jobs and mindset

Allow me to open up with a little update first. I finished my first few days at my new job, but I’m still being trained on how to properly make the coffee. There are endless syrup flavors, each one aiding to the rise of nationwide diabetes, giant steel espresso machines that sound like cats screaming when they steam milk, and about two feet of space for three people to trip over each other in. Customers come shaking like addicts for their morning coffee and they blurt out ridiculously long complex orders. If you don’t put enough whipped cream on someone’s frozen sugar drink, then you have to call up the president so he can personally apologize to the soccer mom himself.

    

Then there are the coworkers. Pleasant, happy people who never ever make me want to pick up a straw and shove it through my eye. It’s not like they incessantly jabber on and on despite all of my efforts to show that I’m not interested and I’d like to do my job in peace. They’ve neeeeeverr told me I'm too quiet. Or stood there like a lump while I run around doing what needs to be done. Never.

(Me getting up @ 5 am wondering if I should even show up to work. )

I’ll tell you a secret, though. None of what I just complained about actually matters. Rude customers, annoying coworkers, long lines, complex orders, and all the little challenges a silly job like this presents. None of it matters. Don’t misunderstand me, there are things worth being unsatisfied with. I don’t want to stay in this job forever and I would of course, much rather be at home than there at 5 am. But at the end of my shift, I go home and it’s all meaningless. I only show up for money and for personal growth. And that’s okay. I let it serve that purpose and then I go home. Once I leave I can bloom and be happy and explore my passions and talk to God. It’s all about mindset.

I first realized that I don’t have to be miserable at my job when I put in my notice at my place of work a few years ago. I still had two weeks left to work. Two more weeks of dealing with the same stuff I’d been dealing with and letting bother me for two years. The difference was, I wasn’t afraid of it. I wasn’t stressed by it. I wasn’t sad or nervous. Because I felt free. Knowing that I was going to be leaving made my job so carefree that I remember asking myself if I should even leave it. I could’ve given myself that gift of peace and calm from the first day I started that job. It was within my power the whole time. No one gave me permission to stop being upset or worried. I believed I was free and so I felt it. But that is true always. I’m not trapped in that coffee shop. I’m there by choice. I am free.

I like to describe it as not getting down on the same level as your job. If you bend down, you get your hands and knees all muddy and you’re eye level with the chaos and the negativity and everything is so loud you can’t have your own thoughts. Being down there makes every day miserable. But if you stay standing tall, you have a view of the outside world. Your mind is clear and you know who you are and why you’re there. You can perform even better, because you aren’t being dragged down by others. You know that there are bigger things than the little things you face at this temporary job.

Maintaining a healthy mindset is difficult for me, though. So I have made it a priority to practice. If you hear news of a barista who had a psychotic meltdown and terrified the public, you’ll know I failed :)