What You Spend Years Building Someone Could Destroy Overnight. Build anyway.
"What you spend years building someone could destroy overnight. Build anyway." - Mother Teresa
January 23, 2000. The most anticipated day of the new year has arrived. Millions of people across the nation waken excitedly and some didn't even sleep at all for the emotional chemicals in their bodies stirred them up with enthusiasm for the upcoming day. I was one of them. The big event kicked off at eleven o'clock and I had to be there before it started. I took a quick shower, swiftly brushed my teeth, dressed up and off like a shot to my destination. I make it on time, but still it seemed like I was late. The line to get in was longer than the Nile River. Well, maybe not as long but it was lengthy. I thought to myself, "Damn! All this just for a PS2?" This wasn't the first predicament I encountered just so I can own one of these game consoles.
A month prior to that day, my problem was to come up with three hundred dollars to purchase the PS2. So what did I do? I applied at every retail store at the mall and didn't care which one called first and offered me a job. KB Toys turned out to be the fortunate one to have an employee like me. They were paying peanuts but I didn't care, as long as I get that three hundred dollars. After using the company to get what I want, I was going to leave. It was about a week before Christmas when I was hired so it was a hustle and bustle type of environment at the mall. Since the supervisor didn't have the time to train me how to use the register, I was stuck with a little bit of elbow grease. I was the lucky one that got to do all the fun work: clean the toilet, mop the floor, take out the trash and organize the aisles. I detested cleaning the toilet. I abhorred mopping the floor. Taking out the trash was okay, but what frustrated me the most was organizing the toys only to have some wild and rowdy kids come up, wreak havoc and ruin everything I've been structuring. And it didn't happen just once or twice. It happened a thousand times. That's when the thought of, "Damn! All this just for a PS2?" played on my mind. Despite the difficult conditions I barely bore, I persisted.
If you had to choose one between the three, would you...
After two weeks of work, on to my third week, I received my first paycheck. It was exactly three hundred and eighty dollars. This was it; it was my time to resign. Though it wasn't as busy anymore and I've learned how to use the register so that the dirty work was left to newcomers, I was done. I didn't even turn in my two weeks notice; I just disappeared. Vamoose!
A few more weeks until the release date of the PS2. I was a happy man, at the moment, until I had to wait in line for an eternity to buy my PS2. All that waiting depleted all my energy until, as fate would have it, my PS2 ultimately ended up in my arms and grabbed a game, Tekken Tag Tournament, along with it. It was one of the happier days of my life. With my PS2 held in my hands, I strutted down to the register filled with energy, paid up, walked out, placed it on the passenger seat and drove on home thrilled and anxious to unwrap it and play.
As I pulled in my driveway, I called a friend to come through and enjoy the system I had just acquired. No hesitation there. I opened it, set it up, and savored each press of a button. My buddy arrives and as he walks across the TV, he trips on my controller and drops my PS2 on the floor. The world suddenly stopped and the joy that I had was abruptly swept away and replaced with pain in just a matter of seconds. What I drudgingly worked for was ruined just like that, just as when I was organized toys only to be destroyed by children at the toy store. I had to go back to another retail job, if I wanted another PS2 and the nightmare resets again. Damn!
"What you spend weeks building someone could destroy in a second. Build anyway."
