This is exactly what happened at work on Saturday. The following weekend was my first time working at the MTC and looking back I had started the day right off with a "not so great" attitude. I had only gotten three hours of sleep (due to a wonderful date that I enjoyed every minute of) so I was running a little bit on empty. Hastily getting ready to head off to my first day I left my apartment at six thirty with an empty stomach, a light jacket, and was not looking forward to walking through the lightly falling snow that hadn't stopped since before I had gotten home that night. I trudged along, cringing at the sound of the snow beneath my feet and shivering profusely as the bitter chill bit at my face and made me regret not wearing a warmer jacket. Complaining the whole time to myself, and aloud to Kiffyn and Adam, I had started my day off with a "cup is half empty" attitude.
When it came to my second shift that day, that attitude I had started my day out with began to have a great affect on how I was feeling about working in the dish room for my first time. Waiting at the loading station my supervisor explained my job and thoroughly went through all I needed to know. He proceeded to tell me how nine people had not shown up that day and things were going to be a little hectic. Apologetically, he informed me that the job I was about to be doing was usually done by two people but because we were short that day I was going to work it alone. To me it sounded like my current situation in that dish room couldn't get much worse. And then the shift started...
As he had predicted the job was a struggle without the extra help and the entire time I worked those three hours I thought about how difficult it was, how much I disliked all of the people who didn't come in, and how I hated every minute of that shift. As you might have predicted I ended that shift feeling like I had just been tortured and as I thought about how I never wanted to go through that again I was reminded of the fact that I had two shifts in the dish room the next day, Sunday, which was apparently twice as fast paced and difficult. From then on my thoughts about that job were negative and my comments to people about it came out as incessant complaining.
Now if I hadn't been so negative I would have noticed:
- I was lucky enough to have a supervisor who came and helped me every so often when I was falling really behind.
- With his help I could not only catch up, but his positive attitude and light-hearted humor made working so much more enjoyable.
- So many people today are unemployed and I was blessed with being able to have a job to help provide me with funds I need to put towards reaching future goals of mine.
- The people all around me were all great people who were working hard and were also relying on me so we could accomplish the task at hand which was to clean up after the missionaries.
- And finally, I failed to realize what a blessing it was to be able to serve the missionaries in such a humbling way.
I am pleased to say that my experience in the dish room this weekend was much more enjoyable. I laughed, joked, danced around a little before the shift, and made some new friends. While I still loved working on line and getting to see some friends in the MTC and work close with the missionaries, I realized that the dish room can be just as enjoyable or more so. I also realized that working in that room is not like a video game, if I can not get all the trays at once I am not going to lose and have to go back to level one. All I can do is work as fast and efficiently as possible and take things one at a time. This is exactly what I have to do in life as well. Life comes at you fast and if you are worrying about all your problems and tasks you have to accomplish as a collective whole then all those little worries will combine to look like a great big mountain that can never be conquered. I am happy to say this is not the case. We must take everything we are given one thing at a time and by this we can accomplish so much.
I hope everyone that reads this will remember to take things at your own pace and look for the good things in life while you are doing it. We are all so blessed in so many ways, some being so tiny that we fail to recognize what the the Lord has done for us. But if we notice these things we will be more positive and have the strength and diligence to conquer every mountain we come up against, no matter how large.
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