Being Content

The other week, I was sitting at a booth in a pizza parlor with a friend. As my friend was getting food, I ended up talking to another man sitting in the booth right next to me. He sat there, reading his Bible with one of those neon yellow shirts that people doing construction wear. He started talking to me about his job and what he did. It was truly fascinating. This man worked for a power company. For a living, he turned off the electricity in the homes of people who failed to pay their bills. He told me about how people would send letters to him out of anger and hatred. All in all, it seemed like his job would be exactly opposite of what most people would want to do. To have to deliver bad news to people was his job.

I can't imagine doing that job - just the nature of the job would make it difficult for me to do. This man was someone that I had met for just a few minutes and had huge amounts of respect for him. I wouldn't be able to do what he's done. Perhaps, dealing with people and pissing them off was what he wanted to do, but I really doubt it. Perhaps, he had this job out of necessity, since he couldn't find work elsewhere. It was amazing how he could tell me about his job and smile about it - not in a smug way, but in a very genuine way. I could tell he was content with what he had.