Hello waiters, friends, and strangers,

like many of you I am under a lockdown, without a job and full of fear about my family and our mutual future!

No one knows and no one can tell us what the future holds, how long will this craziness continue and will the world be the same ever again!

Unfortunately, we are the hardest hit industry right now and as a social group, the waiters are in the toughest situation from all other groups in the world! The whole hotel and restaurant industry is shut down and there are no jobs whatsoever!

A lot of us are working in foreign countries, renting apartments and supporting our families at home! So, for many of us the loss of income is not only loss for us but for the whole family!

I am painting this dark picture not to try to scare you more than you are already! I am painting this picture so everyone who reads it knows what is the real situation in our industry and so you know that I understand your pain and fear!

I understand perfectly how hard life is right now and I am as frustrated as you, if not more!

But I am not writing those rows to complain or whine! I am writing this to give you encouragement and perspective!

For many years I carry a little paper in my wallet! On this paper I have written two sentences and they are the foundation of everything in my life! Today I am going to share it with you and I am going to tell you why I believe this is the most important thing in my life:

“Nothing can break me down! I have put my trust in God and I have no doubt and no fear!”

and

“When the going gets tough, you have to find the strength within yourself to keep going”

Those are not just beautiful statements! I truly believe in what they state and live with absolute faith that nothing can break me down and that when the going gets though I will find the strength within myself to keep going, no matter what!

I share them today with you with the hope that many of you will recognize them as their own and base their future actions on them!

Sometimes in life tragedies happen! This is not the first one and it won’t be the last one! Life hit you in the face with force and put you down. Sometimes we are so deep in the shit and suffer such losses that we lose direction and perspective. Life can put us down but we break not because of losses and hardship! We break because we lose faith! Faith in God and in ourselves!

We can lose jobs, money and social status but as long as we are healthy and alive, we have everything we need to rise from the ashes and achieve anything we put our mind to! And by the way, we will rise stronger from those ashes because suffer and pain only makes us stronger, smarter and better person…if we don’t let them break us!

When you are down, when you have lost everything you had, remind yourself how did you get it all in the first place! You have done it once and you will do it again and it will be faster and easier than the first time because you have done it once and now you are a better and smarter person!

Few times in life I have lost everything…including my freedom! I have been in situations where no human being can or wants to help you! And in those moments, you realize that it is you and your faith in God that will pull you out of the shit, no one else! And that gives you enormous power! When you stop whining and stop waiting for help, start fighting back and do everything in your power to improve your situation every single day a little bit. Once you start doing this, you will feel it in your veins and in your brain that the good times are coming, because you are not a broken man, because you have found the strength within yourself and because you are fighting!

I am not trying to tell you that it will be easy! I’m not going to lie just to make you feel better! It will be hard and it was hundreds of times better if the fucking pandemic never happened…but shit happens, it is upon us all right now and no one is assured that will survive.

So, take measures to stay healthy and alive! Keep your family safe and start planning your bright future and take action!
Make sure that when all this is over you are a better person, better waiters and much stronger than before!
Because there will be enough jobs, there will be enough money, there will be enough joy ahead in life…will you be there too?

I know that a lot of people won’t like this post! A lot of people will hate me even but I don’t care! If I can help a few of you who want to be strong, who want to be better and want to be successful I will be the happiest man in the world!

Don’t forget that sooner or later life will get back to normal! Do anything to protect yourself and your family and friends! Do everything you can to use the time to get better and that is how you will guarantee yourself your future success!

Best of luck and may God bless us all!

Ned