How To be Meaningful for Others?
One day I had to stay at the office until 2am due to different projects that must be completed on the same day and I remembered my friend who loves to work overtime in daily basis left me about an hour early on that day. Few minutes later, during own my way home, I never imagined would have a deep conversation with a complete stranger.
Then before leaving, I peeked from the my manager’s room that it was raining outside, I could say it was more than raining, it was a thunderstorm. After going down from the 14th floor and arrived at the building lobby, I noticed that the silence was totally different and realized that I never experienced such thing before that day.
With regret of not driving to work, suddenly I had doubt that I could get a cab to get home and was ready to book a cheap hostel near the office just to get some sleep. But after repeated of orders, finally I got an online cab after waiting for around 30 minutes, I got a phone call saying — “Good morning sir! I will be right there in 5”. At once, those words hit me hard mentally and got me thinking:
“Wait, Did he just said good morning??” I had this similar response earlier before going to work at 8.30. “What am I doing with my life? Have I been working too hard for this kind of job? Is the overtime money really worth compared to my health and personal life?”
Then, as soon as the driver picked me around 2.30am, he said “Good morning sir! have a seat! I have a free bottle of water here if you are thirsty”. I was truly amazed by his service at this morning because the last time I went home at this exact time I got a driver who barely said nothing during the trip and thought he was a ghost!. To be honest, I was expecting a moody driver that let me enjoy myself, resting.
However, after few minutes he politely started the conversation, “Did you work overtime sir? you look exhausted”. I grumbled “Of course! Today has been a total mess and a damn long day for me and I need a rest because I have a meeting in about just 6 hours and I haven’t slept yet! So perhaps I need a total silence!”. I know if I said this with my super tired tone, it would be a jerk move and I could offend him and might him to harm me later, who knows what a tired person could do to others at this time especially if he needed some cash, right? I know he was just being nice and hence my respond to him just “Yes I did, I need some rest”.
He might know that I wasn’t in the mood for talking and then apologized to me after such respond. But then he asked “Sorry sir, if you don’t mind me asking, it seems that you are such a hard working person, what do you like about your work?”. Somehow I fell silent for few seconds, I couldn’t answer that simple question. Well, although I did not really enjoy my job, I felt that I have been busting at work and totally was doing something useful in my life because basically most of my works are related to give advise to either local or foreign investors to invest more in my country and surely it will create jobs for society and the government will earn more taxes.
Seeing that I didn’t respond immediately, then he added “Sir sorry if I speak too much, but if you don’t mind, do you want to hear what makes me like this job as a cab driver?”. “Ok, go on” I said. Then, his answer was:
“I know some people may think that working hard is only for a businessman, corporate employees, or government officials that spending hours at their desk, staring at those computers, making phone calls to clients or their bosses, or even making a broad network so their career will keep growing.
But they might not realize it is surely more than that. Why do you think I want to keep looking for customers at this early morning? You may think that the answer is money, of course it is, but more importantly I have this feeling that helping someone who needs me for what I am capable of — driving cars for those who are attached to their job and might have to stay until this time and perhaps can’t go home because they didn’t bring cars to work and apparently stuck at the office during a thunderstorm, perhaps like you sir. I know that you might be doing good things for our society and of course your life, maybe it because you enjoy your job more than you know. Otherwise, why are you still wearing a nice shoes and shirt with a shinning hair at this early morning? you could have just stayed home with your family, didn’t you?”
He laughed a little bit after finished talking. Although, he might be wrong in the last sentence on staying at home, his words have enlighten me on what perhaps is the true meaning of hard work for me — it is to help someone based what you are capable of and be meaningful to others with a sincere heart.
Therefore, during those pouring rain and thunderstorms outside the car, this conversation really transformed me how to act in this life. Those words keep me motivating until this day, although I finally resigned from my job for other purposes but what he said on that day of the true meaning of a hard work is to be meaningful to others will forever embedded in my life.
