I'm Not Your Superwoman

The idea of the “Superwoman” is one of the few concepts that transcends ALL race, class and economic distinctions. In a survey I conducted with women across the country, the one thing that the vast majority of them had in common no matter where they were born or raised, how much money they had, how old they were, etc. is that they were all expected by their families and by society to “take care of things.” They had all been taught either specifically with words, or through actions or most importantly, by watching the other females in their families, that the woman is the one who holds it all together; who sacrifices herself for the greater good.

The best lesson we can learn from this is that women are made extra strong; able to handle much more than the average person, but... But we still have a responsibility to take care of ourselves and give ourselves permission to live and love our lives. We also have a responsibility to allow others the space to grow without us making all of their decisions, correcting their mistakes and taking the blame for their bad decisions. It is how the world balances itself out and it gives everyone the chance to learn to be accountable.  Superwoman should be a superhero, much like Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman. Girlfriend, take the weight of the world off your shoulders and live your life. It's time.

Super and a woman but not your Superwoman!

Til next time.
Peace.
Two fingers, one love.

How To Change Someone You Love

As soon as I stop LMAO, I’ll tell you that you can’t change someone you love; except for yourself! You are the only person who you have the ability and the right to change. Anyone else that you’d like to change would probably like to change you as well, because if you see something in them you don’t like, it’s probably the same thing they see in you that they would like you to change. And how do you feel about someone wanting to change you?

When we learn to love people in spite of and not because of, we will be well on our way to getting along in the world with people. We love people, but we wish they didn’t this and they weren’t that and they didn’t have these things but they do and they are and they have them. So the heck what? Deal with it OR get the hell out of their lives. We want people to be what we want them to be before we can love them. We pass judgment and offer “advice” about how they can be better, or different, or like us. We have some fricking nerve!! Unless the people you want to change are criminals or a physical danger to themselves or others, let ‘em be, let ‘em be, let ‘em be, let ‘em be.

Until next time. Peace. Two Fingers, One Love!

Technorati Tags: change,others,self-love,self,love,changing others,control,attitude,actions,judgment

Grown Folks Business

“A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still.”

                                                                              -Dale Carnegie

This is a life lesson. You can’t change the mind of grown folks. If they’ve decided something is a fact, no amount of your argument will make them see reason. Even if it is something that you know for absolute certain, you cannot change how someone accepts or responds to it. Most often, people do not like the truth. As the character said in “A Few Good Men,” they can’t handle the truth! It usually takes the facts smacking them in the face and even then, some folks will still disagree. Or for many people, it is that they know everything and you don’t know what you’re talking about. Say what you need to say then get the hell out of the way. Don’t go back and forth trying to bring them over to your side. Not only for your sanity, but also so that you’ve done what you should have done to try to help them, to warn them, to educate them. No matter how serious or trivial, you cannot change someone’s mind who’s decided something is true and despite your best efforts, some folks have a need to learn things the hard way. When and if they ever figure out that you really knew what you were talking about, they’ll either acknowledge it or they won’t but it shouldn’t matter to you either way. You simply had a job to do and you did it. Say your piece and pray they get it.

Thank God It’s Friday!

There was a time when I used to wish my life away. Every Monday morning without fail would find me doing my “I can’t wait til Friday” chant. And not that I was excited for Friday to come because I had some great elaborate plans. Just that I wanted to get through the week and get to the weekend. The only problem with that is, there are a lot of days, hours, minutes between Monday morning and Friday at quitting time. That is a lot of time to be miserable, bored, unhappy, unfulfilled, melancholy, (i think you get the picture). It took me quite a bit of time to realize that I was wasting a lot of my life, just wishing it away. And not a good waste like in Otis Redding’s “Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay,” or Brad Paisley’s “Time Well Wasted,” when I’m just enjoying the quiet.

Well now I know better and I thank God for Friday and Monday and Wednesday and Sunday nights, etc. But I do just happen to be excited about this weekend. I have some great planning that I need to do and some writing I want to do and some time with my man planned. I have basketball games with the little kids and church early Sunday morning and some cleaning that I’m going to get done. That’s a lot of stuff that’s going to happen in the next couple of days and I’m sure it will spill over into my week but that’s ok. Cause it is only on Fridays that I get to really say, (deep breath here) THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY (exclamation point!!!) ENJOY!!

Until next time.

Peace. Two Fingers, One Love.

A Different World... Poverty pt. 2

A good friend of mine recently asked a question on his Facebook page. He asked his FB friends what they think it will take to stop the senseless black on black crime in our communities. People had some really good responses for him ranging from more police to better education to more community programs to better parenting to eliminating poverty. For sure, those things really need to happen to fix what's wrong in the "hood." But those things individually won't work and quite possibly all together may not work. Why?

Because there's something that will have to be understood and subsequently addressed by those involved in order for things to change. There is a MENTAL POVERTY that exists in the hood; a ghetto attitude and culture that has to be overcome before any of those other things will make a difference in large numbers. Our families have fallen under the rule of a new master; black media (or more accurately- white media perpetuating black stereotypes.)  It is teaching us how to be black and we are paying rapt attention. We are proud to "be" ghetto. We speak the language they tell us, wear the clothes they tell us, eat the food they tell us- all because they know there is nowhere for us to go by doing those things. It's actually a very successful (albeit detrimental) system.

The 40 year war on drugs is also a major player in the reasons the black community is in such dire straights. Between the users and the sellers, the community is full of junkies, prisoners, ex-prisoners, and gangs which leads to most of the senseless black on black killings. Once we can address these man-made issues, there won't be a need for more police, education will once again become a cornerstone of the black family, the black family will once again become the cornerstone of the black community and young folk will begin to attend the hundreds of community service programs that already exist. The village will FINALLY be in full effect.

Until next time.

Peace. Two fingers; one love.

Poverty (A 3-part Series)

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty, knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. James A. Baldwin

It is forever unfortunate that where poverty is concerned, the cycle is continuously passed on from one generation to the next. And it is a mean cycle too. We have taken “ghetto” and turned it into a persona with positive connotations. There is no longer a desire to do better; to be better. The future is no longer considered a place where we can live the American Dream. There is no real understanding that other folks don’t endure the often deplorable conditions that we do.We treat our history as if it should be kept secret; denying it as much as or maybe even more than those who continue to oppress us. We accept dumbed down education from dangerous failing schools and we rarely even excel at that.  We look forward to buffoonery like Madea and Brown, gangsta rap and violent video games. We have succumbed to poverty; not only in it’s physical state but sadly, in its’ mental state as well.

Why? What’s going on? Let’s talk about it! Stay tuned for Part 2 coming soon…

Until next time.

Peace. 2 Fingers. 1 Love.

Technorati Tags: poverty,poor,ghetto,american dream,blacks,inner city,generational

Awareness 101

Usually, when we think about changes in our lives, we want to feel the ground shift or see bright lights flash to get the feeling we've had a monumental breakthrough. I grant you, you will have aha moments along the way. Sometimes you may even feel the light bulb click on but very few of us have so much changing to do that the ground needs to shake. For me, as I started to become more aware of myself, there was a gradual shift in my thoughts and actions and one day it dawned on me that I was calmer, I was making better decisions and was  less reactive to outside stimuli- and believe me, I used to have an explosive temper.

As a result, I slowly found myself being happier- just happy for no reason. Even though I was not yet in my dream job, I wasn't miserable at my current job. I started savoring my time with my kids as opposed to trying to live vicariously through them. I stopped worrying about if I were making my boyfriend happy and began to look at if he was being good to me and if we were in the same relationship. I stopped wondering so much about what people thought about me; how I looked, what I said, what I did, and started doing what I wanted to do because I wanted to do. I no longer felt like I had to 'put up' with people with whom I had toxic relationships  or who were rude or unappreciative. I reevaluated those relationships and choose to keep the ones that were worthy and salvageable and I discarded the rest. I stopped looking at my finances and my health as something that is nice if you can maintain it and I finally stopped wishing my life away.

As I began to learn to care for myself and take care of myself, I started realizing several things.

(1) That with the exception of young children, I don't owe anyone my life. That said, I resigned my position as CEO of People Pleaser Academy

(2) That it is detrimental to expect other people to consider my well-being more important than their own

(3) That other people are responsible for their own happiness

And (4) That life really is for living.

Slowly but surely I realized that I had to stop taking life for granted. All I can control is my actions and my attitude. I have a purpose. And only then did I finally start taking positive steps toward living MY life.

Every day is a struggle. Some days I feel compelled to revert to my people pleasing ways. But as I fight the urge, I do a lot of things because I really enjoy doing them or I know they need to be done and I don’t mind doing them. But every day is also another chance to get ir right. So I’m living in this moment right here right now because it is what I have. And I am enjoying every minute of it!

The Greatest Love Of All

When I was coming up, my family was a traveling choir. My mom was the director and my siblings, my cousins and I would go to different places and perform. The Greatest Love of All was one of the songs we used to do. We learned it from the original George Benson version which was no less beautiful but a lot less flashy; so more than just singing this song, we got a chance to really understand the lyrics. Through this song, we learned so much about believing in ourselves and having faith in our abilities.

This needs to be a theme song for getting our future back on track. Today’s rap and pop music are almost as bad as drugs in your system; mind and mood altering and very- extremely- especially dangerous. (I have very strong opinions about this) And we as adults are failing to teach young folks their history, their culture, or our values. They are being habilitated by angry, disrespectful music, violent video games and reality shows that should really be nobody’s reality. As a result many, many young people are growing up without a strong sense of right and wrong, no belief in themselves and little hope for the future. It is a truly tragic time.  

The Greatest Love of All was actually co-written by a woman battling breast cancer. The song describes her feelings about her challenges, her strength and her legacy. It is about responsibility to younger generations. For our part, we are failing to do our job so young folks are failing to do theirs and with catastrophic results. My heart is breaking for these children. We’re all wondering why they are so violent; so indifferent. This is what I’ll tell you. You can live for a time with no food; for a shorter time with no water and an even shorter time without air. The one thing that you can’t live for one second without is HOPE, and these young people have very little hope for their future. Folks, this is one thing for which there is no government bail-out. It is time for us to stand up, stand strong and stand together to teach our children well. Let's teach them love and respect. Responsibility and self-confidence. Give them hugs and discipline. Give them faith; give them hope. Help them to believe in themselves. They have so much to live for. 

PS- Whitney should have watched this video every day- just to remind herself that , “Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.” She might still be alive today.

4 More Years

Enough said!