Unexpected teaching from an old woman: Working hard

I was working on my laptop and looking posts on LinkedIn in the laundry shop, and this old woman came in.
‘How are you? you’re doing laundry here.’ and gave me some fabric softener for free and talked about the shop and customers. In the last 10 minutes, she was telling me the story she went through in the 1970s, and it had me thinking a lot.

As she said, it was time that women weren’t supposed to work as hard as men and weren’t supposed to drive as well. Now thinking of the present, it is shocking though, it may have been able to happen in those years.

She was running a bakery, which was not common in Korea and she worked very hard. She had to sleep 4 hours, even less than 4 hours for some days.
Sometimes, she had an occasion when she had to drive a car but since she didn’t have a license she had to call a driver. She wanted to handle it by herself. She told her husband that she wanted to learn driving but he didn’t let her taking a driver's license. From there on, after work, she studied for the written test under the desk without her husband knowing. She passed the written test. For the practical test, she was supposed to drive but had nowhere to learn. She went to a bus driver and explained her situation, and she asked him to teach her driving, of course, she gave him some money for teaching. She ended up passing the practical test and got a driver's license, in one try.

All the stories she went through gave me motivation.
Last week, when I heard bad news from a company I was supposed to work for and, had to go back to Korea from Europe. For two days, I just cried and lost my mind. My visa was going to end in two weeks and it was almost not possible to look for a new job within that time. I was just not confident and I knew about it. Fortunately, on the third day, I could get my mind back and decided to keep trying. I failed because I didn’t work hard enough. I told myself I was doing well and made excuses to avoid hard work. ‘It was because to work smart, enough sleep to make clear mind, getting to know period’, everything was just an excuse. This time, I will work as hard as I can and will be prepared, this time, I will succeed and I will get what I want.

All the people struggling to achieve what they want.

Let’s work hard and let’s get what we want