I am able to provide for my family. As a financial planner, I could choose to work with people I want to. I encounter rude and difficult people all. The difference now is I could choose to not work with them. It's within my right to do so. You don’t have that freedom as a clerk in a convenient store. You have to serve the person in front of you.
Let discomfort drive you to a better place. As Tim Grover said, “You don’t have to love the hard work. You just have to crave the end result so intensely that the work becomes irrelevant.” It takes nothing short of hard work to experience these freedoms. No one else is going to do it for you. “Patience is bitter, but its’ fruit is sweet.”
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