Living a Dream

Living a Dream

Advice that followed the question, “What do you want to be when you graduate?” said “Choose to do something you love doing.” Being paid to do something that you see as fun is like living in a dream. How much you earn, an employer's idiosyncrasies, oddball fellow workers fade in the background. Of course what you do must provide value, value such that you can meet the needs of yourself and your family. Put those two conditions together and you can look forward to a happy life. Passion driven workers take pride in finding new and better ways to produce a more superior service or good. Your customers’ thanks and praise is like a bonus cheque.

Unreal. Impossible. Not really. Unfortunately there are far too few stories about people who find this kind of success. My novel, Baggage burdens. shows several characters who pursue their passion and achieve a joy that drives them to seek new ways to succeed. Mary, owner of a café/ bakery, excels in serving people. She makes a point to know as much as she can about her patrons. Her knowledge-seeking strategy and her love for her customers builds her business and infects Jill, her employee and friend. Jill follows Mary’s passion for connecting with others and experiences a growing self-confidence, other’s respect, and happiness that has avoid her most of her life. Bill’s love for psychology and Joseph and Thomas’ love of farming and market gardening spur them to greater achievements and willingness to accept new challenges.

Jill gleans as much information as she can from Mary about the customers. When it comes to mini biographies, Jill sees Mary as a social encyclopedia. Mary’s information comes complete with cautions––what can be said in public and what Jill has to keep to herself.

Over the next two weeks, patrons express their surprise to Mary at how soon Jill begins greeting them by name.  Even though they suspect Mary has filled her in on their personal history, they are still impressed how much Jill correctly knows about them. 

Young customers begin coming. Word circulates about a new attractive employee at Prezchuck’s Bakery Plus. Their efforts to extract information about Jill’s past fail. Jill adopts her grandmother’s strategy, “it’s a woman’s right to maintain a degree of mystery about her.” Jill's response to their probing transforms into an invitation, even a contest, to see who can extract tidbits of Jill’s treasured past. While no one succeeds, the desire to be the first continues to challenge a growing number of young males.

After working at the bakery for a month Jill encourages the current whispered gossip about her. She adds an auburn tint to her hair, a few streaks to her bangs, or a new top or pair of slacks to her wardrobe supplying the boys and some of the older, flirting men with new opportunities to engage her in conversation. The number and size of her tips testifies to Jill’s success and increases her ability to splurge a little more on herself. 

Under Mary’s tutoring, Jill’s cooking skills develop to a point where Jill comfortably claims credit for some menu items. Her first success, mastering Mary’s already highly prized cinnamon buns, becomes a celebrated event that attracts an even wider cliental. Substituting dried mixed fruits for raisins, results in Jill’s buns selling out before Mary’s. Her newly acquired skills earn respect among the older female customers too. Jill’s revelations, about experimenting to provide alternates to Mary’s dishes, enhance the word of mouth advertising.

By the end of the first week in November, Jill begins to share with Mary samples of gossip she overhears while serving. In turn, Mary evaluates Jill’s sources and provides her perspective on Jill's recent news story. Together, they build a more complete profile of their patrons’ personal lives.

haiku capsule:                 

most rewarding job

what your heart hungers to do

labor fulfillment

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