The Reader’s Digest had a story that’s stayed on my mind.
Not because it was dramatic, or tear-jerking, or filled with grand revelations, but because it was simple, painfully true, and quietly powerful.
It was about a man who was tired of his job. Tired of the routine, the pressure, the monotony. In his mind, the grass was not just greener on the other side—it was a lush meadow compared to the patchy lawn he’d been trudging on for years.
So, he did what many dream of but few dare—he wrote about his dissatisfaction, described his current role, and sent out job advertisements, hoping to find that ideal position he believed he truly deserved.
The responses came in, as they usually do—some promising, some dismissive, others routine.
But one letter stood out. It wasn’t from a company.
It wasn’t a job offer.
It was from another job seeker. A man who’d read the job description in the ad and enclosed his own résumé with a note that said:
“Sir, please give my resume to your present employer when you find the position you are looking for, because your job is the very one, I’ve been looking for, for years!”
That one sentence, I imagine, would have shaken the discontented man more than a dozen motivational seminars ever could.
How often do we forget what we have, simply because we’ve had it too long?
The job that exhausts us, the home we complain about, the relationships we find routine—what if they are someone else’s dream? What if the very life we want to escape is the one others are desperately praying for?
We don’t always see it that way. We get blinded by repetition. Familiarity breeds not just contempt, but blindness. We stop seeing the value in the ordinary, until someone else reminds us how extraordinary it is.
That man who responded to the job ad didn’t send a lecture. He didn’t write a sermon. He just pointed to the truth—that what we find tiresome, others find priceless.
And perhaps, that is the reminder we all need.
Contentment isn’t found in changing our circumstances every time we feel bored or burdened. So today, press pause, long enough for you to see what you truly have. Look at your job not as a jail but as a provision. At your home not as a cramped space, but a safe haven. At your marriage not as stagnant, but steady.
The man who wrote that job ad may have learned something that day, without switching jobs at all.
I hope you and I will too.
So before you throw in the towel on that job, that routine, or that relationship—ask yourself: Is this something someone else is dreaming of right now?
You might just find that you're already living a life worth keeping…!
The Author conducts an online, eight session Writers and Speakers Course. If you’d like to join, do send a thumbs-up to WhatsApp number 9892572883 or send a message to bobsbanter@gmail.com
