An Odd Lesson

When I was fifteen, I went to a school that required me to ride the school bus for about an hour each way. During my bus ride, in my sophomore year, I learned that my bus driver was also a magician/ clown on the side. (Though he would have preferred that it be his major source of income, it just wasn't reliable and consistent enough to support his family.) I became interested in what he did, and as it turned out, he needed an assistant. His wife was usually his assisant, but she also did shows on her own, occasionally, so whenever she wasn't available, I got the assignment.

I learned many lessons from that job, though I didn't really realize their significance at the time. Here's what I learned.

Put on a happy face. I learned that even when I wasn't in a good mood, I could make others happy, and myself as well, if I would just "paint" on a happy face. Doing my best to make others smile was very rewarding. I think that more often than not, we allow ourselves to wallow in the disappointments of life, for entirely too long. All it takes is a change in mindset, and the problem or disappointment doesn't seem so bad anymore.

Be flexible. Being a magician's assisant, I learned that flexibility is key. If I remained inflexible, I got stuck- literally. Stuck with swords. (Not comfortable at all.) Though, of course, this was flexibility in the physical sense, it also applies to flexibility in the mental sense. How often do we get so stuck in our ways, or our own way of doing things, that we get "stuck", sometimes painfully? It has been a great reminder to me, that sometimes the ability to be flexible, though not always comfortable, is much more comfortable than the consequences if I am not.

Believe in the seemingly impossible. The Lord has put me in many situations which I thought were impossible. However, this job also taught me that even if something doesn't seem possible, it just might be. Sometimes we just have to have the "magic" that faith is. Though I don't participate in magical events anymore, I've learned that my faith in God above is much more "magical" than any other. My faith is not in an illusion, anymore.

This post was not just a lesson about an odd job, I had as a teen, it was also part of a group writing project meme from HighCallingBlogs.com (which I am a member of). The guidelines for this meme are simple:

1. Write a post about some strange job you’ve had and what you learned from it.


2. Link to this and other “Lessons from Odd Jobs” posts around the highcallingblogs.com network, or quote them in your post with proper attribution. I was tagged for this meme, by Dan King of Management by God. Dan tells about the lessons he learned managing a yo- yo (Ok, it was actually managing a yo- yo store, but I thought my version sounded funnier.)

3. Tag your post “lessons from odd jobs”—if you use technorati tags or another form of meta-tags.

4. Tag other bloggers by linking to them in your post and inviting them to participate in the meme. Tag as many people as you like! So I am tagging...

Anyone that wants to participate. I won't tag anyone specifically, because all that I would have tagged have already been tagged, or I've tagged them recently. So if you'd like to participate, please do. This was actually a very fun meme.

5. Link back to the Lessons from Odd Jobs page in your post and email this month’s host at “Marcus AT highcallingblogs DOT com”. Linking back and emailing Marcus isn’t a requirement, it just helps us keep track of what’s going on.

Blessings to you all.