I started a new job in the past few weeks. To make a long story short, I work in overnight room service for a luxury hotel in town. The hours are fairly demanding: 12:00am to 6:30am on the weekdays. It has definitely messed up my typical sleeping schedule. I haven’t gotten used to it yet, but it is certainly doable. But if we add up all the hours…
32.5 Hotel Job + 9.5 Restaurant Job + 12 Teaching = 50+ Hours of Work per Week.
It is a lot of time to dedicate per week to obtaining money, but I feel it’s somewhat necessary for a person in my position to work that hard if I want to reach the goals I’ve set for myself, so I really don’t mind. I typically sleep on my free time. Social interaction has taken a backseat, but instead of indulging myself several times per week, I simply do-it-to-it once a week like a standard working adult. And one of the main reasons why I’m doing this is so I have some cushion room and am able to relax when I make a huge change in the coming months. So really, I’m just setting myself up for being successful in my future endeavors.
Because so much of current life is spent working, sleeping, eating, preparing, and taking care of business, there’s a lack of social intimate interaction in my life, and I don’t blame anyone except for myself for this situation. Because of that, I’ve had a lot of time to myself to contemplate and meditate.
After I got home after a midnight shift, I was in some sort of restlessness and I couldn’t fall asleep (after working thirteen hours and finally getting into bed at 7:00am and I can’t fall asleep? Crazy huh?). So I just laid there in my bed while my cat was crawling all over my body and face. I looked at my cat’s nose and I thought “What a strange looking nose”. And honestly, that was the spark to some strange contemplative fire…
I started thinking and asked, “Through what series of circumstances of evolution or creation or whatever, does one decide to configure all the building blocks of life, all the atoms, and all the cells, and then *POOF*. Kitty Cat?”
And then with that, I began to think of “human beings”. Then of “existence” in this universe. Then of my role in the timeline of general existence (yes, my mind tangents that easily). And of course I didn’t come up with any answer because there’s no way my small mind can wrap itself around a concept like that. But since I thought about time, I began to zone into the smaller concept of “my life”. I thought about my past, which was an easy segway into thinking about the present. And then this…
Although I probably shouldn’t be thinking this far into the future, I thought, “Mike, when you’re content with yourself and you’ve reached this inner-peace/personal nirvana that you’ve been so adamant about, what’s the next step?” Well, I’m a firm believer that once you truly understand and reached the pinnacle of personal happiness, the next thing to experience and try to understand is how to obtain happiness through living your life for another person. A truly loving intimate social relationship is the first thing that comes to my mind. Not necessarily two shameless lovers, because you can have that best friend bond, that family bond, or that admiration and dedication you give to someone that goes past all of time and existence and is unexplainable.
So basically once I’m done figuring out what it is I need to do in order to feel one-hundred-percent satisfied about my own position in this world, the next step is to live for someone. Why can’t I do both things right now? I don’t really know, perhaps I’m bad at multi-tasking or I simply don’t want to…
But anyway, I’m sure that’s a concept that is obvious for most of you readers: To find someone to love and who will love you back. But I was interested in why it was the logical step for so many people to take? Let’s take the example of two shameless lovers, what happens in their relationship that is so desirable?
There’s a ton of laughter. There are a bunch of smiles, hugs, and kisses. Intense physical interaction 
. They’re able to open up to each other and talk about their emotions and feelings without feeling like wimps. They don’t feel guilty when they’re lazy or “waste time” together. They’re willing to push boundaries and conquer fears with each other. They can share their incomes. They’ll have someone to wake up next to every morning. They can use each other to better their own lives. No matter what, someone will say the pants never make the butt look fat. Umm… I suppose they’ll purchase gifts for each other… Oh…
They can go out to eat at nice places because going to any dine in restaurant by yourself is kind of embarrassing and lame. That’s an important one.
But I think they’re all just perks and romantic situations (except the whole going out to eat thing. That’s a big one… Seriously), I believe that the main aspect of why a truly loving intimate social relationship is so desirable is this…
However you want to look at this situation, each individual is just a minuscule speck of human existence, this planet, this universe, or just time. Our lives are so limited to the vastness that is everything. It’s a very intimidating thought that if pessimistic, can make you feel as if your existence is meaningless. That is one of the reasons why I hope people are able to simply love, because when you’re able to truly love someone, you’re able to convince them of a comforting thought that their life isn’t meaningless, that there’s at least one other minuscule speck of the existence of everything, that believes they’re worth something. And that is the concept: Worth.
To feel worth. It boils down to that. Imagine a life of personal achievements: A high paying job, a bunch of money, a big house, relaxing at your beach condo, fast sports cars, fancy dinners, nice polyester shirts that are always pressed. Imagine what you believe is luxury. Imagine if you had everything you’ve ever wanted but you’re the only human being on the planet. Kind of seems pointless now does it? There’s no reason to spend so much money on your nicely pressed pin-stripe pants when there’s nobody to impress. No need to drive a fast car when you’re not going to holla at some chicks. But when you add another person into the equation, everything changes. It seems to make sense to have that high paying job so you can support someone else. And when you’re walking into your gathering with all your friends and someone says, “Hey, I really like your shirt!” You respond with “Oh this shirt? 100% polyester. Designer shirt from France. All the rage over there.” Then you have your smug little grin because you impressed someone and you felt worthy.
Now onto some non-idiotic situations…
To me, a genuine smile attached to a laugh is one of the greatest experiences to give. Because I know that a laugh is an honest response to something humorous and happy. I was able to give someone a quick but positive experience in their life. And when my mind goes, “Good job Mike!”, I know I did something for someone and thus making me feel worthy, even if it’s for a split second.
I don’t know if or when I’ll reach that point where someone decides to give their life for me because I have so many issues I have to resolve, but think about this…
You know you’re not perfect. You know you can never get your hair to be just right. You think your feet are ugly. You could always lose another five pounds. You have that gross habit with chewing gum with your mouth open. Your butt does honestly look fat in those pants. You have a horrible singing voice. You snort when you laugh. You get frustrated over the smallest of things. You’re very stubborn. You have that annoying thing where you need to keep the bedroom between 68 to 70 degrees but you have five blankets and eight pillows you need to sleep with or else you’re not comfortable. You have a Nickleback song somewhere in your music library (eww…). You have a strange fascination with cats (*raises hand*). You know you have so many flaws and you don’t understand why anybody would even waste one second, let alone, their life on someone like you. And you ask them, “Why?”
And they’ll respond with the greatest answer ever…
“I don’t know… Probably, because I think you’re worth it.”
And that is priceless.
-Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect
Latana
