I don’t know if this will be my last post here… considering I’m technically no longer a hotdogger, but at the same time, if you’ve kept up with me at all, my life will still be filled with many Wienermobile journeys to come.
These past few months have been some of the most insane of my life. I was hotdogging, we were sent off the roads due to an international pandemic, and then I got a new job… AND MOVED! During the midst of the pandemic, one of my bosses moved to another company and they needed the position filled stat. A few other people and I applied for the position, Wienermobile Coordinator, and I was lucky enough to be offered the job.
Despite the fact the job conflicted with all my summer, life, and relationship plans… I took it. Its very hard to say no to the Wienermobile. So now I’ve moved to Madison, WI to hire, train, and care for hotdoggers along with scheduling their 13,000 events a year. Yea…. I said 13,000. Assuming we start having events. I have no friends here. No family. And I’m not a huge fan of the cold, so its going to be a transition.
Why did I do this? Well, thats kinda what I want to get into before I likely leave my blog to be lost to the interweb.
This year has been life changing for me in every way imaginable. My life was really great before this year, but I couldn’t help but feel that something was off. I don’t know if it was the sigh when my alarm went off in the morning, the excessive procrastination and avoiding my work, or just the general glumness I felt myself starting to sink into.
But with the Wienermobile, everything was different. Yea, I still had those days where I felt sad and lonely or only or just wanted to sleep in and rest, but most days I was popping out of bed with a smile in my heart even if I wasn’t awake enough to smile on my face (I’m not a morning person). I felt this feeling of satisfaction with the way I was spending my days. I felt truly for the first time that my days had meaning and my time was valuable. I wasn’t just going through the motions because it was what I was supposed to do. I was living and changing the lives of others because it was what I was meant to do.
Every single day on the job I talked to an average of 300 Americans. I talked to poor people, homeless people, sick people. I talked to rich people, CEO’s, and people who just had everything going right in their lives. I talked to brand new babies and 90 year olds trying to complete their bucket list before they passed. I talked to people I’d never met before and people who I’d had a previous connection with. I talked to people in the south and people in the north…people in the east and people in the west. No one was above me. No one was beneath me. My only job was to make them smile.
I like to think I left an effect on most of these people, but I know they left an effect on me. After a few days…only a few days… I noticed a trend. Everywhere I went people would say, “Gosh you’re so lucky to have this job. What a cool job to have at your age. I wish I did something like this.” Or even more so, “One day I’m going to travel like this. One day I’ll make it out to New Orleans. One day…”
One of my most influential conversations was actually with my 8th grade science teacher. I’d just finished telling him about skydiving and driving up to New York in a day when he stopped me. He said “You know what I got excited about today?” I said, “No sir?”. He continued, “I got excited that I found an extra 5 minutes in my day to run to McDonalds down the street and get some McNuggets. I want you to think about that.”
I don’t know if this is even making sense or if its just a train of thoughts out of my mind, but the jist is this. I have to do what excites me in the morning. I have to wake up with a smile in my heart. I truly believe there is something out there for everyone that could make them feel this way. Success isn’t about your PhD, awards, money, and accomplishments. It doesn’t matter if you graduated from a good college or even college at all. If you’ve done those things and they don’t put a smile in your heart… what does it matter.
I think my schools have drilled that image of success into me for a long time. This year changed everything because it changed my opinion of success. While I am doing pretty well in terms of all of those things, they don’t matter the way they used to. I’m thankful I have them and they make my life easier, but what I’m most thankful for is the smile I feel in my heart and the knowledge that I get to wake up every day and have an effect on people’s lives in a way I believe matters.
I think its different for everyone. Some people are driven by moving up in the workplace or making a lot of money. For them thats success. Some people are only happy if their family is happy and taken care of, so they work 3 jobs and never sleep. That is success. Some people are only happy if they can spend their days spreading miles of smiles with a giant hot dog…. That is my success.
You have to figure out what success is for you and then don’t wait for it. Its something you can have right now. You can live your days successfully. You can feel like you’ve made a difference every night when you crawl into bed. You gotta do what you love. You can’t think about what other people might say, only about how you feel when your alarm goes off in the morning.
So I guess I just want everyone to think about what success means to them. If you aren’t waking up with a smile in your heart then whatever you are doing is not worth your time and energy. We have a limited amount of years. I don’t want to be the 90 year old with a full bucket list rushing to live a life I’m just starting. I want to be the 90 year old thats checking off their final box by seeing the Wienermobile one last time. I am so thankful for this year and all of its experiences. Its changed my opinions about relationships, friendships, happiness, confidence, etc. I am a new person because of it and now I will spend my days working to give that same experience to others.
So if you need me, I’ll be up in the cold freezing my butt off for the love of Oscar Mayer hot dogs.
As always,
“Franks” for coming to “Ketchup” with me,
Hot Diggity Dot 🙂
Hot Dog Dot and the Wienermobile! 