I am a writer. I write all my stories in a small room in a 13 story building near the ocean. This room is my home. I share an apartment with other writers. We all live in one room of the apartment. I was lucky to get the nicest room. I have a desk where I do all my writing, a small bookshelf to keep all my books that I have written and a really small kitchen/eating area plus a bed. I love my home. I enjoy my writing time.
Every morning I go out to sit by the ocean in a small cafe called Blue Lavender with outdoor seating surrounded by trees and flowers. I always carry around my notebook for observations. Today I was more excited to go out than ever before. The cafe was holding its 10-year anniversary. They were giving out free samples of all their foods: pieces of cookies, muffins and brownies and they were also offering 60% off all their drinks. As I walked up to the line where one of the staff was giving out the samples, I noticed that he seemed to be very sad. A minute later it was my turn to try a sample. I was the last one in line. Luckily there was one left of each of the different samples–perfect just for me. I took them, thanked the sad man, then went over to the other side of the cafe where I bought myself a large cup of juice.
Years ago, when I was smaller, I asked my dad for a list of all the jobs that were out there for when I got older. I never had any idea what I wanted to be until recently, when I decided to become a writer since no jobs on my dad’s list seemed to make me happy. One night my father told me that I should choose a job that I really wanted, what I am interested in, or what I am good at doing. This has been a very important lesson to me. I remember his advice for whenever it comes in handy.
As I was walking over to the door leading to the outside seating, I ran into the same sad man that I had taken my samples from. This time I had the to courage to ask him what was wrong. He brought me out to the outside seating area and he led me over to a table on the grass right by the water. The seagulls chirped in the background. I could hear the waves crash up against the land. It was my favorite place (aside from my room) in the whole world and where I like to spend my time. The man stared at me with his melancholic smile. Slowly, he started to talk to me in his unhappy voice.
He said slowly, “ You look like you’re a very smart young writer.” There was a long pause. The only noise was the chirping of seagulls and the crashing of waves. I looked up at the man who had seemed to be staring at me the whole time. His eyes looked angry but at the same time a sweet and innocent look was in them.
He said, “I need your advice,” then he stopped talking again. “ I absolutely don’t like this job at all. The boss seems to take control of me way too much.”
I thought about the first time I met the boss and how I was so impressed by how understanding and sweet he was that I actually went home and wrote a whole story about the kindest boss in the world.
“Well,” I said, “I think he is the nicest boss that I have ever met.”
The sad man looked me with anger. “I want the world to give me another job, a good job that will make me happy and will make me look good. Please give me some advice.”
“The world owes you nothing. The world is not a wish-granting factory,” I said, recalling the lines delivered in The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. “I have not the power nor ability to choose your job. You need to do what you wish to do as an occupation that will make you happy. You must follow your heart. Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first, said Mark Twain. The world was here first before anyone else. Human life came after, so the world has nothing to give you. You can do the world favors but you can never expect something back. That’s the way it goes, so you can’t say the world owes you a living, because it doesn’t. You can give to it without expecting anything in return just to show you care. You need to work hard to get what you want, you can’t just expect it to happen . In your case, you should not rely on a company to give you a job. You need to work for it and get it on your own.” I did not know how I said that; it was like my dad was inside of me speaking all of his wise advice. Again was a large moment of expected silence.
“ I suppose you are right.” His sad face gleamed in the sunshine making it stand out above everything else. Then he walked away. He walked up to the door leading back inside where he stopped and waited, then he turned back and stared at me, the sad face still shining brightly in the sun. He suddenly went from sad to happy and soon there was no longer a sad face, harmed and lonely. A smile had spread across his face which seemed to light up the whole world. He waved goodbye and walked in. In less than five seconds he came back outside, made sure that no one was looking, then blew me a kiss, and threw me a paper airplane and then left and I never saw him again. I picked up the airplane from where it landed and stuffed it in my pocket.
Later on, once I was home, I sat down on my bed, took a deep breath and opened the paper airplane. A little red heart came out and floated down onto my bed. I carefully unfolded the paper and read the following:
Dear Writer,
Thank you so much for your advice. I appreciate all your time you put into me. I will take into consideration what you said. Thanks again!
Yours Truly,
Bob Williams (staff at Blue Lavender)
I stared at the letter for a few minutes, then put it off to the side.
Three days later letter came for me in the mail. It said Bob Williams at the top. Clueless of how he got my address, I opened the letter.
Dear Writer,
Just to let you know I left my job at the cafe. It was a hard day, but resulted well. Now I am working as a designer for the newspaper. If you have any writing that you wish to publish you may contact me and I can get in touch with the editor easily. Thanks so much for all you have said to help me choose what my heart wants to do and what I really want to be deep, deep, deep down inside.
Love,
Bob Williams
P.S. I will send you a free copy of the newspaper each week.
I walked over to my desk, put the letter on top of my huge pile of papers and smiled a warm, glowing smile. I picked up my pen and began to write.
The End