Throughout your off day, during the morning

Throughout life, there’s days which turnout to be good or bad days. It could happen at work, on your off day, duringthe morning or night and sadly, most of the bad days are unpredictable. Notmuch you could do to prevent. On the other hand, there are days where you canset goals to make sure it turns out to be a positive, productive day once it’sover. There also are days which can be life-changing, eye-opening or days yousee the world differently than you have pictured or imagined before. It’s sortof like a reality check. The day it occurs happens to all of us.

This is how welearn and become better versions of ourselves. No way for us to become betteras a person if there’s not days you encounter where you have to grind out thestruggle or get through something which turned out completely different thanplanned/pictured your whole life. If someone said they never had this dayhappen, that person would be lying.

I highly doubt someone never went throughthis event in their life and I’m sure you, the reader, can gladly agree withme. Some of us went through it at a young age, some middle aged and others laterin life. You’ll never know when it will occur until it happens during yourlife. The day in my life which changed the way I saw the world was when I was applyingfor my first summer job.  It all started on a bright, summermorning of last year. It was warm as the desert and I just completed my freshmanyear of college. I just woke up and could smell my mom making breakfast alongwith hearing my horse and chickens eating as well.

My brother and father wereoutside checking on them while I heard my mom talking to my grandparents on thephone while making us breakfast. Turned out my grandparents were on the wayover to come eat breakfast with us. When I was eating lucky charms, my parentstold me how they didn’t want me be home all day or go another summer withoutmaking money. So I agreed with my parents I would drive around my hometown ofArroyo Grande, California, plus go online and look for job openings knowing itwould be nice to have extra money on the side I could save or spend. The secondweek following school being out is when I had the reality check and saw theworld differently. I was looking everywhere within a 20 minute radius of myhouse to see who was hiring.

I didn’t have a preference of where or what Iwanted to do so I looked into anywhere such as retail positions, fast foodrestaurants, moving companies, UBER etc. This is how I pictured the world was. I saw the world as getting a job sounds pretty easy and that I just need to goto school along with do well in all my classes. If I do this, I’m guaranteed ajob somewhere. Nope! After finding 5 companies that were looking for summertime applicants, I came to the realization of noticing job applications arelong and really break down who you are along with how you could stand outversus the competition in forms of questionnaire.

Seeing how long it took me tocomplete one application changed my view of the work force and of the world. Nothing is easy and free in the world today. Depending on your career, youmight have to go through more years of college because it’s what the companyrequires or because it can really put you ahead of the other applicants for thejob position.

The company which hired me for the summerwas Nike and they had a retail store 10 minutes from my house. What I had to dowas go online to Nike. com/jobapplications and fill out the application.

Ithought it was going to be quick and easy but once the page loaded, it wasdivided into 10 parts. I was shocked and asked my parents if this was normal. They both said yes and laughed. I still remember telling me “ Welcome to thereal world”. My parents helped me complete it which took a little over an hourto complete. I had no idea they wanted to know so much about me. I saw jobapplications as like a one-page information worksheet and then the companywould call to schedule an interview. It took me a week later once I submittedthe application to receive the call on a bright, warm Saturday early afternoon fromone of the managers who said, “ On behalf of Nike, we would like to continue theprocess with you by scheduling an interview along with a background check aswell”.

I was excited as a little kid opening up presents on Christmas toreceive the call. Once the conversation with the manager was over, I quicklysaved the date of the interview into my phone and set multiple remindersknowing I can’t screw this opportunity up by missing it. After I saved thedate, I called all of my family to spread the good news. Everyone was soexcited and thrilled for me. To celebrate this, my family took me out to eat atone of my favorite restaurants, Olive Garden. This event will always bememorable for me not just because it was my first ever job, but because it mademe feel like a full time working adult.

With having gone through this step inmy life, I’m more ready for what the real world is like and ready to face theobstacles that are going to come with. There was no way I could be ready forlife after college if I didn’t go through this process. Working has made me abetter all around person by being able to talk to anyone, any age.

It alsoallowed me to get my feet wet in a potential real-life situation because I’mnow aware of what I’m going to have to do once I graduate. It would beterrifying applying for jobs on my own without a clue of how and what to do onthe application. This experience also has me more driven to succeed and get thejob of my dreams once I graduate. Therefore, I’m very grateful for my parentspushing me to apply for summer jobs because I know it’s going to benefit medown the road and I know they are doing it to see me succeed. Without them, Icouldn’t be who I am today.

I chose this example as the one day in mylife when I changed the way I saw the world because it had the biggest impact Ithought on me. The day I chose was the day I received a call at home on mymobile phone from a manager at a Nike retail store 10 minutes away from myhouse. This day really opened up my eyes and encouraged me to keep working hardin college because I came to the conclusion the better you do in school, thebetter outcome for jobs in your career will be. Everything in this world comeswith a price and you can’t take anything for granted.