Is work a mission?

I love my job, and not because it made me famous and allowed me to live a very comfortable life, but because I consider it useful, decisive, and it really helps those in need. Today I consider it part of my mission on this earth and, believe me, it is a privilege to be able to live it with so much intensity. To tell the truth I have had dark moments during my long professional career, where my job was suffocating me, and the joy of doing it was far from my everyday life. I've always wanted to work on television, it was like a mantra that I repeated to myself over and over and that I thought would give me the right push to do it. To get it, I worked hard, studying and participating in various courses, and with the conviction that only those who are prepared can be sure not to fall at the first wind.

Like all career boys, however, I was not very clear what the goal I wanted to achieve was, I didn't know if I was looking for a job that would satisfy me or if it should only bring me fame, success and even pay my bills. I was young, self-centered, full of myself, and for years I lived with the conviction of: "I'm good, I'll become famous!". Of course, my determination quickly took me from villages to TV, from Match Music to Disney Channel, then to Le Iene, Striscia, theater, radio and everything I've always wanted to do but, at every stage, I always got the feeling that something was missing. We often let ourselves be caught up in our beliefs and our ego which forces us to obtain more and more but, in the meantime, takes away the beauty of the moment we are living and, even more seriously, the right path to follow.

This does not mean that we should not have dreams, far from it, but having them does not mean that to obtain them we must be blind and unscrupulous. I learned on my skin, and only thanks to the help of faith, that it is true that the freedom that is granted to us allows us to choose at every crossroads of our existence but it is equally true that the destiny that has been given to us is not always matches what we would like to do and be. Let me explain better, if I wanted to become a good TV host but it is not written in my destiny, I would continue to have no results, other than the pleasure of doing it. But, almost always, it would lead me to live a life of frustration and disappointment. Learning to understand what our mission on earth truly is is one of the greatest gifts that can be obtained, because only by knowing it can it be achieved, lived, appreciated, shared, loved, with truth and passion.

Obviously, everyday work must be part of our mission because we spend about three quarters of our lives working, and it doesn't matter if behind a post office counter or picking up garbage from the streets, the important thing is to have the ability to recognize "The beauty" that that profession has, and all jobs have it. When I realized that Striscia la Notizia really helped people, that it was a program that did not follow the logic of sick television, that it could be my weapon to respond to the hundreds of requests for help, then I truly understood that, among others things, my mission had to include the program that I have been doing for 17 years.

Of course, maybe I'll still be working on the radio, or acting and singing in a musical, because art is beauty and we couldn't do without it, but that "THANK YOU!" that today people tell me on the street for my Strip reports, is worth thousands of applause.

Max Laudadio
NP June / July 2020