Do you love what you do? Your job? Your hobbies? Your life?
I’m no expert with a PhD, but I’ve been around enough to know that if you’re not doing what makes you happy, then you’re not living life to its full potential. What a lot of people don’t realize is that being happy in the workplace is a key part of being happy with your life as a whole.
When I first decided that I wanted to be a professional massage therapist, the only thing I knew was that I just wanted to help people in need. Massage was a skill I seemed to have been born with, seeing as I had been commissioned by friends and family to rub out their sore shoulders or necks from quite a young age.
After choosing a private massage school for my education, I went for my admissions interview and campus tour. Now mind you, high school was my nemesis as a teen, I hated doing homework therefore; I dreaded every report card that ever showed up in my mom’s mailbox. The massage school required a HS graduating GPA of 3.0 or above, mine didn’t quite meet that. It was a little difficult for me to swallow the fear of rejection as I sat on the train that carried me into the city and thus growing closer to the moment of truth. I knew that I had to do something to show them that despite my previous academic indiscretions, I was ready to be responsible and make a serious go at a career in massage.
The whole interview process went very well, until she asked me about my HS transcripts and GPA. I calmly and politely explained to her that I was well aware of my inadequate grades, but encouraged her to take a look at my SAT scores. I knew I wasn’t dumb. After some apparent uncertainty, I laid it all out for her. I explained how difficult HS was for because of circumstances that I had no control over, but I knew now that as an adult I needed to buck up and move on. The one question she asked that really made my desire and comitment real for me was, “Aside from everything that’s happened in the past Christine, what really makes you want to be a therapist?”
I didn’t even take a second to think my answer out before I said, “I just want to help people and make them happy. If I can turn someone’s pain and misery into relaxation and contentment, even if it’s only for a short time, it’s worth all the struggle and sacrifices I would have to make.”
“Excellent answer,” she said “we need more people like you, and that’s why I’m going to go ahead and accept your application so we can start the paperwork process.”
I was shocked. Pure, unadulterated, raw emotional honesty was all she wanted to hear. My heart soared, and I was on cloud nine and a half! I just knew that I had found my life’s calling!
A couple weeks into the course, there seemed to be some people that just didn’t fit into the folds of our class. There was one guy who couldn’t hack it because he was a practicing monk and couldn’t be comfortable with the thought of being semi-nude under a sheet around a group of people. There was the really cool chick from New Jersey who didn’t make it due to certain health problems and difficulties concerning her weight. My heart went out to them, I knew that they really wanted to be there and they wanted to learn how to better help people, but it just wasn’t in their cards.Then there was Aria.
Aria was quiet and reserved from day one, but we just chalked it up to her being shy around a large group of new people. There was only one person in our class she would really converse with, the rest of us got ignored like last week’s leftovers. Every time someone would say “hello” to her or ask her how she was, she’d either roll her eyes and ignore them completely, or mutter something under her breath and turn away. She openly announced one day during a bone lab that she didn’t need to participate in the activity because she “knew all this crap already” because she was a licensed Occupational Therapist.
No matter how many people smiled at her and tried to be friendly, she was always the same, cold as the ice in the arctic. Our reactions to her turned from confusion, to anger, to annoyance, and finally to amusement. How could someone who had already started on a path of helping others act like they hated every other person in the world? If you had a job where you work with all kinds of different people every day, shouldn’t you at least somewhat enjoy being around others? And if you really don’t like being around other people, can’t you at least learn to pretend or fake a smile when necessary?
