This I Believe
I first started working second semester
of my junior year in high school as a waitress. I mainly worked a couple nights
a week after school and every morning on the weekends. At first, I loved my job
and especially all the money I was making with tips. I began to love my job so
much I requested more hours. My mom had warned me not to get ahead of myself
with my new job because I still needed to focus primarily on school. I understood
what she was saying but was too naïve to put any meaning behind her words. So like
most important stuff my mother tells me; it went in one ear and out the other.
As I continued waitressing for the rest of my high school career I began to
feel differently about my job. It was stressful, hard to balance with school, I
had inconvenient hours, and overall it was a negative place to work. But I
continuously told myself it is worth the money. On the positive side, I attained
a large amount of spending money working as often as I was. I went shopping
almost every week, went out to eat way too often, and developed some not so
good habits that money can buy. My job only began to get worse, management was
practically inexistent and coming to work was dreadful. I started to really ponder
if the money was actually worth it. I could see all around me that people my
age work normal jobs with normal hours and survive just fine. That was when I
realized that money doesn’t buy happiness. Working a dreadful job with long
dreadful hours may give you a plentiful amount of spending money, but at the
end of the day I realized that that doesn’t mean anything to me if I’m spending
majority of my time in an unhappy place.
To
me happiness comes from the people I surround myself with, the memories I make
and will always cherish, and the experiences made that you can truly obtain
without tangible objects. As I look ahead at my future I envision my belief
staying with me for all my life. It’s a great feeling to know that some of the
best days of my life have yet to occur and I still have so much to be grateful
for. I’m glad I came to the realization that money can buy many things in this
crazy world but happiness isn’t one of them.
https://soundcloud.com/em8675309/this-i-believe
