The frustration and annoyance continues… the same feelings, and the same questions. Here I am again. I am faced with another test of my patience and I… I am definitely failing. Again. When am I going to get it right? Will I ever get it right?

Do you ever wonder why you keep facing the same challenges no matter where you go? You can’t run fast enough from them. You just can’t get away. Do you wonder why you’re getting upset at the same things? Because you haven’t learned. Just like me.

I have been going through this internal battle for years. I mean since I was in high school. The same thing I’d get my butt whooped for. It’s just funny because I keep being faced with the same challenge. God is really pushing me to the limit with this and won’t stop until I get it.

The challenge is learning to be patient. I struggle terribly with having patience and more tolerance. In fact, in this chaotic and inconsiderate world… I think it’s wearing thinner these days and honestly, I am scared. I’m scared that I won’t get it and I won’t learn from these people and situations that keep testing me in these areas. And I will keep failing. FOREVER.

I had a moment last week. I probably get these moments every week ha. One of those flustered spells I go on every once in a while. Basically irritable with things that are not organized and moving too slow for me. I hate wasting time and while being a hustler is a good thing, it’s has it’s downfalls too. I have to learn that things don’t move on my time. And the whole reason I came up with this post is because I realized for a person to make progress, to pass these lessons, they must recognize what these lessons are to begin with. Are you getting what I’m saying? What’s your lesson?

Be honest with yourself. What is it that bothers you or that keeps breaking you every time you encounter it? Dig deep, take your blinders off and take a clear look. There are different challenges at different points in our lives. We’re never going to stop being challenged. God has a way of putting these things in place and we are strong enough to get through them. I am strong enough.

(Why I won’t kill my dreams for my not-so dream job.)

If you just pause and think about at least 95% of the human population, what do we all have in common? Well, most people have a job they hate. They wake up “half-dead” twenty-five years later, wondering where all the time went — Not me.

As many of you know, I graduated from college December of 2018. I was “fortunate” enough to land a job offer before I even walked across the stage. I didn’t think six months later into the job I would feel the way I did — empty.

You know you can’t fully understand something until you have experienced it. I would hear all my adult friends, cousins, and family members talk about work with bitter, tired looks on their aging faces. They’d talk about “being an adult and doing what you have to do.” I experienced it in a way I never did before. You know what all of us had in common? We hated our jobs. But from the looks of it, everybody hates their jobs, it’s normal.

BUT WHY ISN’T ANYONE DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT? 

I was beating myself up over this for months. I cried to my fiancé at the time, mom, best friends, and whoever had ears! I just couldn’t believe that was what adulthood was supposed to be like. I had a hard time grasping being unhappy with my career so soon. I remember asking myself, is something wrong with me or am I just having issues adjusting after college? There were days I walked into the office and thought how can these people just sit in this cubicle, slowly, silently dying, for eight hours, every day? Letting the most exciting events of their day be between the lines of clicking and dragging their mouse or running to the break room to get their printouts? It was soul-crushing.

It got worse and worse. I cried more and more. I drank more and more. I complained more and picked fights with my (now) husband because I came home mad. I gradually felt myself going crazy.

I saw the hard truth try to wrap itself around me and swallow me whole. I see so many people work and work to have nothing to show for it but regret. I can’t help but feel it’s not supposed to be this way. This is not the way God wanted our lives to be. That wasn’t even the way I want my life to be. Sometimes I pause and take a good look around and completely dissect my surroundings. I spend a few moments out of my day feeding off of energy and vibes. I did the same thing in that corporate office. The things my coworkers didn’t say, the things my adult friends and family wish they’d done years ago, I see them. They are like ghosts. At work, I heard all these people’s souls helplessly crying out for happiness without them even saying a word. I heard their dreams quickly fading away into the abyss of the forgotten. I heard it in their laugh, their sighs, and I decided that I would not be one of them. I will not be next. I will not wake up thirty years later wishing I had done something different. 

One day I had enough… I decided I wasn’t going to work for someone else’s dream and just forget about mine. I wasn’t going to suffer any longer.

Why do we push off our dreams to work at stressful jobs or jobs we don’t even enjoy? Why do we let it impact our health, relationships, our happiness? You know that dream of owning your own business, being a singer, artist, doctor, or whatever it is that you are chasing after work hours? Do you have any hidden talents that could make a career? Why don’t you make that your job, your actual full-time job? Why do we not work our dream jobs? Instead, we trade in our dreams. It’s the same answer to all of those questions: WORK!

I noticed something else too. There is a negative perception about leaving a job. There’s an unsaid “No-no” or taboo when saying “this job is not for me. I don’t see myself growing here. This isn’t what I want to do.” But why? Why do we shame people for realizing that they want a major change in their life. So many people in society just sit and take whatever they’re given. Let me put it to you this way, your role you currently work in would be posted faster than your obituary if you left your job. These companies turn down candidates and replace them like a new pair of socks. So why can’t we do the same thing – WITHOUT THE SHAME.

I know someone will throw some shade on my shine and say, it’s the millennial in you. But you don’t have to be a millennial to take responsibility and declaration over your own life! You just have to be human, you just need to know your worth. But yes, millennials are advocates for change, and let me tell you, this change is not a negative thing! Millennials have a hard time settling for less than they know they are worth. We have a hard time following all the traditional rules left behind from the generations before us. We stand up for things, the generations before were taught to sit down for. “It’s hard trying to teach an old dog new tricks.“

Look, call me crazy but I am one of those people that believe you should be happy in life.  I think work shouldn’t feel like work 100% of the time. You should be having fun, fulfilling your purpose, using your talent and not just sitting on it. You know what they say if you don’t use it, you lose it. Unfortunately, though, we’ve somehow made it a normal thing in society to work at jobs we hate just to get by. We work miserably to afford houses we don’t really stay in, cars we don’t even take on trips other than driving to work, and OH I CAN’T FORGET…bills.

There are people basically accepting payment to be angry and live miserable lives, all because of work. You are one of them, aren’t you? I bet your stomach dropped when you read that. I am calling you out because it was me.

You wanna how it feels to have left that soul-crushing job of mine? Rejuvenating, scary, and necessary.

Rejuvenating, because I felt a weight had been lifted off of me. I felt like I really found out what I want for my life. I needed a break from the deadness.

Scary, because I didn’t know what was next. I didn’t know where I was going from there or when I would truly find that job that makes me tick. However, what scared me more was staying there. I would be terrified to wake up in thirty years and realized I have wasted my whole life working somewhere I hated.

Necessary, because it was starting to take a toll on the most important things in my life, the things that actually mattered. My health, my relationship, and my well-being.

Although I don’t know what’s next, I know I’ll only go up from here. I know God has a plan for me and he has my back no matter what. If God can save my life, he can damn sure save my career. What about you, are you happy with where you are in your career?

In this video, I read a few of my favorite love poems and I end it with a poem that packed with excitement and attitude! 💓💕😘 Enjoy and leave a comment below.

UH-OH! It’s the beginning of September! There are only three more months to get our crap together before 2020. We flew passed the half-year mark of 2019 and didn’t even notice it. That went by fast didn’t it? If you didn’t read this column would you have noticed? I feel the slump season now. Everyone has a bad case of the slumps, it’s happening all around me and contagious! Do you not see it? The truth is, the gyms are empty again while the fast-food lines to Taco Bell are long. This is that time of the year, where everyone lets themselves go. While we were so caught up in life and not noticing that we are in the last quarter of the year, we forgot about something. Something very important- ourselves! But now is the most important time to remember ourselves. So we can get over this half-year slump.

Remember at the end of the last year you made some promises? You made revelations, right? Maybe that you’d get in better shape, eat healthier, stop messing with your ex-girlfriend/boyfriend, and put yourself first from now on? Whatever you promised yourself, you forgot about it. And now eight months into the year, you’ve barely made any progress if any at all. It never ends the way it starts guys.

This is the time we get lazy, we fall back into what we are used to… before we know it, the year is over. It becomes four years or ten years and you haven’t lost weight, gotten into shape, applied for that job you wanted, taken the exam to get your license, or started making better choices about who you’re dating like you promised yourself years ago. Believe me, it’ll take a toll on you sooner or later.

Guess what? I’m guilty too and we all have our own reasons why we’ve reverted back to what we knew. It’s what we’re used to. I think we don’t keep up with these revelations because life gets crazy, we become to busy for ourselves, and just forget: or the scariest reason, we start losing the people that can’t keep up. So we stop when we should really be pushing harder.

Well, it’s time to snap out of it! Give ourselves a good kick in the you know what! If you cannot get over this half-year slump, you cannot make those transitions you need to make before 2020, or before the rest of your life happens. However, you won’t actually make positive habits out of yourself if you don’t get over this slump, that’s just the truth. And these slumps happen over and over again. Period.

There is something magical happening in you right now. You’re facing adversity and tribulation because you’re so close to your goal. And if you’re wondering where God is, God is always with you but YOU need to be with YOU.

“The teacher is always quiet during the test.”

Anything worth having is worth fighting for. You did make progress, you tried, and now you have to keep trying. You’re used to giving up at this exact moment every time. These slumps, don’t just happen at this time of the year, they happen all the time but if you can get over this slump, you’ll be where you imagined. I know you’re tired… we all are tired.

What I am trying to say is that we made those revelations for a reason. We know what we wanted for ourselves and knew who we were around and what we were doing in the past, was not going to cut it. It’s important for us to remember that!

“When you want to quit, remember why you started.”

Do not let that slump defeat you! Get your act together now. Get your mind re-focused and get back on track. Don’t stop and while you’re doing that, pray about your progress so it can manifest into an actual habit, better yet, a part of you. AND SAY NO TO THE SLUMPS! Ha.