Life is Long
As mentioned in my previous post, back in late 2020 I accepted a part time job working at a local golf course here in my area. It was a low paying job working outdoors, but it did provide some nice amenities. My job was basically just to supervise the driving range and clean things up at the end of the day. It was a pretty simple job, and during the summer months things were a bit slower, which made for a nice opportunity to interact with some of my co-workers and other people up at the clubhouse.
There was one afternoon in particular where I was out back, talking to one of the girls, and before pulling away on my golf cart and saying goodbye I couldn’t help but feel like there was something in this girl’s smile that was a little bit…mocking? I took a look down at myself. I was a mess. Shoes torn apart. My shirt was stained with dirt. Shorts were faded and losing color. My hair was overgrown and my facial hair was ungroomed. Even my belt was ratty and torn up. I couldn’t help but laugh. Being as though I would get to work early and work late through the day out on the range, that was just the look I had adopted. But with that said, as I was pulling away, I couldn’t help but have a few takeaways from the experience…
The first is this, now when you come into my house, all of my sh*t is clean. If a shirt has a stain on it I either get it cleaned or throw it out. If my shoes are coming apart I throw them out and get new ones. But the other thing is that if you would have seen me in that moment, you probably would’ve thought I was the biggest loser in the world. You would have had no idea that I was attending one of the largest colleges in the country just a few months earlier, and living in one of the largest cities in the state of Florida. And with all that said, in a funny way, it made me feel a sense of gratitude. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t going to win me any fame, glory, or recognition, but I was getting by, supporting myself, and finding a way. And I would take that any day over running around trying to acquire a bunch of flashy junk just to try to look cool and admirable.
When you have bigger goals in life, and have greater things that you are working toward, it can help get you through some of those moments where it may not look pretty or flashy from the outside. Many people aren’t willing to make those sacrifices and put themselves in that position. And that’s where it comes back to keeping your expectations low and doing things from a place of self-awareness and not always just trying to keep up with the Jones’ or the latest trends on social media.
It was a lesson I had learned from speaking with my Grandfather a few months prior that had helped me see things in that way. When I was running around like a maniac in college he would tell me “slow down… life is a marathon, not a sprint”. I had thought that in order to be “happy” I needed things to be a certain way or needed certain pieces to be put in place, and so I was moving in high gear just to get those results. But when you can take a step back and see the big picture, and see how even the small chapters of your life can align with your greater purpose in the long run, you can find great joy even just working a part time job out on the golf course.
