Category: Daily Reflection

“The Federal minimum tipped wage is $2.13/hr. The next time you don’t tip your server, remember that they live off their tips! Most get paychecks that are $0.00 since that $2.13/hr goes to pay taxes on tips.” (Unknown)

My partner Chris and I dined in a very nice restaurant in Columbus, Ohio recently. During our meal there we asked our waitress how her Thanksgiving went. She told us she had worked the entire day and when I asked if she had experienced any difficulties during it, she told us a very disheartening story.

She was getting ready to go home to be with her family at the end of Thanksgiving Day when a group of six came in at the last minute for a holiday meal. She took the table because no one else would. When all was said and done, two hours later their bill came to $263. While she had hoped for a nice tip to end a long day, where a 20% tip on that bill would have been around $50, what she got instead was nothing. Yes, nothing! No tip. Nada. The reason? The group of six felt the cost of the food was too expensive for what they got so they made the waitress suffer for it.

It’s hearing stories like this that truly make me sad, especially when I know the people have the money to give a nice tip or even worse, call themselves a Christian. While I can’t confirm the nature of this group’s story, I can say it honestly doesn’t matter. Why? Because doing such an action to any waiter or waitress in this country is outright selfish and self-centered knowing they rely upon our tips for their livelihood.

I often wish servers in this country were paid salaries so things like this would never happen. In Europe, servers are paid far higher wages to do their job and many times restaurants already include the cost of tip in the bill, where extra tipping is only for extraordinary service, but never counted on or expected. Yet here in America, where tipping is a server’s livelihood, I hear stories like this of people who find every reason under the sun to short change their server by either not tipping or leave something negligible.

While there have been countless times over the past bunch of years where I’ve had either poor service or poor-quality food, I’ve still left 20% to my server. Why should a server work for my benefit and get nothing for it? Are they my slave? Of course not. But that’s precisely what people insinuate when they don’t tip or tip at such a low amount, it’s not really a tip at all. The fact is, I give all of my servers the benefit of the doubt for any problems that may arise with my meal because I don’t know the full story, especially from their perspective.

Regardless, if you have a job and work for a wage, imagine what it might feel like for you to do your job for an hour or two and get nothing for it? Also, know that many of the problems that happen in restaurants often do so because of poor management and not because of the wait staff. And lastly, and maybe most importantly, if you truly have the money to go out to eat in the first place, then you probably have the money to leave a nice tip for your server who waits upon you and relies upon you for their living. It’s precisely why I left a 30 percent tip to this waitress that night, as she genuinely deserved that and more, like so many other servers do as well!

Dear God, please help me to always remember that those who wait upon me in all the places I dine at rely upon me for their livelihood with the tips I leave them. And help me to always be generous in my tips, even when my ego isn’t satisfied with my dining experience.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

“I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining. I believe in love, even when not feeling it. I believe in God, even when He is silent.” (Written anonymously on the wall of a cellar by a Jewish individual in the Cologne concentration camp during World War 2)

When I saw today’s quote sitting framed on a bathroom countertop at a church I had just attended an AA meeting at recently, I was really moved by it. Learning later that it was actually written anonymously by a Jewish individual imprisoned in a concentration camp during World War 2 moved me even more. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fathom the depths of darkness and despair all those that were placed in concentration camps like this person must have felt on a daily basis. What I can relate to though is knowing my own form of darkness and despair that has come my way via my health many years ago and plagued me incredibly ever since, especially the last few years.

Like this Jewish prisoner so eloquently put, I have struggled these last few years to feel the sun shining warmly and favorably upon me. I have struggled even greater with feeling unconditional love for others and even myself. But I have struggled the most with feeling that God is still there for me, as its most definitely felt like He’s been on full radio silence with me. Yet, in each of these cases, I know the sun still shines on me, that I’m still a deeply loving person, and that God hasn’t abandoned me and still has a beautiful plan for me. How do I know this?

Faith.

Faith is something I’ve come to know a lot more about this year more than any other year of my life. Even through massive days where I have felt nothing but that dark night of the soul, my faith has kept the image of the sun shining alive within my heart. It’s also kept the love I have for others and myself from evaporating from within me as well. But what my faith has done the most, has kept me believing that God is still with me, protecting me, and guiding me, even when I don’t feel I can see or hear Him anymore.

While I may not ever experience the depths of darkness and despair that this Jewish prisoner once felt in that concentration camp during World War 2 and yet still kept believing in the sun, love, and God through it all, I can say I’m experiencing my own form of it and that my faith is the only thing that’s kept me going and kept me believing, even when my mind told me long ago to stop.

Dear God, thank you for helping me to continue believing in You, even when it really feels as if you are on complete radio silence. I know it’s my faith in You that has helped me to keep going and to say without hesitation, that I believe the sun will shine again favorably upon me one day and love will pour forth once more profusely from my heart.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide you’re not going to stay where you are.” (John Pierpont Morgan)

I really didn’t have any Christmas decorating spirit this year, which is no different than how I felt about decorating for Halloween just over a month ago as well. With the continuing worldwide COVID pandemic, our seriously divided country on leadership, and of course my ever-present frustrations surrounding my health, it honestly feels as if I’ve been zapped of any drive to participate in any annual holiday decorating festivities. But, something I learned long ago when I was going through my first bout of severe depression is that sometimes you just have to begin somewhere by simply deciding you’re not going to stay where you are.

Ultimately, there are times I’ve found that life truly requires me to take a baby step forward, even when I haven’t felt like it. There’s been plenty of those moments over the past 25 years of my life where my mind would tell me why bother doing anything, that it wasn’t worth it, while my Spirit attempted to tell me exactly the opposite. It’s so hard sometimes to listen to the Spirit though when going through severe bouts of depression or anxiety, or any of those really trying times in life. Because during those periods, the mind often tells an individual to just give up. Unfortunately, doing so prevents any further forward momentum in life, which is exactly what my mind has been attempting to convince me to do these past few months.

Thankfully, I know well enough now that sometimes I just have to take those blind steps forward doing the very thing I have no energy to do, because every single time I have, that energy has suddenly materialized to keep doing it. And once it does, it’s always been enough to propel me to complete whatever the task was that I initially had no energy to pursue.

Halloween and Christmas decorating were two of those very tasks that I really didn’t have any desire to do this year in light of how low I’ve been feeling. But in both cases, I made the conscious decision to just begin because I didn’t like that feeling of where I was at either. So, I began decorating one day in both cases, and sure enough, the energy to continue and to complete the tasks actually did show up.

So, if you should ever find yourself in a low place in life with little to no desire to do much of anything, sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is simply to decide you’re not going to stay where you are. And once you do, take a small step forward into the unknown by starting even the smallest of task, as there’s a pretty good chance once you do, that you’ll find the energy to finish whatever it is and even more energy to keep moving forward.

Dear God, thank you for always helping me to take those small steps forward in life, even when my mind has tried to convince me otherwise. For I know every time I have, my Spirit has provided me what I need to keep going and to not give up.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson