Shift
The balance of power amazes me. I’m not talking politics here--far from it, actually, though it all may be applicable in the end. Follow me on this: There are times, when you wait tables, when everything goes wrong. Guests are grumpy, you’re not making any money, the place is short-staffed, morale is down, you’re working entirely too hard and you know it… And then suddenly management hires, not just any lackluster fill-in, but someone, the right someone, and instantly, morale is up, the work is easier, the spoons are back and the coffee’s hot and the ice cream’s cold.
You go from everything going wrong--we’re talking layers and layers of wrong that you begin to suspect can never be put right--to watching all that was in the air a moment ago settling in to exactly where it belongs. Oh, you’re still working the same long hours and the grumpy people are still there (aren’t they always?), but the outlook has changed. And it all came down to that one substitution. The entire balance of power simply shifted. That’s what amazes me, that it can be so tenuous as that.
Get the wrong person and it’s nothing but arduous. Sometimes you don’t even notice because you’ve grown so accustomed to arduous. But get the right person, and head–spinning eye-opening change occurs. You’ll wonder what took so long, and in a way, you won’t care so long as it’s finally here.
We spend our time striving for the almighty dollar, reaching that next level, trying to land that big fish, get the corner office and the pot of gold, and these things all come and go, like mile markers on a mountain road. The thing is, the entire thing, is to stop striving for the next change but to be that change, the change that causes such a shift.
That’s all. And it’s everything.~
Like what you’re reading? Consider picking up one of my books:
Stories From the Road
Upside Down Kingdom
Sully & Friends Cross the Road
“Seriously, where do the spoons go??”
