Single & Selfish- How Can I Expect Justice From Others, When I'm so Unjust to Myself?

 

A close friend told me that I am not ready for marriage because I am selfish.

How could she say that about me? Everyone says that I am a nice person. 

But if I am such a nice person, how come my past relationships didn’t last?

 

Yes we had great moments, but during the "not-so-great" moments, how did I stand the rain??

 

I'm gonna have to deal with these type of moments, because the relationship is not all about the good times like we think.

Did I have a bad attitude?

 

So how come my relationships didn't last?

I have to point the finger at someone else, because It would be too responsible for me to look at myself in the mirror, so the first person I blamed was my mother.

Is it because I grew up in a single parent home? Is it because I was the only child? Is it because my mother gave me just about anything I wanted? Is it because I didn’t get punished when I deserved it?

 

How about the guy? I can’t let him off the hook. He didn’t know a good woman if he had one. He was a user. He didn’t know how to be respectful, He was a loser…

 

I love the blame game, because I never have to look inside myself. It feels good to blame other people and to never look at myself.

 

The things I said about my past could be true, but it’s not fair and it’s not right for me to blame others and to never look at myself, now that I am a grown woman who is able to make some changes. This is not my mothers fault, and this is not my exes fault, I have to take responsibility.

 

When my friend told me I was selfish, I totally disagreed with her and I was really offended.  How can I be selfish when I do all I can to help people when they need me? I am always there for people, People call me nice. How can a nice person be selfish?

 

After I got off my soapbox about myself, the light came on! My problem is staring me in the face!

I think that I have it all together and that no one can tell me anything negative about myself.

 

That is the act of a selfish person.

 

That is the act of a vain person.

Vain: Having or showing an excessively high opinion of one’s appearance, abilities or worth.

 

Yep, that can be me and not even know it. That's the worst... to be so blind to yourself that you only wanna hear positive things about yourself but not the things you need to improve.

 

If I think too highly of myself, then nothing, not even good guidance can enter my mind, because I think know It all.

 

I will not be willing to talk to people who doesn't "think like me"

If I think I know it all, I will not be humble enough to listen to anyone.

I may talk “at” people instead of talking “with” people..

 

I will not be able to listen, when people are communicating with me because I will be too busy thinking of my response when they are talking.

 

I will not be able to be corrected...

 

I will never allow God’s word to transform me. I would rather hold on to the old me, than to “be ye transformed” by the renewing of my mind

 

And dealing with a black man who is obviously not valued in our society, every chance I get, I will tear him down. If I see a weakness in him, I will use it as a weapon and as an advantage over him. I will not try to help him but I will help tear him down.

 

 If he tries to tell me what to do, I will quickly let him know his place.

 

I will not be able to control my emotions.

 

And those are the things that I have been guilty of.

Treat people the way you want to be treated. If people talked to me the way I talked to them, will I be pleased?

 

So not only will learning these things be good as I prepare for marriage one day, but in my everyday relationships, this principle can keep all of my relationships healthy and strong. But I have to stop making excuses and take responsibility for myself to be a better, moral person.

 How can I expect justice from others, when I am so unjust to myself??

Thank God for honest friends!

How to Compare Yourself to Other People

Everyone does it in some way.

We see celebrities, married couples, weight loss successes, business owners, spiritual leaders and more.

It looks so good that we would like to adopt their lifestyle in that very moment.

But are we willing to go through the steps it took for them to get to those positions?

I know it’s cliché…

Comparing our "Behind the Scenes" to Everyone Else's "Highlight Reel"

Can we handle the trials our inspirations had to go through to maintain their lifestyle  that we admire?

Maintain- To keep in good condition by making repairs, correcting problems, etc.

The secret of all the things we see are the things we never see.

Take weight-loss for instance- Everyone wants to lose weight, but are we willing to give up the foods that we love? Are we willing to extend ourselves in exercise to get to our goal weight?

Or if we lived in a fantasy world, and so happen to wake up one morning at our ideal weight, how long can we maintain and keep that weight? Will we take care of ourselves or slip back into our old habits?

Searching for a "Real" Love

How about this “perfect” companion that we all desire? We see couples who look happy and we may wish to have that same companion in our lives. But do we know the personal sacrifice it takes to maintain and keep them? Do we know what it takes to maintain a healthy, lasting relationship?

Do we have to be better people to want better people in our lives? Or can we remain underdeveloped and demand a developed person in our lives?

If we are not willing to endure everything it takes to get the things we desire, and if we don’t want to endure everything it takes to keep the things we desire, then do we really want it?

Sacrifice- Destruction of Something In Turn For Something Else

If we want better lives, better relationships, better jobs, better friends or whatever it is that we want, we may have to give up something.

And by giving up something we may feel like we're suffering...

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. Romans 5:3-4

We may have to give up something that we’re attached to that may be stopping us from getting what we want.

Attitude=Altitude

We do get back what we dish out. Whether we give out goodness or evil to others, it comes back to us.

It took a long time for me to admit that I had to make an attitude adjustment. I used to look at everyone else as the problem but never myself as the main ingredient. In turn, If I want to go high in life, I have to be dedicated to develop into a better person overall.

What if someone had to teach and guide us on how to be better? Would we allow someone to help us, if they knew where to take us?

Did these people just wake up in "green pastures"or did they accept help? 

Did they get help from trainers, family or friends, who challenged and helped to build them?

Are we humble enough to accept guidance? Do we know who can give us right guidance? 

It'll be nice to consider these things the next time we compare ourselves to others whose shoes we'd like to be in.

 

Nyema

Menu of Life- You Get Back What You Dish Out

“Honor thy mother and father, that thy days be long upon this earth”

When my mom would recite this scripture, I thought one day God would strike me dead with a lightning bolt any moment of rebelling against her.

 I imagined that God had a quota of how many times children were allowed to back talk. So if my limit was 100 remarks, and I made it to 101, I needed to seek shelter immediately!

Experience has taught me that I had a very silly understanding.

 In fact, the manner in which I treat my parent is equal to the manner I would treat anyone. If I disrespect the one who is responsible for major things like  bringing me into this world and raising me, then you will not find a friend in me. At least a good friend.

My Moral Compass

I believe it's more than the smart remarks, or the eye-rolls that I did. Even thinking the wrong thought about my parents needed to be re-directed because eventually, our thoughts graduate to actions.

If I think It’s really OK to say horrible things to my mother or father just for the sake of “getting this off my chest,” how could I honor any friendship or a relationship?

If I am not careful with my thoughts about my parents, then how can I be careful with anyone else? I wouldn’t get too far in life. Especially not for a lasting and prosperous relationship.

Lesson- Our parents are people just like us and  if we are blessed with children, we would come to understand exactly what it feels like...

Surely man is ungrateful

In the Bible and Holy Quran, there are many statements about humans being ungrateful. It took me a long time to understand that we behave just like the people in our scriptures. Human pattern of behavior is no different no matter if it's 100B.C or 2015...

For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy. 2 Timothy 3:2

Disobedient to parents!!??? Why would you say that Timothy??

Why are the ones who love you the most are the ones you hurt the worse?

As a result of having this disposition toward my parents, I will not be grateful for anything or anyone.
I used to think: "Well this is my parent, this is what they're supposed to do..." Where's the gratitude in that?"

These wrong ideas strip away the humility from our hearts stitch by stitch.

Humble: Having or showing a modest or low estimate of ones own importance. Not proud or arrogant.

Am I someone who people love to be around?

If I am not humble, I can potentially be a trouble-source in every relationship and not even know it.

My average relationship will last no more than a year, after the person discovers how selfish I am. OR I will start to draw people around me who behaves exactly like myself.

I will constantly be in need and not willing to give anything.


I will have shallow relationships

Then life will be in this constant cycle of trial after trial, because of me.

It’ll show up at the workplace and everywhere I turn.

I will blame other people for my behavior and never be able to look at myself in the mirror.
 

Honor thy mother and father, that thy days be long upon this earth..
 

Started From the Cradle

I will never forget . One day when I was 6 years old, I said something mean to my mother and she bust open the door and showed me this huge scar on her stomach.

 “This is what I went through for you.. Do you see this scar?”

“Yes, maam” I said. It was the scar from her Cesarean section.

“I brought you into this world and you will not disrespect me because I am your mother!”

22 years later I understand why she did that. How ungrateful for me to ever forget where I came from.

When I couldn’t clothe myself, bathe myself, feed myself, or change my own diaper.

How soon do we forget who was there for us when we were nothing?

How could I be this ungrateful and expect to be successful in my relationships?

Ungrateful: forgetfulness of or poor return for kindness received

How kind is it to have someone carry us in their wombs for 9 months and deliver us to life?

Reality

 I will get everything back that I put out, if I don’t change. Because it’s not OK to treat people any kind of way and expect to want a good life.

Honor thy mother and father that thy days be long upon this earth.

Honor: A feeling or understanding that someone or something is important, serious etc. and should be treated in an appropriate way.

Lessons learned while living and learning :)

Nyema

 

Attitude = Altitude

Smile
When your heart is aching

Smile
When your heart is breaking

Though there are clouds in the sky
You'll get by

Because that's the time you must keep on smiling

Smile.... What's the use of crying?

You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just.....

Smile

Thank you Michael Jackson

Girl-Fight

I’ve never been a fighter.

I’ve never woke up in the morning with fighting on my mind.

The thing about fighting is that you want to win. I honestly was never confident that I would win fights, because I thought only mean people knew how to fight, not nice people. Naturally, I was a nice person, I grew up watching Disney movies and sing-alongs', but once I moved to a new environment at the age of 7, I met trouble.

In my neighborhood where I grew up, I was surrounded by “bad a*@#s” who would shadow box with each other day in and day out. I learned that the “windmill” was for punks who didn’t know how to fight.  If someone was staring at you, they need to stop, so you shoot them a mean mug. The people who always fought were the ones who walked with authority in their step. They talked the loudest in the groups and everyone followed them. Their mothers would allow them to do whatever they wanted and they were allowed to walk to the other neighborhoods. I always had to ask. I had to stay in front of the house. I couldn’t go too far. But when I was allowed to “walk” I wanted to soak in everything it was about. So I studied and wanted to mirror the females I walked with.

“Walking” was like going to the club. When it was time to “walk” all the girls would go in the house and take a shower and put on the best wardrobe they had. Pro-style gel was like crack. And the ponytail with the gelled “swoop” in the front had to always be crispy.  We all planned our outfits, and everyone had to have their hair the same way. The girls in my neighborhood always competed with girls from the other neighborhood and it was all about “mean-mugging” whoever wasn’t a part of our group. We talked about people as we walked, laughed at people as we walked. We cursed, we talked about boys, we were independent. So we thought.

I always argued with a young lady because she used to always talk about my weight. For some time I used to ignore her because I was naturally a peaceful person. And I honestly was scared of her. One day we were around other people and they started instigating. I would say that 99.9 % of my fights were brought up by instigators. Some of them were my friends who would tell me behind closed doors that I shouldn’t allow this girl to call me names.

One day we were outside and she started on me.  I told the girl to “shut up”. “Shut-Up” meant fighting words… and I had to back it up. So she got in my face and we ended up fighting. I really don’t think I won, because she still wanted to fight me afterwards, and we fought and fought for years. The last fight, we ever had, I knew she won because I let go of her as she kept popping me in my head telling me to let her hair go. (embarrassing right?) But the point is that I really didn’t want to fight this girl. It was nothing inside of me telling me to fight her. She just had a big mouth. But in this “town”, this was grounds for fighting. In my eyes, I just thought “whatever”. But how many people have been killed because of a dispute that could have been ignored?

I find it funny that the only fight I was proud of was the last fight I ever had with another girl. This fight, I knew I was standing up for a principle. This wasn’t something that anyone had to push me to do. It was something that cooked in my spirit. I loved my mother and this female, overstepped her boundaries one too many times.

After this fight, the girl never disrespected my mother again. I was 13 at this time and I was pretty much made into a “drama queen” but this was a fight that I was very, very sure about. Because anyone who went against your “Mom” that was a death wish, where I was from.

And I think that this gives way to fighting for a cause. If you have instigators around or people rooting you on from the sidelines, pushing you to fight, then your fight is really in vain. It’s not really “your” fight as you wish to believe. The will to fight, really starts from within. It has to be some real principles backing it up.

Nowadays I wonder what do people really fight for? What is the good fight, they talk about in spirituality? Not just fist fighting, but anything that we go after.

99.9% of the fights I mentioned earlier were from people on the sidelines telling me to fight. That’s a big difference than wanting to fight from within.

But I also don’t think that self-motivated fights are all justified fights either. We see evidence of that on the 11:00pm news every day.

We all fight for something in this life. Yes. But  it starts with the will to take a stand and fight, but I am trying to understand this deeper.

The reason I spent a lot of time on my environment above was because I believe that in the projects, it’s really a “project”. There are a set of rules and standards that are taught to the people who live there.

“Don’t let anybody punk you”

“You gotta be hard”

I don’t know about the boys’ world, but with the girls’, it was a jungle. Anybody who went against those rules above, had to be dealt with. There were more pointless rules that were promoted; it’s survival of the fittest. It’s a jungle. It’s learned behaviors. We searched for drama when we walked outside, we took everything to the highest degree. If the tone of your voice was wrong as you spoke, you had to get checked. 

Drama was expected.

I carried on this mindset when I moved at the age of 14, and I took it with me everywhere I went. I kept them in my relationships with everyone I came in contact with. And it’s still hard to break free from this attitude. As I reflect, I’m 99% sure that most of the conflicts I have, come from the fights and pointless arguments I had growing up. I won’t even entertain the public school communities and those rules on top of the “project” rules.

But I know that there is a fight out there that I need to pick up that is more valuable than the pointless things I entertain now. I believe there’s a fight for a true principle. When I see disunity, injustice and hatred in our world, I know that there is a fight that’s not being taken up. But do I care enough to fight for it? Is it a fight someone has to force me to fight because I’m comfortable? If the fight is not in me, how do I develop the compassion? And more importantly, how can I let go of the old style thinking to adopt a better style of thought?

This is as far as I can go for now. 

Don't Take It Personal... Or Yes?

I was walking pass some teenage sistas today and I smiled at them and said "Hi!". Two of them spoke and the third just mean mugged me and kept walking....

I felt stupid... I felt like I should have just kept my mouth shut... after all I don't know these girls....

First I thought it was me... Maybe  I need to return "evil for evil" .... Mean mug her back?

But then I thought deeper. And I continued to smile.. I felt a little like I got punked out but whatever....

9 out of 10 times when these type of encounters happen... It's never something that the "offended" should take personal.

Because I know when Ive been stressed out... The ones closest to me get the results of my stress...

How do we respond to others when we are in a depressed state of mind?    Or when stress befalls us?

Do we respond to people different when we are blessed with some good news or a good experience?

Could this lead to the answer to "Why the rate of crime is so high in the black community? And all over the nation?"

Though I can't take it personal, should I take responsibility to do something about this problem?


Thoughts?

Poison

Pretty girls love being called "pretty"

Even though they do believe so themselves... It's not enough.

Underneath...Their lives are so incomplete.

Pretty girls love to make the boys stare

So they make sure they do something pretty to their face, body and hair

And they are still so incomplete.

But every girl wants to be "pretty"

Pretty girls are the prize

And parade ourselves in search for the the most competitive guy

If he shows her how much he thinks she is beautiful

The bigger his show, the further she'll go

Pretty girls are really the saddest ones

The ones who cause the most pain

Because most of their existence lives in vain

Pretty hurts

And is less of a blessing and more of a curse

In another part of the world.. Every boy wants that pretty girl

And since they are never on guard Pretty girls... Are never careful

They're just looking for who can give them the most earful

So love and lust become interchangeable

And boy and girl are both incomplete in the  end...
And an opportunity for true friendship never stood a chance

But we all continue to strive, ride and die for  pretty ... Which is truly a disguise.

Pretty Is a Ugly Truth

And is that bitter sweet potion that will put a spell  on you