I recently found myself noticing that every September for a while now, I had been undergoing some life altering scenarios and inevitably I would survive these thrust upon needs for change by going with whatever the universe gave me to do, rather than choosing my path and forging a new way of doing things. I initially noticed it, thought it was interesting, but had soon forgotten it because it wasn’t based off of any empirical data. It was just something that seemed true, and seemed like a interesting cycle.
A few days went by from that enlightenment, and I found myself getting weird friend requests from people who were friends of friends on Facebook but not people I actually knew. Well one of these friend requests led me to search that person’s profile and I was shocked and intrigued by what I saw. This young lady had on her profile about 10 different social media outlets and expressions of leaving her mark, to include the usual suspects of Instagram, Twitter, and a couple of YouTube pages, but she also had a Shopify page, a LinkedIn page, a couple of adult website pages, as well as a Blogspot page. Each one of those pages had been used at some point in the recent past unless the page had been closed because the platform was no longer in use. But what I immediately noticed about it all, was that here is someone putting her hands to do something or some things in order to cast a big enough net to garner her success. It was like she was leaving no stone unturned, and as the Bible states in Ecclesiastes 11:6 (AMP) “ Sow your seed in the morning and do not be idle with your hands in the evening, for you do not know whether morning or evening planting will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both alike will be good.” It was the biggest “Aha moment” I could’ve received. Here is this woman putting her hands to the work on whatever mode she could get her hands on and not only was she working these platforms, but she was also doing it diligently.
Next, I found myself going to her blog pages just to get an idea of the type of content she was creating, and once again I was not only inspired by what I read, but I was simultaneously embarrassed and challenged to get off of my privileged, entitled ass and do something. From reading her blogs, I saw someone who didn’t get hung up on being perfect. Instead, I was introduced to a young lady who was hungry for success, and she wasn’t going to allow some grammatical errors or some damn spelling errors to stop her from sharing her voice and planting her seeds of possibility. Most of what I read was difficult to read from the scholastic or dialectical perspective, but for what it was, I appreciated it. It was her. It was raw, uncut emotion and expression of who she was. I could immediately see “Her”, and concurrently envied how she had found “her voice” and wasn’t afraid to use it.
Here I was. A man with so much confidence and pride in my intellect, wisdom, and discernment but yet all those things I believed I had were being shown, in that instance, to be a lie, a farce. For all of the things I claimed or believed I had to offer the world, the one thing I sorely lacked was the courage to do it. I looked at that young ladies body of work and wondered to myself, “What the hell are you doing Kevin?” Here I sit on all of this intellect and opportunity, and yet I do nothing. I drain my time with frivolity and idleness and then renew that belief about myself, or should I rather say, that false narrative about myself, that I could do anything if I wanted to but that was a lie. Because there was one thing that I couldn’t do, and that one thing had the biggest ramification on the trajectory of my life, and that was: I couldn’t create more time. I just couldn’t. I realized right then that all I could do was redeem the time that I had been given NOW and allow the chances, circumstances, and serendipities of life to sort themselves out.
My tasks had finally become clear. My job was for me to put my hands to the plow and work fastidiously in my own garden until my harvest was fulfilled, which led me to scan once again the long list of things this young lady was doing and I subsequently landed on her blogspot link. It was upon seeing this link one more time that I realized that I too had a Blogspot page, which is now known as Blogger.com and I became aware that I had been neglecting my own self-expression for the past 9 years if not the majority of my life. I have no idea why I abandoned it for as long as I did other than maybe it was procrastination, or fear, or underestimating the value of what I had to offer, but nevertheless the act of self-sabotage had been done. So as I opened up my own Blogger page, I was led to one of my first ever posts that was written almost 12 years prior to the day in September. As I reread what I had written so long ago, I actually was mildly shocked by what I read. I was only mildly shocked because, like I mentioned earlier, I had already become aware of the cycle and pattern I had fallen victim to, or that I even brought on myself, but this time I had the evidence right there staring me in my face in black and white. That post from September 28, 2012 placed me right back at the same point I found myself at currently at. Back then as it was now, I needed to make a decision to change. I had to stop doubting my worthiness and abilities, as well as stopping the procrastination behind doing the work necessary to make that change. However, this time I had history and my personal experiences on my side. Reading that blog post was a stark realization that if I didn’t make the necessary changes now, I may never make them. Without making those changes I knew right then that my life would be an ultimate failure and tragedy. Not because I lacked the right upbringing, or because I didn’t have the resources to make things happen, or I lacked the intellect to execute towards my success, but rather because of fear, pride , and cockiness that tomorrow is promised. And as most people who have lived through this Coronavirus pandemic, then you know that life beyond today needs to be handled with care and purposefulness. I now see that life is delicate, unpredictable, and even dangerous just to be breathing, but it doesn’t have to be hopeless and fearful. TODAY is the gift I got when that young lady sent me that friend request. It was the gift of making the most of “Today”. Some say that tomorrow isn’t promised and for the most part that’s true, but a better tomorrow is within grasp if you only learn to appreciate, respect, and love the shit out of Living Today!
