Knocking on the Door

Yesterday was one of the slow days at work so I decided to give my supervisor a visit in her office. Every day I greeted her once in the morning and then once in the afternoon to ask how was her day. Like most employees, I keep my relationship with my supervisor as professional as much as possible and divert away from any personal topics.

However something different happened today. Somehow our conversation ended up on the more personal level and we found ourselves talking about our lives.  My supervisor was married when she was seventeen and she had her first child five months after the wedding.  She has been married for nineteen years as of this December and she has no regret for marrying at such a young age while most of her friends were out partying and going to college, trying to find what kind of life fits their personality.  Unlike most of her cohort, my supervisor had no choice but to continue with the married life and to take care of her family.  I asked if she ever wanted to give up the marriage and leave her family and she said there was one time the thought crossed her mind. Ten years ago, her husband and she were having financial problems and since her husband was the only person working full-time, it was barely enough to support the entire family and pay the bills.  One day they decided to move to from the worn out house that they were living in and move to an apartment. In order to put out a deposit for  the apartment, her husband had to have enough money to do so and since he did not have enough, he told his wife that he was unable to.  My supervisor was furious at how he handled the situation so she told him that if he did not put down the deposit by the due time, she would take the children with her and leave him.  The ultimatum made him take action and he went to the bank and got a loan for the down payment.  Five months after moving in the new apartment, my supervisor got a  called from our current employer notifying her she got the full-time position here.

One of the lessons my supervisor learn through out her nine-teen years of marriage is that hard work pays off. The rule applies to marriage, any job, friendships, and many aspects in life, because in order to succeed in those aspects in life, hard work is always a requirement.  Another lesson my supervisor told me is we have to fix the problems in order to move on to the next one or else the problem will always be there.  For instance, if our marriage runs into trouble, do we run away or do we try our best to fix the situation first and then move on.  If we continue to run away from the problem and not giving any chance to fix it first, then the problem will always come up again.

Like I said before, I keep everything professional at work and steer clear away from any personal topics. However, sometimes we know the rules and we still break them, intentionally at times. Breaking rules can be a good thing sometimes, because it opens us to see the world differently. I broke the professional rule today and the act showed me more than what I ever expected. I learned my supervisor is more than just this woman who gives me work assignments and make sure I come to work and get back from lunch on time. Inside this woman, there is wisdom, strength, and love in her.  She loves her husband and children and would do anything to provide the necessaries for them.  Only did I open the close door did I found so much wisdom in this woman.  She is only thirty-six but she has gone through so much compared to my twenty-eight years on this earth. Sure she has no college degree to prove to the world that she has done something in school, but she does not need to. Her wealth of experiences in her personal and professional life is enough, and maybe even better than the piece of paper that says she completed a college education.  Sometimes when we meet a person, we cannot make an assumption about them because more likely we do not know them enough to make any.  There is always an imaginary door between us and the other person and in order to fully understand someone, we have to knock on it and maybe break it, if we have to.  When we do this, we come out as a wiser person.  We learn to open ourselves to new perspectives and this broadens our mind to what is out there in the world. Learning from other people helps us make better decisions and as a result we grow and mature and this will eventually helps us when we have to face the same situations on the road later on.