Right Hands vs Left Hands: The Struggle

It's super annoying that this country "caters" to right handed people over left handed people. I use quotation marks because so many SYSTEMS are created considering people who are right handed and neglecting those of us who are left handed, maybe because there are more of them than there are of us or maybe because the creators of these systems are right handed themselves and negligent to the idea that everyone is not like them... Really??

Either way, does the fact that you're right handed and I'm left handed make you better than me?? Does the fact that you have the support of universal systems that consider you over me make my presence in the world insignificant?? Not by ANY means sir/ma'am. It just means that I and we (all people of color in America -- I mean all LEFT HANDED people in America) have to work twice as hard, against more odds, against oppressive systems and consciously AND ignorantly entitled right handers to live and thrive in the same quadrant as them. We may not have the same LUXURIES afforded to us that you do but guess what: WE MATTER. OUR LIVES MATTER. You may not care for us or our presence in the world but you may as well accept that we're NOT going ANYWHERE. You can continue to make and keep things difficult for us and it may force us to forsake our comfort just so we can survive but you need to know that we will NEVER become extinct. You may hate us, you may think less of us than we are but YOU WILL NOT GET RID OF US, Officer Not-So-Friendly. Your efforts are futile.

The sooner you embrace this, the more PRODUCTIVE we will be as a society. Don't embrace it and you will soon see the consequences of your actions. Not a personal threat: a systematic promise according to the spiritual system to which I subscribe. Judgement day is coming. Happy Monday All.

                                               - A Proud Lefty of Color AKA AlwaysAaronA

Being in Germany Vol. 1: The Bigger Picture

Dec. 3, 2012
11:39p.m.

I took a cool shower tonight. Not because I wanted to... In Germany, the hot water is turned off after a certain hour. It's one of the many ways this country conserves its natural resources to ensure that their quality of life is never undermined with UNDERnecessary human comfort.

When I turned on the water, I waited for a while to see if it would by some chance heat up so that I could take a comfortable shower, especially after performing earlier tonight in a heatless venue (a beautiful mosque over 300 years old), coming back to the hotel and working out before getting some rest to do it all over again tomorrow. My wait was in vain. As I went to turn the water off, I paused and thought to myself, is it ABSOLUTELY necessary for you to have a HOT shower tonight?? What reason do you have to not get in this shower and wash yourself in this very tolerable temperature water?? Upon hearing these thoughts, I accepted the challenge I posed to myself and got in the shower to bathe. Before I knew it, my body adjusted to the temperature of the water and there was nothing to it.

I'm learning a lot about myself on this tour. I mean, those of you that know me well know that I consistently position myself in the mirror for the purpose of inflection, self- assessment, and ultimately growth in the direction of becoming my best self. Some old lessons are resurfacing and accompanying them are some familiar and unfortunate issues of my yesterday. Nothing to compromise the integrity of the tour but enough to force me to spend some quiet time to refocus my intentions, my energy and my choices.

As I sit in my quiet time, I'm realizing how often we tend to make monstrous issues out of minute things that really don't matter in the grand scheme of things. For example, a hot shower was by NO means mandatory for me tonight. Before recognizing this, I could have EASILY allowed myself to get frustrated with something that I have ZERO control over which would have solved absolutely nothing. So instead, I convinced myself that it would not hurt me to get in the cool shower and wash because the truth is, in many parts of our world, hot water is very much of a luxury and in some cases, water alone is a rarity. Hence, in the grand scheme of things, the more important ideal was that I bathe for the purposes of my health and hygiene, with the less important ideal being how comfortable I am while doing it.

I feel challenged. As a natural perfectionist and administrative delegate, the magnified success of any human experience lies in the small details that should in some way, contribute to the affect of the bigger picture. However, there is a point where one can focus so much on the details that the message of the big picture is no longer clear and majorly distorted. Which is more important: the bride and groom ceremonially giving their lives to one another in the presence of God, their families and their friends, or that the flowers on the tables at the reception have not bloomed in time to welcome the guests?? Is it more important that nobody showed up to your birthday celebration or that you have lived to see another year?? Is what your children eat for nourishment more important than the fact that they eat??

Friends, let's try not to get so caught up in the details of any given situation that we lose sight of the big picture which generally holds the point of it all. When we keep in mind the bigger picture, we are living a life full of purpose and we allow that purpose to be what drives us to our destination. I am by no means saying to forsake the attention to detail, but I am encouraging us to not stress the details so much that we lose sight of the purpose for doing that which we choose to do.

Self - Assessment Leads to Answers

I love people. HARD. Those that are closest to me can attest to this. My love for them and for people in general often acts as an agent of misunderstanding when it comes to my personality and others' perception of me. I've been good so far, at not letting my being misunderstood keep me from being consistent to who I know I am and am supposed to be but with this new understanding, there's no telling what's going to happen.

I've come to the realization that most of my relationships are in many ways. one-sided. One-sided in the sense that the way I communicate love, strength and positive energy is not reciprocated in the way that I expect it. What does this mean?? Does it mean that I am not loved? Not at all. Does it mean that my "friends" are really not my friends?? Not particularly. Does it mean that the expectations of my relationships are unrealistic?? Perhaps. Or, does it mean that a self-assessment is necessary, followed by an assessment of who's who within my circle of friends and an adjustment action to protect myself from my own expectations and emotions?? Bingo.

Recently, I've incorporated periods of quiet time throughout my day for the purpose of listening to my thoughts to hear what I'm telling myself. Because I work for a major entertainment company, I'm surrounded all day and everyday by news, chatter, information and other miscellaneous communication. It's very easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle of my daily responsibilities and chores, so much so to where I can too easily find myself literally lost in the haystack of work. The problem with this is that if I'm lost in everything I'm doing, I'm liable to lose control of my responses to the things that happen around me, even when I'm not in the office. In an effort to hold true to the principle I live by; "My response is my responsibility," I have to make time to keep myself un-flustered and un-lost so that I have consistent visibility of my mental and emotional disposition. This quiet time helps me tremendously in that effort.

In today's quiet time, I heard myself thinking about a conversation I had with my Godbrother last night. He and I generally have very good conversations that challenge my thinking which is why I love conversing with him. In any case, in this particular conversation, the more we talked, the more alone I felt. Mind you, my Godbrother is one of the closest people to me on the planet. He doesn't get me all the time and we disagree most all the time. But we listen to each other and we learn from one another, without fail. For some reason though, in this particular conversation, even with him responding to every text message I sent, I felt more and more alone.

As I processed these feelings, I realized that I am looking for my friends to love me the same exact way that I love them.  What's wrong with that, some may ask. Well, it's not to say that anything is wrong, but it is to say that my expectation to receive love in a certain way actually limits the way that I can receive love from anyone. You know how you lose something and you spend a bunch time looking for it because you really need it and you never find it until you stop looking for it and no longer need it?? Same idea. My search for specific love-based actions has hindered me from receiving the love that my friends have for me. No, it doesn't come the same way I send it but it comes. My challenge is now, to be open enough to receive it when it comes, regardless of it's form OR who it's from.

As I was working at my desk today, my boss called me into her office to give me an assignment. As she began talking, she stopped and said, "By the way, people are raving about you. A number of my colleagues have called and commented on how much they love your personality without even knowing you, just by how you speak on the phone." And there it was, a love-filled recognition that somebody is paying attention to me AND noticing that I have something special to offer the world around me. When she told me, it hit me hard. I had to stop in that moment and receive that love because I was drained from the loneliness I had been experiencing and seeming lack of a needed love I'd been feeling. This love however, while it may not have come from my Godbrother or any of my friends for that matter, was love nonetheless. It was just enough to get me through the battle of maintaining control of my responses as the victor. It also gave me just the surge of energy I needed to finish my day. :-)  

So, here is the point: the facts are, we're all human beings and we need love so that we don't feel like we're alone in the world. The truth is, love is available to everyone of us in a number of ways but we often miss out on receiving it because we're close-minded to the way that it may be presented.

Open your mind. Open your heart. You are loved. If you need evidence, take a breath. If the Creator of life itself didn't love you, care about you or have a reason for you to be here, that would have been impossible. You are loved. I am loved. Be loved.

~AlwaysAaronA~

P.S. - I write these transparent blog posts for a number of reasons. Primarily, it's my therapy. It keeps me from holding all of my thoughts in and letting them control me. Secondly, I'm real with myself. Being real with myself helps me be real with others. Being real with others shows them that in their most quiet moments when no one else is around, SOMEONE understands them. I write this way to show people that they are not alone in the way they think. Most importantly, I hope to inspire you (reading this) to live your BEST possible life by opening the passageway to your heart and connecting with you there so that you are convinced that God/Love is real and it knows exactly where you are. You're never too big or small to be out of His reach. Just in case you didn't know. :-)

I'll Never Forget: A Love Story

I’ll never forget the first time I heard her voice. She sounded like a vision of me floating in a clear blue sea of the warmest water on top of  white sand under the bluest sky. She reached me. And I her. We were connected: before we had any idea what each other looked like. We talked every day and every conversation lasted more than an hour. She intrigued me with her sweet, southern accent churned with her welcoming wit and a smile that I could hear as she laughed on the phone. She was my new best friend and I knew it from the first sound of her voice.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw her face. It had been over 2 years since our first conversation and she looked even more beautiful than she sounded. After finding myself nervous beyond measure and fearful of her rejection, our eyes met and immediately, I felt at home. I was so comfortable that it made me uncomfortable how comfortable I was. Her eyes told me that I was everything she imagined me to be and more. Her smile generated an electricity that triggered an awakening of the happiest moment of my life. She looked like… everything me.

I’ll never forget the moment I heard her sing. Her voice reached into my soul and touched parts of me I had no idea ever existed. I became intoxicated by her sound. She could have asked me for the world and I would have indubitably given her mine.

I’ll never forget the first time we kissed. Every moment leading up to this moment converged into one explosive moment that sealed and secured our love for each other. I knew then what I know now: she is “My One.”

I’ll never forget the first time we said, “I do.” It was the commencement of a daily choice we make to choose now what we chose on that day. It keeps us in love even when we don’t FFEL like we are. It is this choice, that makes us sure that we will spend the rest of our life together, no matter what.

I’ll never forget how she affects me.

I’ll never forget why we are in love.

I’ll never forget her.

I’ll never forget us.

I will never forget…

…

…

…

The moment I woke up.

Well Worth the Wait

I am literally in a state of sheer and complete AWE.

Today has been one of the GREATEST days of my LIFE.

This time four years ago I was working as a banquet server at Maggianos Little Italy in Perimeter mall in Atlanta, GA and I was miserable. I was sleeping on the floor of one of my closest friend's 2 bedroom apartment in midtown and I was barely making enough money to survive day-to-day. Most of the money I was making went to food so that I didn't have to worry about my physical survival so much while I struggled in every other area of my life. I was content but I was not happy. I knew that some kind of way, life had to be better than this.

I'm a man of vision. What feeds my will to live is a hope that things can and will change for the better, if I choose to keep living. This hope has kept me going. It's kept me waking up everyday, looking for new opportunities and trying to find a way out of the struggle, out of the stress and out of the strain of an attempt to merely survive. The more I searched, the more I found. The more I found, the more I tried. The more I tried, the more I failed. And the more I failed, the more I searched. It was a vicious and emotionally draining cycle that at many points, I thought was never going to end. But I maintained a necessary amount of faith that I had in a vision for greater than the struggle I knew and had gotten so used to.

At the beginning of the year when I turned 25, I knew that the new year of my life would bring about some significant changes in and around me, but this... I did not expect. And even though almost the entire year went by before my moment came, the fact is, it came and from where I am now, it was WELL worth the wait.

When I woke up this morning, I didn't know all of what the day would have in store. I knew that it would be a fun-filled and full day; as I had spent time planning a departmental luncheon for my team at work and tonight would be the company-wide holiday party for the NYC offices but I still had no idea what the day had specifically in store for me.

Today, I received more Christmas presents than I have received in my entire adult life. Granted, the gifts are not as important as the thought that went into it but the quality of the gifts speak VOLUMES to the thoughts of who the came from and makes those thoughts tangibly audible.

Aside from the gifts, as I mentioned, today was a departmental holiday luncheon that I was blessed to bear the responsibility of planning. As I arrived to the restaurant before my team, to make sure that everything was in order and satisfactorily set up for us, I shook hands with the private events coordinator (with whom I worked to plan the event) and she introduced me to the two servers who were assigned to our party. After we ate, completed a series of toasts and did our Secret Santa gift exchange, the team verbally thanked and applauded me for the immaculate experience and INCREDIBLE food selection provided for us. They sincerely appreciated me for the work and the thought I put into making the event successful (something I am not used to - being appreciated for my work that is...). To me, that was enough; but before we got ready to leave, the manager of the restaurant came and asked for me. He wanted to shake my hand and apologize for the small mishaps that occurred throughout the event. Then they brought me the check. While looking at the check, I pulled my boss to the side and asked if it was alright to leave additional gratuity for our two servers. She willingly agreed.

I was overjoyed. I took so much pride in calling the servers to the side and showing them that we genuinely appreciated their time and attention to our needs to have a successful event. And I got emotional. I remembered when I was in their shoes, waiting tables, working private events, busting my butt to make the host and the clients happy and praying that they saw my work ethic and chose to reward me with a generous tip and often being let down with no tip at all. I remembered doing all I can to make sure that there was nothing a client needed to enhance their experience that I didn't deliver and receiving $10 on a $1400 bill. I remembered working double and triple shifts from as early as 5:30 in the morning for a breakfast meeting, followed by a lunch and then a dinner and still not making enough money to live on my own. Then to see Kris' (one of our servers) face when she saw the additional gratuity we left her and Adam... My struggle was well worth it.

And then tonight, to be at the company party around soooo many smiling faces and happy spirits with exclusivity, food, drinks, giveaways, music and more, I couldn't help but look up to my Father at different moments throughout the night just to say "Thank You." I was thanking Him for the character and integrity I learned through my struggles that qualified me to earn the responsibility I carry with my job. I was thanking Him for the trust He had put in me to walk through my process without giving up or turning my back on Him although there were MANY times where that's exactly what I wanted to do. I was thanking Him for allowing me to brush shoulders with people (and one very specific person) who I have looked up to for years and who has the job that I want in the future. And to have a conversation with him where he tells me to come by his office any time so he can show me around and introduce me to his team so I can see all of what they do and how they do it?? *sigh* #AWE

I am immensely grateful. I am humbled. I am finally living in my dream wide awake and God is responsible for making it happen.

Friends, I can care less how things around you look right now: DO NOT GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS. As long as you have a clear vision of the future and the life you want for yourself, write it down, submit it to God and more importantly SUBMIT YOURSELF to God and He will make it happen for you, just as He did and is doing for me. I struggled for the full first 8 years of my adult life and I had no idea that I would have to endure all that I have but from where I am today, it was well worth the wait.

Thank You Jesus.

The Hatred of Being Hated. And ME.

***DISCLAIMER*** 

I write to release. I share because I'm not foolish enough to believe that I'm the only one going through the mind wars I go through. In spite of how much I secretly want to be understood through my writing, I do not write looking for someone to reassure me that I am. Simply, I write to release. This blog is my release. Read at your own discretion.

--

I've been hated.

Over the past few days, I've been heavily thinking about an experience I had in high school where I did something that made a friend disturbingly upset with me and my reaction to it that I cannot forget. Here's what happened:

Our high school choir was finishing up a concert at Convent Avenue Baptist Church in Harlem. We were on the last song of the night which featured two soloists, myself and my aforementioned friend. After she sang her solo and I, mine, there was nothing left to do but some adlibs as the song vamped out. To my understanding at that time, it was perfectly fine for both soloists to tag team the adlibs and enjoy singing together at the end of the song. So, I decided that this time around (we had performed this song a number of times in the past), I would join my friend and sing with her on the adlibs. I sang one line and before I knew it, my friend, the other soloist, had put her microphone down and was storming out of the sanctuary in sheer anger. Completely confused, I proceeded downstairs after the concert was over to find my friend to find out if she was OK. Upon finding her, she looked at me with a piercing disdain and told me to get away from her. I had suddenly become some sort of predator who was out to get her and make her life hell. In that moment and for the next few days, she hated me.

I later discovered after talking with our music teacher that she was obviously upset that I didn't allow her the full space of the spotlight by singing my adlibs at the end of OUR song. He even made it seem like I was actually wrong for doing what I did and he spoke to me with a tone that said, "You dummy, you should have known not to do that."

A few days later, after not having spoken with my friend at all since the concert, the silent tension surfaced and we had a heated discussion in the music classroom about what had happened at the concert. I don't remember the details of the conversation but what I do remember and quite clearly is me saying, "I'm used to being hated. Everybody hates me." And I remember believing that about myself for a long period of time.

In my mind at that time, every instance of rejection, abandonment and disappointment I had ever experienced, fed my belief that I was hated. And being a person so full of love with not an ounce of hatred in his heart for anyone, but a genuine heart of compassion and understanding, I could not understand for the life of me, why I was "hated" by so many people. Something wasn't adding up. Either way, I didn't like this feeling. It SUCKED. The only person whose heart towards me I never had to question was my mother who had already been gone for five and a half years at the time of this occurrence. So in my mind, I was alone and because I felt loved by no one, by default, my perception was that I was hated by everyone.

*sigh*

Unfortunately, this feeling of being hated has to a certain extent defined a significant portion of my life. Granted, I am a strong person who has overcome quite a number of obstacles and there are very few things that I feel like I cannot do and/or deal with. Being hated, is one of the those things. The only reason this is, is because I HATE NO ONE. I have such a heart to love everybody just like Jesus did and the fact that people hated Him/hate me in spite of His/my loving them is torture-some to me. And I can't understand how if you reap what you sew and I've sown countless seeds of love, why am I reaping hate?? I mean, clearly I'm not perfect and I make plenty mistakes but my intentions are pure because I have a heart to love. Because I have for so long lacked the self-confidence that Jesus had, I did the only thing I knew how which has turned out to be extremely unhealthy for me: I have learned to micro-manage impressions.

For the next few years of my life, I did everything in my power to avoid the feeling of being hated, by all means necessary. I would go out of my way to take care of and satisfy other people in making sure they were happy with me for the simple purpose of avoiding being hated. I was even voted in my high school yearbook as Most Helpful because of the extent I was willing to go to, to make people happy with me. Ultimately, I lost every sense of my own identity and became defined by the things I did for people that would cause them to validate and affirm me for the goodness in my heart that would keep them from hating me. As a result of this, I literally lost any and every sense of self that could help me learn, love and accept me for who I am. I became a social puppet who controlled my own strings attached to making other people happy. As a result, I am miserable.

I'm at a place now in my life where I'm in a whirlwind of questions that I've not been able to find the answers to. I'm 25 years old and I remember determining at the beginning of this year (see my first blog entry below) that I wasn't going to allow myself to remain in my own way of my success but that I would embrace the possibilities of my future and walk it out starting in this my 25th year of life. The year is almost over and in a couple months, I'll be 26 and I've realized that I'm STUCK in the same position because I'm still more focused on making OTHER PEOPLE happy than I am with making myself happy and pursuing my OWN dreams. And I am miserable.

I am full of dreams, visions, desires and plans and I have come so close to seeing some of them materialize but they haven't because my attention is more on pleasing others than pleasing myself. Don't get me wrong, with my life I have a responsibility to please God and I have devoted my entire life to doing so, but I realize that my priorities are a little out of whack. Behind pleasing God, my focus has been on pleasing others even to the point of literally losing myself to satisfy and exceed people's expectations of me. And I have been taken advantage of. People and organizations I have worked tirelessly for have minimally appreciated me and it's not their fault. It's my own. You teach people how to treat you. I have taught them that it's OK to expect the world of me and that I will deliver and exceed their expectations, get this: FOR NO PAY. All I wanted was some sort of their affirmation and most times, I didn't even get that. So I end up giving ALL of me for NOTHING in return. This is a problem and it needs to be resolved.

Something has to change. Time is not on my side and I have too much work to do to be doing nothing for myself. I want to see MY dreams come true. I want my visions to materialize. I want to own something for myself and my future family. Most importantly, I want to be happy; independent of any and everyone else. Herein lies my new journey: The Journey of ME. If this offends you or makes you call me arrogant, cocky, selfish or whatever, YOU deal with it. It's no longer my problem. It's MY time to shine.

Listen

Stop.



Look.



Listen.



Can you hear that?? Those are the cries of your friends, associates, family members, co-workers, colleagues, enemies, pastors, teachers, professors and leaders for someone to NOTICE that they are hurting. The only reason they're acting the way they are is because they need someone to say to them:

"Hey, I see you and I know that things are not as well as you want them to be right now but you're not alone. You've got a friend in me who will listen to you and try to understand where you are and how you're feeling. And even though I may not be able to provide you with a solution, I can hold your hand throughout the process and lend you my shoulder for you to cry on. I can give you my ears and be patient with you when you're acting out of your frustration because I know that you're having a tough time. Not that I'm going to baby you, but I will be a friend to you. Why you ask?? Because truth be told, I'm hurting too. And I need someone to do for me what I'm doing for you. I'm honestly hoping that being strong with and for you will open the door for someone to see that I'm a little weak myself and need the strength of another to help me through. Can you hear me?? Can you see me?? Please. Help me."

Don't feel guilty and start tweeting about how sad and sorry you are when you find out that someone you know is now gone after YOU were one of the ones they reached out to for help while you ignored their cry for being blinded by your own eyes. It's too late. YOU'RE too late. Stop being so damn selfish. We ALL need someone.

Pay attention.

You could be the help that you're looking for. What goes around...