Something I wrote

What follows is something I wrote a few months ago. I never put the full text of it on this blog because it was very much about the candidates at the staffing firm I was working at and I didn't want to cause any problems. I no longer work there, so here it is...

Everyday I see the drawn, distraught faces of those who have given up...the furrowed brows, the sad eyes, the slump in the chair as they sit across from me. Once in awhile I see a glimmer of hope or determination or maybe even a little ambition.
But just once in awhile. Just every so often.
That alone weighs heavily on me. But then I sometimes have the burden of laying these people off, taking away what little $9.00 an hour hope I have managed to give them. I see the regrets etched on worn faces. Time lost to jail, lives drowned in alcohol, families broken by a needle or a pipe or a violent act. We all have regrets to be sure, but these are people who have let themselves and the course of their lives be dictated by the indiscretions of the past. Some are people who have no dreams beyond a paycheck for the next week or an evening at the tavern down the street.
Please don't make the mistake that I look down on any of them. Sometimes I see something almost heroic in their collective struggle to scrape by. I also think that this myopia as far as a vision of the future is very much a function of their origins. Simply, how can you have a bright outlook when you've never been taught to see one? How can you believe in yourself when you've never seen anyone who does? I think everyone has a rich vein of hope they can tap, but for so many it's buried under thick layers of despair and regret and fear and ignorance.
So what's the point of this depressive little dirge I've written? Lessons. I'm so full of life lessons right now, I think I'm going to burst. Here they are...

• Hope. Hope is paramount. Even when you can't see it, it's alwaysthere. Just because you can't see or feel the sun behind those gray clouds, it doesn't mean it's extinguished. It's always there.
• The future. The future is yours to conquer and you are not your past.
• Your life. It's your life to control and make the best of. Your life does not belong to your parents or your ex-husband or your mindless friends. It's yours. Take responsibility for it. Run with it until you're out of breath and can't run anymore.