Appreciation

Just a few thoughts about where life is at right now, where it was, and where it's going....

Sometimes in life roles are reversed.

This can happen frequently and often entirely unexpectedly.

 

Today I am hosting a Job Centre recruitment day at the local Job Centre Plus as Christmas draws near and the icy hand of winter begins to engulf us all.

Seems amazing to think that just two Christmases ago, as well as the Christmas prior to that, I was then also involded with the Job Centre... Albeit in an entirely different vein. I was jobless, very nearly penniless, feeling very desperate and very humbled. Yet just two short years later I find myself occupying a well paid, prominent, and Senior position in a leading National Franchise. I worked hard for this and feel justified in saying that, it isn't bragging.

 

The dark times seem a world away...

I have money, a wonderful girlfriend, a luxury home, I am comfortable.

Yet however shrouded those dark days may to my mind seem, they really weren't that long ago.  I have so much to celebrate, and yet my inward dread cannot dissipate.

I was on top of life once before, believing in my heart that I could never fall off that horse.  In a sense I never did really, I lept off; believing in my arrogance that I could quickly scramble up on to another, but I didn't.

I was trampled. Trampled under the unforgiving hooves of economic crisis and recession.

Left weeping tears without prosper, left wishing for change in life that a broken system and an ailing job market made me feel was almost impossible. It has been a bleak journey, replete with false starts, dashed hopes, bitter rejections, and dark days.

I thought I'd blown it.

 

However, romantic soul that I am, the light of inspiration still always managed to catch my eye, shining in the the dark, like a beacon at the end of some barren tunnel.

Lighrting my way it was inspiration that led me on my path, through my tireless odyssey of effort.

My days of toil. Through all the regret, all of the misgivings, I never grew sour.

I never became bitter.

I never ceased to see the beauty in all things, to marvel at the wonders of the world.

The bleakness, legion though it was did not become me, nor did I become it.

I survived. I always survive.

 

So what then is the legacy of my time spent in the dark corners of obsurity?

What lasting effect did it all have? That's easily answered...

It made me better, it made me stronger, and it made me into a more mature, more rounded, more consisdered and more accepting individual.

All things that don't finish you off can only expand upon you.

It trimmed my ego without destroying it, and it morphed my expectations without rendering them mediocre.

 

One notable trait with which it has left me is a fierce dislike for snobbery.

An all consuming distaste towards those who look down upon those that have less means and money than themselves. Who dare to see possessions and dollar signs as some sort of measuring stick for the level a person can occupy in society.

As if money is all that makes a person valid. I spit in the face of that ideology and philosophy. You are and we are whoever we choose to be, whoever we choose to make ourselves when we open our eyes that morning and get out of bed; that is who we are.

You get to make that decision each and every morning before you embark upon the journey of that day, who am I? What am I worth? What shall I achieve today?

That is your choice every single day to make, and it's never too late to decide that today you're going to be extraordinary. Nobody, not one person, no matter how much money or means or condescending arrogance they may possess can ever take that from you, or label you as anything other than what you yourself have chosen to be.

There is no measuring stick. Your attitude and philosophy are all that defines who you are, not what people looking at you choose to think.

I am living proof that it is possible to turn your life around completely.

To grab life by the throat, refusing to submit under adversity, and making it do what you want it to. In the end life is just clay, and the clay is on our hands; we are who we choose to be. However, we must never forget that what we have however much it may seem could so easily disappear in the mere blink of an eye.

Sometimes you may drop that clay....

The legacy of my dark days is that while I know that it is important to work hard and that effort has its rewards, I know also how vital, how important and meaningful it is to be thankful for every single second.

So I am. I really am.