After Winter Must Come Spring

Eons ago (it feels), when I was in high school, all of the graduating seniors were given an opportunity to pick a quote to go underneath their picture in the school yearbook.  The quote that I chose was, "After winter must come spring. Change, it comes eventually." It's from the song Everything is Everything by Lauryn Hill.  I picked the quote because it's words instilled hope in me at a time when everything around me seemed hopeless. To me, the quote means that everything in life happens in seasons and will eventually pass.  It allowed me to see my situation as temporary and not permanent.

High school, especially my senior year, had been an extremely rough time for me.  Perhaps I'll delve into the details of that in a later blog post when I feel comfortable.  Despite all that went on during my four years in high school, I wanted to believe that it would not be indicative of the years to come.  This belief did not come easily or suddenly because I had systematically allowed my life experiences to negatively color my outlook on my present and my future.  It would require twice the effort and God knows how much time to undo the damage. At the time when I chose the quote I truly felt anything other than hopeful. However, I did not want myself or others to look back and see that all I left was a legacy of depression and sorrow. 

I knew that if I wanted a future different than my past it would require different actions and a different mindset even if I was not yet fully sold on the idea of a bright future.  Essentially, in the words of my pastor, I decided to "faith it until I made it."  This is similar to but a bit different than the concept of faking it until you make it.  I wasn't merely planning to go through the motions of a positive person in hopes that I would one day wake up happy.  I decided to plant the first seed of positivity starting with my yearbook quote while also actually believing that my life would be different even if I couldn't see at the moment how changes would come about.  In addition, I planned to keep making small and subtle positive changes in my life so as to water the first seed of positivity that I planted.

Seven years later, I can tell you that I have become a different person. Actually, I'd like to think that what I did was merely reclaim who I was prior to letting negative thoughts dictate my life.  I feel more in touch with myself than ever before. I can now honestly say that I am proud of who I am, flaws and all.  I no longer live my life as an apology for who I am because I am not sorry. I know what I bring to the table and know that as I continue to discover more parts of myself I will bring even more to the table.  What exactly did I do, you ask? Well, that sounds like the topic of my next blog post.  Until then I will say that change did indeed come eventually.

Stay tuned :-)

You're Only Screwing Yourself

Many of you have heard the phrase, “Procrastion is like masturbation – you’re only screwing yourself.”  This is true. I will be the first to raise my hand and say that for the past couple of months I have been procrastinating heavily.  Around the time that I started this blog, I was on an emotional high. I was spewing all things creative. I started a Youtube channel (for natural hair), and I was also writing songs weekly.  My mind was full of ideas.  I fidgeted throughout the day with excitement, eager to get home and put my thoughts into word or video.  Suddenly my motivation dissipated.  I found myself thinking too hard about what I should write in my blog or going through 50 takes of video before settling on one that I thought was suffice to post on Youtube.  I kept making excuses for myself.  Hell, even now as I type this, I’m wondering if I should just press backspace and resume watching television.

What’s ironic is that fear stopped me from writing, although my blog is supposed to be the antithesis of fear.  I started to feel boxed in by the title of my blog as I reasoned that whatever I wrote about should somehow tie into overcoming fear.  Then when I would find a good topic I began to worry that it sounded like something that I’d already written.  As these thoughts bounced back and forth in my mind months continued to pass. Can you believe that when I logged in to write this post I forgot what my password was? It’s been that freakin long.

It’s interesting to me the way that things in life affect one another.  When I stopped writing in my blog, the number of songs that I wrote also declined, and my visits to the gym dwindled down to bench pressing the TV remote.  I learned that maintenance is far more grueling and important than just initiating a task.  I also learned that one’s emotions cannot be an individual’s sole source of motivation because emotions are both fleeting and ever-changing. Can you imagine if a doctor decided to just head home in the middle of open heart surgery because it was difficult and he was no longer certain that medicine was his passion?  Even the things that we are passionate about can sometimes frustrate us. When we push through the frustration we are able to grow closer to and stronger in whatever it is that we are passionate about.

So tonight I am pushing through the frustration by writing this post.  Maybe this post correlates to fear and maybe it doesn’t. I have to start somewhere. I will return to my original goal of writing one post per week, unless hospitalized.  If I write more – awesome. No more procrastination. I’m done screwing myself.