A Well-Laid Plan Makes Room for Detours

When high school ended and I began to envision the future that I wanted for myself, the changes that I would need to make, and the actions that I would need to take, the task seemed daunting.  Over the next four years to come I wanted to expand my social network, ace all of my classes, get internships, have a lucrative job offer prior to graduating, buy a car, rent my own apartment/never return home, enter into a mature and loving relationship, get over my fear of speaking and singing publicly, travel, build a solid savings account, lead a student group, become comfortable in my own skin, and make it a college experience to remember. All I had to do was be spectacular and my professors would desire nothing but to give me an A in every class. Prospective employers would throw lucrative job offers my way, based solely on my awesomeness.  The student body? Well, of course, they would think I was awesome too.  Sounds simple and realistic, right? Not!

When I received my class schedule, I was shocked to find that I was placed into a remedial Algebra class. This made no sense to me because I completed both Trigonometry and Pre-Calculus in high school.  Apparently, my scores on the placement test indicated that I didn't learn much past long division during my last 14 or so years of attending school.  Discouraged and feeling not so awesome, I called my older sister to rant and rave about all of my college plans being eradicated in one instant.  Here’s why. I wanted to apply to Rutgers Business School (RBS). It is a two-year program. The way the program works is that you spend your first two years of college taking general undergraduate courses and six prerequisite Business School courses.  During the spring semester of your sophomore year you submit your application to the Business School, cross your fingers and hope for the best. A passing grade in Calculus 1 was one of the prerequisites needed to enter into RBS.  I couldn’t think of taking Calculus 1 until I passed Pre-Calculus 1 and Pre-Calculus 2.  Furthermore, I couldn’t attempt to take Pre-Calculus 1 or 2 unless I passed the remedial Algebra class that I was placed into. (I keep calling it “the remedial Algebra class” because I don’t remember the name of the course.  That’s how useless I thought it was.)  In addition, Statistics was also one of the prerequisites needed to enter RBS.  I couldn’t take that course unless I passed Pre-Calculus 1 and 2.

So I started to do the math (no pun intended).  I had only four semesters to complete five semesters of work in.  How could I ever hope to enter RBS now?  My older sister mentioned that there was an option I hadn’t thought about.  Rutgers offered a course that consolidated Pre-Calculus 1 and 2 into a single course.  Essentially, it crammed two semesters of work into one semester.  Per other Rutgers students, it was a class that all were doomed to fail. My sister suggested that I take the remedial Algebra course first semester, take the accelerated Pre-Calculus course my second semester, take the Statistics course over the summer at a county college, take Calculus 1 my third semester, and submit my application to RBS application right on time during my fourth semester.  It was an ambitious plan and one that I wasn’t sure that I could carry out.  The fact that I was placed into remedial Algebra killed my confidence.  All types of fears and questions began to plague my mind.  What I you don’t pass the course?  If I was smart enough to do this, wouldn’t I have placed into Calculus already? What if I fail this Algebra course repeatedly and I’m still attempting to pass it four semesters from now? What if I get into the Business School and I can’t pass any of the courses? What if college isn’t for me?  My sister advised me to calm down and look at the plan as individual steps instead of the seemingly overwhelming big picture.  She also advised that I take each course with the attitude that I would pass it without a doubt.  I took her advice.

Each course that I passed served to build my confidence and momentum.  The day that I received my acceptance letter from RBS is a day that I will always remember.  I had achieved what I once thought was unachievable.  I adopted my sister’s idea of breaking a goal down into small steps and focusing on those steps one at a time into all areas of my life. (I will discuss this in future posts.)  I also learned that as long as the end goal is achieved, the road to get there doesn’t really matter.  Now that I am a Certified Public Accountant, I am no better or worse than any other CPA.  No one can tell just by looking at me that my journey began in the back of a remedial Algebra classroom. We all received the same certification.  I simply took a few detours along the way. I’d say it was a solid plan.

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.

Ghostwriters

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a ghostwriter as a person or persons writing for and in the name of another who is the presumed author.  In a nutshell, someone else is creating and conveying your ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and persona instead of you. Most of you have heard about people ghostwriting for rappers, singers, and authors.  Today I want to talk about how this can sometimes happen in our own personal lives.  Are you the author of your own life, or are you letting someone do the writing for you? In other words, are you trying to fulfill the goals and desires of someone else (i.e., parents, spouse, friends, peers, etc)? If you've been courageous enough to pursue your own goals and desires, are you allowing negative naysayers to kill both your drive and motivation?

I recall the time when I was studying to pass the CPA exam. My plan was to take the first of four exams in August 2008 and take and pass the remaining three by December 2008 so that I could become licensed before I began my public accounting job in January 2009. My reasoning was that it was best to take the exam with all the information I learned in college still fresh in my mind and get it done before I started my job so that my career could be my focus. Sounds like a great idea, right? I thought so too.  Full of inspiration, drive, and motivation, I began to tell all of my friends, family  and classmates about my wonderful plan.  To my surprise, instead of only supportive words, I was given a myriad of reasons why I should give up the goal and choose one that was less ambitious.  Some of my soon-to-be colleagues told me stories about how they had been attempting to pass the exams for years and either gave up or were still in the throes of fruitless pursuit.  Others spoke about the low pass rate for the exam - historically between 46 - 52%.  I didn't let any of the negative commentary affect me...until I failed the first exam.  I started to panic and second guess myself.  Suddenly the low pass rate statistics and advice I was given to choose a less ambitious goal came to the forefront of my mind.  I began to believe that my goal was unattainable. I debated giving up, comforted by the fact that no one would think less of me since they deemed the exam impossible to pass. 

I expressed my sentiments to my father.  I told him I wasn't wasting another dime on the exam, that the exam was too hard, that no one passes anyway, and that instead I might take up basketweaving as my profession.  He told me to keep on trying.  He said that the pass rate statistics were irrelevant and that every year people pass the exam and for that reason I could be amongst those who were successful.  He went on to say that the accounting profession wouldn't create an exam that absolutely no one could pass; therefore, passing was indeed a possibility.  He also pointed out that he barely saw me studying and that I seemed to be outside more than I was ever around any CPA exam preparation book.  He was absolutely right.  After failing the first exam, I stopped believing in myself and started to exert less effort towards studying.  Of course, this only resulted in me failing more exams during the months to come.

I won’t belabor you with all the details of my journey to become a licensed CPA, but I will say that I passed all four parts of the exam within a year.

I realized that while I couldn’t change the exam itself, I could certainly change how I mentally approached the exam.  I decided to take control of my internal environment (my thoughts and my actions) as opposed to waiting for my external environment to change.  If I waited for the exam to become easier or for everyone I met to tell me that I was capable of passing (all external factors) then I would be waiting forever.  I needed to become motivated from within and make things happen for me instead of passively letting things happen to me.  It is no surprise that I finally passed all four parts of the exam once I decided within myself that I could and would pass.  Some of my colleagues that discouraged me are still trying to pass the exam years later.  My story is not their story. To reiterate what I said a few blog posts ago, neither historical statistics nor the failures/opinions of others have anything to do with your own potential.  I recently came across a quote that stated, “Depending on people for your manifestation leaves your future at the mercy of others whose primary objective is to come into their own glory not yours.”  Take back the pen and reclaim your title as the author of your life.  

Don't Worry, I'll Wait

Someone recently provoked a thought that had never occurred to me before when they asked, "What if you weren't waiting on God and instead God was waiting on you?" Essentially, she meant what if you are your own adversary and stunting your own potential growth? She equated such a situation to an infant crying for a bottle of milk.  The infant cries and cries, eyes closed, and red-faced because of his (we'll go with a male infant for the example) unmet need. Unbeknownst to the infant, his mother has been trying to put the bottle in his mouth the whole time but because his eyes were closed and he became anxious, he wasn't aware that help had already arrived a while ago.  What blessings might you not be noticing?

Oftentimes, blessings come in forms other than what we imagine they should.  I believe that's why people say that God works in mysterious ways. If everything He did was obvious there would be no mystery to His works.  When we make a request known to God, we should await the answer with an open heart, an open mind, and open eyes.  At the same time, we should begin to make room in our lives for the blessing that we asked for.  If you ask God for better grades, perhaps you can make room by avoiding Single Ladies Night at the club the day before your Anatomy final. I'll give you a personal example of not realizing an answered prayer to illustrate my point.

At the age of 8, I realized that singing and songwriting were my passions.  I would sing in my room quietly and write songs in secret, sometimes shyly sharing the songs to one or two of my closest friends.  I prayed to God for increased confidence to sing to someone other than my carpet, have my voice heard by many and have my songs sung by artists in the industry.  For years I prayed and prayed, frustrated that my room's walls didn't communicate with Diddy and inform him of my musical ability so that he would sign me at once to Bad Boy.  Of course that frustration was a stretch but you get the idea - I was waiting for an external force to actualize my dreams instead of forcing my internal self to put my dreams in motion.  I didn't realize that God already answered my prayers, but my eyes weren't open to realize that help had arrived.

How, you ask? During my freshman year of high school, my church decided to put together a youth gospel choir. This is my chance, I thought.  All I have to do is go to practices, sing, and become Whitney Houston. Piece of cake. I laugh now at the memory. At the first practice, the choir director asked me to sing so that he could figure out if I was an alto or soprano and also to determine my vocal range.  When I tell you my body froze in fear and my mouth would not open, I mean it. Eventually, I sang but it was as a quiet a mouse (an analogy I've never understood because you can hear those creepy things kilometers away). For the duration of my time in that choir I shied away from singing solos and I sang so low with the choir that I literally couldn't hear my own voice.  When I would go home after practice, I would sing loud, sing confidently, and sing beautifully.  I would get so angry with God and ask Him why my singing confidence only appeared behind closed doors and ask him whether or not He heard my prayers clearly.

It's funny how we can demand so much of God and so little of ourselves.  It dawned on me that God answered my prayers by giving me opportunities to sing.  The problem was that I wasn't taking the opportunities.  My father once told me that when you ask God for help to overcome an obstacle, He presents you with more instances of that obstacle.  Basically, you can only truly overcome the obstacle by facing it and dealing with it. Singing confidence would only be obtained by me doing just that - singing at every opportunity I got.  I know, I know. You're saying elementary, my dear Watson (hopefully someone has picked up a book and read Sherlock Holmes).  Though it's common sense to me now, it wasn't common sense to me then.

Once I realized that the problem was my own personal fears and immobility and not a lack of opportunities, things began to change.  Fast forward to 2011, I wrote a song and recorded it on my laptop about 2 weeks ago.  Intuition told me to send it to one of my mentors, but I wasn't sure why.  He responded saying that he loved the song and that it came at a perfect time because he recently met an r&b artist that was in need of material to sing.  He forwarded the song to her and she liked it. Two days later, my mentor reached out to me and asked if I would like to sing backup for the artist. I gave him an emphatic and resounding yes!  Indeed, God was waiting on me all along :-)

Is Anybody Listening?

I've often wondered what spurred people to empty the contents of their entire lives onto social media. Today a thought occured to me: maybe people do it because they know that's the only way someone will really listen to what they have to say.  Think about it. If you walk up to someone and start talking they can be zoning you out or reciting the alphabet quietly to themselves while you speak unbeknownst to you.  However, if you write a blog, someone has to go to your site and personally choose to read what you have written. That means that they care what you have to say, and even more so if they decide to respond.  There is nothing like communicating with someone and having them actually give a crap about how you feel, what you're going through, and what you're up to.

Have you ever seen a Facebook scenario similar to this:
Alice writes, "Fml. What a dreary day."
Jennifer writes, "Oh no, Alice! What happened?"
Karen writes, "Who's messing with you, girl? Don't make me have to come down there."
Then underneath Karen's comment you see 30 more comments all trying to figure out what's going on with Alice.

In regular life, how often do we walk past our coworkers or family members and ask how are you doing as a formality, only to walk away before the answer is even given?  Somehow in the virtual world people begin to show compassion and become concerned with other people's lives.  I've learned more about people I thought I knew via Facebook than real interactions with them.  Why is that?

Though I don't plan to divulge my social security number, menstrual cycle and other intimate details on the Internet, I can say that having this blog is having a therapeutic effect on me.  I can get my thoughts out without having to say them aloud. I can release frustrations, joys, and whatever else I feel.  Lastly, I know that if you're here you truly came to listen.  That is priceless.

In The Words of TLC: What About Your Friends?

Recently a friend of mine was contemplating terminating a relationship with a longtime friend but wasn't sure what to do.  I asked my friend, "If you met her today, would you be her friend?"  My friend didn't understand the question so I explained a little further.  Basically, what I was asking is being the person you are today and knowing in advance the person she is today, would you still choose to befriend her, or are you holding on to the person she used to be and the person you used to be? Besides compatibility and shared values, I believe that a key component of a good relationship is the ability to grow and change with each other for the better.  That goes for platonic relationships, intimate relationships, family relationships, professional relationships - you get the idea.

Ever since I graduated from college, I've been unsatisfied with a lot of my relationships with people and I couldn't figure out why. Later on that evening I thought about how the question related to my own life. I tend to give my friends good advice and not have the courage enough to use it myself.  So I took a personal inventory of my current relationships and for each individual I asked myself what I asked my friend earlier that day.  I realized that I haven't been happy because some of the people that I have allowed to linger in my life are not compatible with who I am today.  I have changed greatly as a person over the past 5 years, and I can no longer find commonalities with them outside of attending the same school, knowing the same people, or liking the same foods.  A relationship should provide some type of benefit to all the parties involved, and for awhile now I've been feeling all strain and no gain.

Luckily, there are a few who I can say have grown and changed alongside me and I would jump at the chance to be their friend a million times over.  In those relationships, our friendship is not solely continuing because of how long we've known each other, but rather enhanced by how long we've known each other and can still relate in the present. Our conversations can extend past elevator topics like the weather, what we ate for lunch, or what we did at work that day. This exercise was really helpful for me in taking stock of the company that I keep and how to prioritize with whom I spend my time.  Time for some spring cleaning.

My older brother always tells me to surround myself with people that I would want to be like.  A quote that I recently read worded my brother's sentiments even better by saying, "If I associate with chickens, I will learn to scratch at the ground and squabble over crumbs.  If I associate with eagles, I will learn to soar at great heights."  All systems go. I'm ready to fly.