I Gave Up My Profession To Become A Waitress
Me, my inside voices and the fear
Inner Voice 1: “Who are you?”
Inner Voice 2: “I’m Yen, currently based in Germany. I just graduated with a master’s degree from an economic university in Cologne.”
Inner Voice 1: “What do you do?”
Inner Voice 2: “ A waitress. I work part-time as a waitress in a Vietnamese restaurant. For the rest of the time, I paint and write.”
Inner Voice 1: “Do you like your job?”
Inner Voice 2: “As a waitress, I don’t like it, but I don’t hate it either. As an artist, I love it.”
Inner Voice 1: “Why don’t you get a real job after graduation?”
Inner Voice 2: “I don’t know. It just terrifies me when I think about working a 9 to 5 job. It’s not the job itself that makes me scared. It’s because I’m scared of being something I’m not.”
When it came close to my graduation day, I was struggling with my future because I knew I had to make a real plan for my next chapter.
When you are still in student life, everything is just easy, because, for me, it’s a carefree life. All I had to do was to study and have fun with my friends. But the closer the graduation came, the more I felt scared because I know it was time I need to take things more seriously. I didn’t want to follow the normal path that my parents or society expected me to do: get good grades, graduate from a good university, find a good job with a good salary, etc.
The funny thing is I always knew it was never the path I wanted. I always knew there was something wrong but I was just a coward to admit it. I didn’t want to get out of my comfort zone and do something different.
Twenty years passed by - twenty years of being a good student - studied in a gifted school, went to a good university with a major I HATED, then got a corporate job, studied in Germany to pursue a master’s degree with the same major that I HATED. Then I continued the same old path, looked for an internship, then a 9–5 job…
At the age of 29, I realized I had everything but I had nothing. No purpose, not knowing what to do next, not knowing what I wanted in life. Every day I kept doing the SAME OLD SH*T.
After being tortured by the urge of doing something new, doing something different in my life, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to give up everything I’d built: turned down the acceptance for an internship in Berlin, and broke the engagement with my German fiancé that I thought I should marry. Then I ended up living in debt and had no job.
But believe me, I felt free and relieved more than ever. The moment that I decided to let go is the moment I found myself. I explored and enjoyed my life like I never lived before. I learned music, photography, calligraphy, and immersed myself in art. I painted and painted for hours, I could even do it all day. And things started to make sense…
For the first time in my life, I feel so real…so real. It’s me living my own life.
Inner Voice 1: “Do you still feel scared and unhappy with your current life?”
Inner Voice 2: “Sure I do. I can feel the fear right now. I’m thirty. I work as a waitress and have no career, no money. I could be a poor artist for the rest of my life. God, I’m feeling the fear. I wish I feel it less but I feel it strongly. I don’t want to live in poor. I don’t want to work as a waitress for the rest of my life. I DON’T.”
Inner Voice 1: “Would you give up someday?”
Inner Voice 2: “NEVER EVER!”
Inner Voice 1: “Aren’t you tired of the fear?”
Inner Voice 2: “I am. I am tired. I hate the fear, the fear of failure, of the unknown future just like anybody else. But thank God, he still gives me the strength to crush it as long as I’m forging ahead.”
I’m not here to complain about my struggling life as an artist/writer, because I don’t expect many people would read it. But I surely know my younger self would be proud of me.
I know I feel scared as hell and this sh*t can get frustrating at times. But there is nothing in this world I would rather be doing than exactly what I’m doing right now. I would not trade this for anything. Because it’s me doing all of this. It’s me writing my own story and painting my own world.
I believe that when you are living your authentic life, you will be content with your life after all. Even with all the problems, even if things get overwhelming, you still feel like you are a leaf in a stream, flexible and resilient. No matter what happens, you would never be drowned.
Live like a leaf in a stream, float calmly and quietly while enjoying your journey. — An anonymous monk
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