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It is Saturday night at the club in Austin.

It’s August 18, 2018. It’s about 10:14pm and I just wanted to check in. I know it wasn’t my scheduled time to write but I just wanted to check in because of my mood. As I first wrote on some of my initial words of this blog, the whole idea of this blog is to chronicle the ups and downs on my journey to financial freedom. And today is a day that I felt that I should chronicle.

I went to bed this morning about 8:30am. and woke up about 5 or 6 times before I finally rolled my body out of bed. And finally about 5pm I told myself to get up regardless of how I feel. You see, I really need to find a way to get better sleep. Maybe I didn’t sleep well because I ate at a restaurant before I went to bed. Maybe it is because I had about a quarter cup of coffee on my way home before bed. Maybe it is because I only paid about $100 for my mattress and some of the springs within the mattress are already worn out. Idk. Some research says that going to sleep on a full stomach keeps you from sleeping well and that a cheap mattress is bad for sleep, and that coffee keeps you from sleeping.  And they even say that seeing sunlight triggers your body to want to stay awake. And yes, all this could be true, but remember, I do about an 80 mile drive home from work at 6am and I also don’t get lunch breaks at work so I have to just stuff food into my mouth at any given opportunity. And for the first several to many years while working in this club business I didn’t mind not having a lunch break. But now…..but now, now after 20 years in this business. I just really hate (and yes I said hate) I hate not having a lunch break. Or at least some type of blocked out time to just eat, relax, not listen to loud music, and not have anyone bother me with their needs. Oddly enough that quiet time to eat is actually really important to me now. This is why I try really hard not to eat at work anymore.  Sadly I still have to eat at work sometimes, but I really try my best to find time to not eat much at work. If I really have to,  on a few occasions I will eat when the club is closed and everyone is gone. But then it just makes for a longer ride home. But on days like today, I struggle between sleep and food. And both are just seriously important to me.  I mention this because, many times when I leave work I end up being hungry. I end up being hungry and tired.

So yeah this morning was really bad sleep. I got my day started with that tired, sluggish, struggling to decide what to do feeling. And not to mention that is was over 100 degrees outside, so my ride to work was just plain hot. And not to mention that the crick in my neck is back. I’m gonna have to visit the chiropractor again next week. During one of those 5 or 6 times today when I woke up I decided to lay on my massage mat and see if I could loosen up some of my back muscles. Did it help? A little.

So during my ride to work I was internally upset because I was tired, hot, did I mention how tired I was, and not only that, but I initially wanted to get up early so I could get to Austin early enough to eat and relax before work. And sadly I left home so late that I wasn’t going to have time to eat before work. And that in itself upset me. So what did I do? I decided to haul ass to work! I drove about 100 miles per hour and made it to Austin about 15 minutes before I had to be at work and grab the microphone. Now the good part about this is that I had 15 minutes to eat and also the bad part about it is that I only had 15 minutes to eat.

Now the reason why I wanted to chronicle today is because as I got on my motorcycle and drove to work, I was just in a really bad, foul mood. And I could see myself trying to shake that foul mood, so much that  I kept trying to find mental ways to affirm that I was not in a foul mood. I even tried to listen to some NLP  (Neuro Linguistic Programming) And it didn’t really help. But then something happened. I don’t know where it actually happened or how it actually happened, all I noticed is when it clicked.

You see the moment before I sat on my motorcycle I was telling myself a whole slew of affirmations  like “I am loving, I am caring, I am happy, etc” And I was trying to mentally relax, in spite of the fact that I was feeling late to work. And the feeling of being late to work just didn’t help my mood either. My ride to work was about an hour and 10 minutes. and the whole time I was trying to listen to the NLP and also trying to mentally talk myself into a better mood. And by the time I got to Austin I could feel myself not as irritated as when I first left the house. But God!!! It took an hour of talking to myself. It took an hour of trying to relax while weaving thru traffic on a motorcycle at 100 miles per hour. It took an hour of trying to listen to some NLP and then by the time I got to Austin I could see that I had about 15 minutes to stuff my face and try and relax before work.

So where did I go to eat? Well I went to KFC. I really wanted something healthy but the places near my job are all very unhealthy restaurants.  And plus I needed food that was already prepared and ready to serve. So for me KFC was my best option with my  15 minute window of eating time. So I went into KFC, ordered 3 pieces of their original recipe chicken and got some sides of green beans, cole slaw, mashed potatoes, and french fries and I also ordered an unsweet tea to drink. Then I sat for about 2 minutes and waited for my order. As I was sitting there I was trying not to think about being late to work or how I was going to have to shovel this food into my face and just swallow it rather than taking my time to actually chew it and taste it. And then oddly enough, this is when it began to happen.

My order was ready, and as I sat and ate my food I noticed a homeless man/ a panhandler (I couldn’t tell if he was really homeless, but he was the guy at the corner of the street that asked for money as the cars passed by.) And it was just odd watching him there in the restaurant. I watched what he did, I watched his demeanor. And then at the same time I also watched one of the KFC employees. These 2 people were literally walking passed me and doing things within 10 feet of me that helped to finally change my mental state. Now an after thought….. I wonder if God was talking to me. Idk. anyways, So what did panhandler and the employee do?

As I sat and ate my food I watched as the employee was emptying trash from the trash cans. While he was working and walking to and from trash can to trash can I could tell that he was dreading his job. You could just see it on his face and the way that he moved. He just took his time, didn’t focus on anything, kinda like the walking dead, not only that but he did the bare minimum in emptying the trash cans. He was wearing the KFC uniform, but he didn’t even bother to have the uniform looking nice. It looked like he just threw the uniform on and that it was the same uniform from the last 5 days. He just looked so displeased and slow. Then out of the blue, about 1 or 2 minutes later I saw the panhandler, dressed in jean shorts and a shirt (the clothes were barely worth wearing), but it wasn’t the clothes that caught my attention. Oddly enough I saw this panhandler also emptying out the trash cans there in the restaurant. As I ate and watched I couldn’t help but wonder….. Why is the panhandler emptying out the trash cans? Is he doing this to get free food from the restaurant? I thought to myself….”That’s just weird. Did the manager approve this to happen?” This is not normal. Then not only did he empty out the trash cans, but he also picked up random pieces of trash on the floor. He also picked up food trays that were left on tables. These random pieces of trash and food trays are things that the employee must have seen, because the employee clearly walked passed these exact same items but didn’t even acknowledge that they were there. Then as I kept watching, I noticed that the panhandler…. his demeanor…. Wow. It was just really upbeat. Then I thought again…. Maybe he is just cleaning up the place so they will give him some free food. Truth be told, I didn’t stay long enough to see if he really got free food. But I did stay just long enough to notice something that changed my mood.

I couldn’t help watching the panhandler clean with a sense of joy and happiness. And this was trash that he was cleaning. You know…. People’s left over mess! And the employee, he cleaned with a sense of dread and internal anguish and disgust. I thought to myself…. One guy is doing the same exact job, but with happiness and joy, while the other guy is doing it with dread, pain, anguish , and despair. I thought to myself what is wrong with this picture. Why is the panhandler even doing this? And why is he so happy about doing it. And not only happy but he is also able to notice other things that are needing attention. And I also pondered…. damn, the employee… he is just so unhappy.  Yet he has a job. He has dependability. And yet he is not happy. And as I pondered the thought I started to feel within me that I was being more like the employee and not the panhandler. I thought about many times at my job here in Austin, how many times I just hated my job, I just hated being here. Then something within me started to change. Maybe it was the chicken (food can do that you know), maybe it was the NLP, maybe it was the affirmations. idk. Maybe, just maybe it was a little bit of everything but also sprinkled with a little bit of God. Because, as I watched these 2 people, I couldn’t help but to wonder if God was trying to show me something. you know something that I just wasn’t wanting to see. I just couldn’t help but to wonder if God was trying to get me to see that I should just let go of my pain and anger. And instead to notice that no matter what, that I can still choose to be happy. It doesn’t matter if I am tired. It doesn’t matter if I am hungry, and as hard as it sounds it also doesn’t matter if I am unbearably hot. What does matter is how I internally decide to feel about myself. I know that sounds super basic. But really and truly there are 2 people inside of everybody, and for me, there is Max and then there is the Max in my head.

There is the Max that is going thru his day doing things unconsciously almost as if on autopilot, and then there is the Max that is constantly chattering about his life and the things that didn’t make him happy or feel good. And somehow while watching the panhandler and the employee I could feel my inner Max stop the chattering and finally realize that I should be happy. I should be happy for what I have. I want to say that I felt that way because of the fact that the panhandler was happy even-though he supposedly had less than the employee, but the truth is this…. seeing that the panhandler probably had less in life than the employee but yet was still able to be happy was part of it, but more so as I pondered, I couldn’t help but to feel that God was doing his magic. You know, showing me what I have not been able to mentally see. Could it be so odd that God had set these two people in front of me in order to help me get thru what I was struggling with internally. Because you see one of the things that I also did while driving to work was to ask God to help me with this. Now I only asked him once. And I can barely remember asking him. I can barely remember asking him because the inner Max kept shouting so much negativity that I could literally feel the negativity rushing from my brain down thru every vein in my body.

But yeah. Just like that, like watching a play without being at the theater, it just blew my mind. And so just like that I was able to shed that inner anger. I truly wish I could write this in a more profound way. But the truth is this, the profoundness is not in the words I write, but instead, the profoundness is in the knowing that all you really need to do is to try your best to look for the answer. It’s just that simple. And if you search hard enough, the answer will always be right in front of you. Guaranteed.

#SeeingTheInvisible.

Love,

Max.