As some of you may or may not know, I am temporarily working at a local coffee shop here on the OBX. I am sorry to disappoint some of you who may otherwise have thought I was a completely unemployed college graduate. No. After about 4 months of being a 23 year old bum, I decided to join the service sector and begin working my butt off at The Front Porch Cafe (which has actually been quite a fun experience). I do still consider myself to be part of the millions of US citizens unemployed for a few reasons: 1) I am currently working a temporary job; 2) This job does not require a college degree (or a high school degree for that matter) and does not relate in any way to my college degree; and 3) There is no potential for advancing in this position. I have already moved from counter staff to barista within 3 weeks and am very close to becoming the best barista in the world. Look out fellow FPC employees.
I am sorry if I have let some of you down. In any case, I still consider myself unemployed and so should you.
While I was at work the other day, I was having a friendly conversation with a fellow co-worker and asked how his life was going. "My life is brilliant" he replied. I was surprised by this answer, brilliant? I had never in my life heard someone describe their life as brilliant. I am not sure if the fact that he is from Lithuania factored into his reply or if he feels his life really is brilliant, but I didn't say anything in return. I mulled over his comment for a second while I swept the cafe floor, but eventually had to inquire. "Brilliant, huh? I have never heard someone describe their life as brilliant." He explained using me as an example, "You graduate college, No? You pay no student loans. Your parents pay. You have new car. All of this is brilliant right?" I nodded my head in agreement, was the Lithuanian onto something? Could I really have been overlooking it this entire time, was life really brilliant? No. I could not let him get the best of me.
Being the person I am, I like to define things, so I went home and typed brilliant into a blank word document and selected Look Up. My modern aged dictionary came back with the following: 1. Extremely bright or radiant (brilliant sunshine; a brilliant smile). No, I wouldn't describe my life as bright or radiant. 2. Vivid (a brilliant shade of green). That doesn't quite apply. 3. Intelligent or talented (a brilliant mathematician). Neither does that. 4. Excellent (distinguished by excellence). My life is not necessarialy distiguished by excellence, either. And lastly, my favorite, 5. Splendid (imposingly splendid or magnificent). Bing. Bing. Bing. Bing.
Additionally, the U.K. uses brilliant to express great satisfaction with somebody or something. The Lithuanian was onto something! (And possibly knows how to use the English language in a more diverse way than I do.)
Regardless, I have been mulling over the brilliance in life for the past few days. Today, I went to the beach, looked at a perfectly brilliant blue sky and swam in crystal clear brilliant salt water. Tonight, I will sit in perfectly brilliant green grass with two dearly brilliant friends and drink ice cold beer, double brilliant! And now that I have written this word so many times that I am positive it is misspelled in one way or another, I am going to have a brilliant dinner with my parents and talk about homemade ice cream.
How can one sentence, one comment, 4 little words, make you reevaluate your perspective?
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