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.

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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!

Perspective

The beauty of me is that I learn from everything. For me, anything and anyone can be a teacher. For that I am grateful. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in who is teaching that we miss the lesson.

My lesson for today family is about perspective. Lots of time we want nothing more than to only hear what we want to hear, those things that confirm our beliefs. It is where clichés like, "Speeches only reach those who already know," and "Preaching to the choir" come from. They are for the most part very true. When we read, we read writers whose views and opinions mimic ours, what we watch, listen to, and follow all represent people and things that we already believe to be correct. We are often not willing to look at things from others' perspective. Perfect FB example is a friend "liking" Mitt Romney's page. UPROAR!! SCANDAL!! But- you can only decide what you know when you know all the sides; or what you're up against; or what's within your control. Otherwise you are following things for the wrong reasons; because everybody else is, because your parents did, because it's popular.

Putting things in perspective is about examining what you know and why you know it, what you believe and why you believe it. It is about growing as a conscious human being not just accepting everything you've been taught since forever. Keeping things in perspective is about being mature enough to take 100% responsibility for your life; your health, your relationships, your emotions, your career, your finances, your habits, and your spiritual beliefs. It necessitates that you take a good, hard look at yourself, realizing the person you are and then deciding on the person you want to become. None of us are perfect. We’ve got work to do. #getbusy

Til next time. Peace. Two Fingers, One Love.

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POLITICS - SCANDAL

I must say; even as I consider a run for public office myself, I do not envy politicians. Especially in this day & time. With corruption all around us, a floundering economy and overall apathy for the plight of our fellow Americans, people aren't looking for leadership or even a handout, people are looking for a savior. And sadly, I honestly can't say that I blame them.

A lot is wrong in America and unfortunately, much too often the focus is on all the wrong things. Take for example all of the financial scams and scandals we've been subjected to in recent years. From Enron to Fannie Mae to the housing crisis to Bear to Madoff to LIBOR. Even the Penn State scandal, seemingly more about money and a legacy than saving young boys from a merciless predator. It is just a neverending litany of foolishness. And  you'd best believe we haven't seen the last of bank and big business manipulations or missing brokerage house funds.

Your best bet since you have to live in this world is to learn everything you can about how the game is played. You can't afford to stand back and hope for the best, thinking the President and the rest of the liberals are gonna look out for your interests. Government is simply not ready to deal with this yet. I believe it would mean pointing fingers at too many of them and quite possibly a fallout the likes of nothing we've ever witnessed. Because let me say this... There was a time, in my lifetime, where if you wanted to be rich, a politician was the last thing you wanted to be. Much like teachers and nurses and psychologists and others in helping fields,  there was very little money.  Well, they certainly fixed that! Public servants no more; the vast majority of them currently serve their own best interests, so the likelihood of them really dealing with the issue is slim-to-none. Best get busy looking out for yourself.

An Attitude of Gratitude

People are miserable. They love it! They complain, complain, complain. Bring the rain down HARD right on top of their heads, then look for somebody to blame. They think everyone is out to get them; think people are mean to them for no reason not realizing that people are responding to their upleasantness and no one wants to be around them. I know for me, I try to keep my positive force protective shield around me. Some people are so sour though that they can pierce right through it! It’s so sad that they don’t realize that life is like a boomerang and that whatever they load up on it is definitely coming back to them. If you load it up with good actions and good a good attitude, you’ll get them back. If you load it up with bullsh*t, it’s coming back to slap you in the face.Then you’ll really be sh*tfaced. LMBO!

What I’ve learned is that if you carry with you an attitude of gratitude, just being thankful for what you have instead of complaining and worrying about what you don’t, it’ll make your journey a lot more enjoyable. People think gratefulness is a weakness. They see it as settling for less. In actuality, it is the mere act of applauding the fact that it’s as good as it is (because it could certainly always be worse) and acknowledging an appreciation for what you have as you work towards other things you may want. If you don’t have an attitude of gratitude, let me know. I’ll tell you a few places where you can go and pick one up!

Til Next Time.

Peace- Two Fingers. One Love!

Technorati Tags: attitude,gratitude,misery,grateful,positive,acknowledgement