Feel Like A Million Bucks! Love Yourself!

I have been selling myself short for a long time and I know many people out there have been too. If you are good enough for yourself, you will never need to be good enough for anyone else. Many of us work our arses off trying to please others. Literally bending over backwards to please other people, trying to meet other people standards. Most people do this because they don’t believe they are good enough. It is a lack of self esteem and self confidence that drives you to try and meet other people’s expectations while you set non for yourself. Just a thought, imagine if you took the time to make yourself a better person, work hard enough to be the best you can be….would you ever need to try and meet other people’s standards where yours are sky high?! 

I know it’s a hard knock life out here, sometimes it gets a little cloudy when people do not seem to appreciate you and you feel like you’re losing your worth. In a bid to try and get the attention and appreciation, you act out by trying to be what others want you to be. You end up buying drinks you shouldn’t be buying and wearing clothes you shouldn’t be wearing just so someone can look at you twice and tell you that you look good. Am sure we have all heard a girl say, ‘my guy loves it when I wear short skirts’. I do appreciate the effort to make those who are close to your happy but it doesn’t mean that you have to freeze your legs out just to make others smile.

Being you, and I do mean the best of you, will not only get you the appreciation that you truly deserve but also the self confidence that you need not to seek affection from others but to love yourself. 

I know one of the biggest vices of seeking approval and attention from others is lying. Lying about who you are, where you come from and a mirage of other things. Lying leaves you on the edge, uncomfortable and vulnerable and whether the truth ever comes up or not, no one will ever truly appreciate you on a lie. You will always have to watch your back and constantly dig deeper in the tunnel of lies leaving you unhappy and the lies will eat you up inside.

I vouch for focusing on YOU. You are young, with a while lifetime ahead of you, do you really want to spend it with your lips stuck on someone’s ass? Freeing yourself from the bounds of pleasing others and realizing what you can achieve will not only get you admiration but also respect and the quality of life that you want to live.

It has been said a million times before but it has never been meant as much as now, ‘Love Yourself First Before You Expect Others To Love you!’

Right on Your Sleeves

I wear my feelings on my sleeves….it’s all out there and there is nothing to be ashamed of. After many years of playing mind games and going through emotional roller-coasters, I would rather put it out there. I take my disappointments straight up like a shot of tequila and I love like big teddy bear hugs. That is what I always want to be, honest with my feelings. Keeping it real may be too overrated but I think it’s the best way to through life…know what is coming your way.

I won’t lie; I do know how to hide feelings. There are so many crushes that I have had and never flinched at the sight of that person. But I think hiding feelings is like hiding a bad cough…uncomfortable and torturous. I know why people hide feelings, fear of disappointment and failure. But I think you lose either way, if you don’t express how you feel.

Recently I have been on a streak of disappointments from friends and those who claim to be close to me. But I believe wearing my feelings on my sleeves has helped me get through it. If I let you know how I feel and you openly do not reciprocate my feelings, at least I will know I am not wasting my time with someone who doesn’t want to be with me. Wouldn’t you feel betrayed if you found out the one person who thought loved you was just wearing a façade of feelings for you? I know I would. 

Being open about how I feel has brought me through a lot of situations. I have had great victories as well; I have found true friends, gotten a lot of my chest and also realized the friends that I do not need. I would rather be alone than live a life surrounded by fake emotions. I have managed to wean out those who feel nothing for me and kept the real friends, friends who I know where I stand with no pretending.

I know the worst bout of hidden feelings usually come up in relationships. People would rather be honest with friends and strangers about how they feel rather than that one person who they feel something about. Heartbreak is a fear that has driven apart so many people who would have been great together. I wonder why people just can’t relax and feel the way they feel. 

Liberation comes with honesty, being honest with yourself will help you nurse heartbreak much faster than being in denial about it. I hope I will always be honest with myself….wear my feelings on my sleeves and get a thick skin against all the disappointments that come my way….for me, life is too short to live in a bubble of lies.

TC! :-*

Too Much Sparing of The Rod and the Children are Rotten!

Am all African no doubt. My skin is a good shade of chocolate (I think) and as far back as I can trace my lineage; my family is all made of authentic Africans. You know what being African has meant to all children born before the 90s? You’re supposed to keep your emotions and feelings to yourself, obey the rules of the land and keep moving on no matter what happens. People only knew that feelings matter after watching western family drama clips where children were given time out for doing wrong. As far as I know, breaking something meant a back hand slap across your face that would send you sprawling on the floor followed by continuous death threats in case of any future discrepancies…

So what’s with the new generation of African children who wants to talk about feelings and emotions all the time? talking about ‘my parents are not there for me so that’s why I rebel, drink and start having sex at a young age’. When I was small my parents were not there for me either because they had to work and feed us. At least parents nowadays give their children phones and money to keep them busy while they are at work. 

When I was small, my parents used to lock the house when they left and left us to play outside until they got back from work so we wouldn’t mess it up. Lucky kids nowadays can call their parents and ask them when they are coming home. During my childhood, the position of the sun told you mum was about to get home….let along the days when she was late and we all thought she wasn’t coming home but had no option than to sit at the doorstep and wait for her.

Kids nowadays are way too spoilt, have no respect for anyone and are too ill mannered. Have you seen the tantrums that children as old as 13 throw in the supermarket when they want something? My mum had a death glare…just before you touched something in that isle; you look up to her to see if she was watching you and she gave you that death glare…. No need to say what it meant!

I think children nowadays have not been taught what being content and grateful is all about. When I was a child I had one doll at any one time. This doll got into so many accidents…it lost an arm and a leg and I still played with it. The day I convinced by mum it was finally dead…its head fell off. All this time I wouldn’t dare ask for another doll….maybe borrow my sister’s every once in a while, but I kept my doll until I actually deserved a new one. 

The only way to deal with the menace that is the children of today is to restore the morbid fear that children used to have of their parents. Children should be whopped to put their arses back in their place. It was no mistake that it was even written in the Bible, ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’. It makes no sense grounding a kid or sending them to their room where there is a phone, a computer and a speedy internet connection among other electronics.  These kids should be beaten till they can taste the blood in their mouth when they go misbehaving… the old fashioned way. 

Now I know this issue raises a lot of controversy since some parents torture their children in the name of discipline. That’s plain wrong in any decade I have lived in. but if beating is not the answer then let me see you come up with anothe way to get these kids back in line!

I Will Probably Be Publicly Shot For This.. :D

Earlier in my series of rants, I wrote an article about being fat and whether it was actually fierce. Not known to many of you is that I actually fall under that category of what the socially stuck up would call “Fat”. Strange I know… but am far from a hypocritical arse who would bash others for a condition that we both suffer from. However, fact of the matter is that I am not a sufferer of weight. This is the point where I believe I take on the supreme role of telling all you self righteous pricks off and actually drawing the line on what is fat and what is fierce.

First of all, I believe that no matter how bony or agile you are, you have no right to discriminate other people for body mass. On the other hand, all you chunky lazy asses should pick yourselves up and walk a little! That far, I think I have already confused a number of you on what I am actually talking about. Therefore I will proceed to give you a list of myths and facts about body weight that may or may not have scientific proof but basically based on my own coined conclusions and thoughts!

• • First fact is that there are different levels of chunky. There are people who are really fat and others are just curvy, plain and simple. Get the difference people because the next person who calls me fat….I will drop my plate of cake and stab them with my fork! People who actually work on a curvy body rather than let go of themselves and act as a better advert mascot for Michelin tyres deserve a little more credit don’t you think?
• • Now theirs is a myth told by fat people that I really have to point out….it’s in my genes! This is one of the most commonly told lie by fat people and will basically send them to hell. I also used to be a victim of this “it’s in my genes” illusion until I had a reality check, got myself into the gym and lost a good 16 kilos to the curvaceous beauty that I am now. I do agree that genes play a huge role in size; however, once you realize that you fall in the danger zone, you have to put a little extra effort to stay healthy as compared to other people. I run( if something is chasing me) and I try to eat right(…if not right now!). Sitting back and letting your genes do the driving will lead you to thunderous crash!
• • Not all fat people eat a lot to become fat! Am sure all of your righteous skinny pricks at one point or another have seen a fat person buying cake in the supermarket and thought to yourself “she does not need that cake, isn’t she full already?” you unlearned villains should know that being fat can also be caused by a high metabolism whereby and individual may eat the same amount of food as you do but still end up with love handles. This is why people with high metabolism are encouraged to keep a high activity level lest they fall victim to the taunts of bony bullies.
• • Many people who are overweight (as the politically correct language) or fat in simple terms are encouraged to love themselves, develop a thick skin and ignore what other people say about them… a whole lot of hogwash I say! I think being bullied as a fat person is the universe’s way of communicating to you that you are unhealthy, at risk of not only being socially awkward but also dying from a disease caused by the excessive fat in your system. Get healthy, get concerned about your future, whether you will be able to walk in the next couple of years or need a handy forklift around.

If you have noticed so far, I have ventured into the best of both worlds, I am against bullying and picking on fat people as much as I am against fat people fooling themselves that they are okay. What I am trying to create is a balance between the two worlds which is actually me (note: I am blowing my own trumpet here). I do relate and sympathize with people who have weight issues but I also believe that no one should be a slave to what their digestive system chooses to do with every plate of food they down. It is not even a social issue as much as it is a health issue. I encourage all people to live and eat healthy and I tell all these scrawny bullies (that I can easily snap into two) to back off before the fat people get angry. They are not only bigger than you but also have years of bullying locked up that they can choose to let out on your skinny arses!

Disclaimer: the author of this article wishes to be exempted from all hurt feelings or cracked ribs caused by this article. I am only concerned about what I write, what you understand is none of my business.

TC!

My Two Cents Worth!

I often share most of my thoughts about stuff beginning with a disclaimer of how much I really don’t know about life (it’s a ridiculous paradox and I have no idea where I picked it up from!). I have been a victim of the phrase “I may not know a lot about life but….” Well, now I think that phrase is utterly useless to me. Sigmund Freud is the father of psychoanalysis and he came up with Oedipus complex which basically states that if someone messes you up sexually as a child, you are going to be a messed up adult!

Now, hold your horses there cowboy, don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate the milestones that Freud has helped us achieve in understanding human behavior. But all he did was put two and two together and come up with facts that already existed. I think what made him great is the breakdown of the complex into particulate aspects (I can’t do that).

So now I believe that I also do know a thing or two about life, and putting together a few basic facts and aspects of human behavior, I may not be as good as Sigmund, but here’s my two cents worth!

• You know how they usually say “common sense is not common”? Well, every sound minded human being has levels of intelligent as much as the next guy in the bus. However. Utilizing these sense it a choice that many people decide not to opt for. Choosing to use a spoon to spread margarine on your loaf instead of a butter knife is too simple of an example as compared to expecting other people to love you when you don’t love yourself!

• In your lifetime, there is one person who is perfect for you. A person whose qualities perfectly match and complement yours. You will Never meet this person. Therefore you need to work with what you’ve got. Create your own paradise and make it work. I hate it when people say true love is not supposed to be hard work, it’s supposed to come easy and all those other lies that people tell themselves so that they don’t have to put any effort in relationship. It’s pretty simple, if you want to enjoy the pork chops, you have to earn the money to buy the house and the kitchen and the pots and pans where you will cook them from!

• People don’t know where you came from, the hood or wherever! So don’t expect people to treat you like they had the whole previous night to cram your personal history file. Next time I hear someone use that phrase “don’t judge me! You don’t know where I came from…” by jolly I will……….!!!What people know about you is what you give to them. Therefore, if you want people to respect you, be a respectable person, if you want people to understand that you are a strong willed person, will your way to their hearts. Besides, where you come from is not the issue…where you are going is what we are looking at.

• Oh and don’t get me started on men and women equality issues! Unless men start breastfeeding and women grow balls, there will never be equality. What people need to adapt to is equity. There is quite a significant line between equity and equality. Equality is trying to accord exactly the same opportunity to the two which never works cause men and women have such different emotional build. However, equity refers to giving credit where its due and offering equal opportunity and resource to the different niches that each person exist in. therefore men should bow down to women for giving birth and women should appreciate that men take out the trash…

• Finally if you’re looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right you must be out of your mind! Perfect does not exist….case example? Fairy tales! The best way to learn that it can never be perfect, one princess kisses a frog and a man falls in love with a woman who is half a fish! The point is that special person will never be perfect, but when you accept them for who they are, their inner beauty is revealed to you. The frog turned into a handsome prince didn’t he?


Ah the feeling of liberation right from my gut telling me to share my two cents is frothing from within… or it could just be gas. Either way, watch out for more!

TC!

The Manslater: (Woman Language Translator)

I couldn't resist sharing this! I do agree we need this gadget!

HOME ALONE! The Revelation

Remember the 1990 film that every 90s and 80s kid watched a million times “Home alone”? You know that great feeling that you get when you are home alone, and you get the chance to do everything you have always been told not to do, touch everything that you aren’t supposed to touch? Well, you would know that feeling if you were a ten year old!

However, am 22 now and home alone, but I cannot help it but feel that same urge to venture into the unknown. Not the same as Kevin McCallister discovering the basement, but all this free time has given me an opportunity to uncover things that I hadn’t before.

Well the revelations that I have experience since my holiday started came after a series of time wasting activities. I tried cooking, cleaning, washing and watching! Even took a million photos at every imaginable angle, put my phone recorder to some good use and ran my own singing talent show (I sang Adele ‘Someone Like You’ ). In fact, I believe the only thing that kept me sane is my work writing online content articles.



Every morning when my mum and my sister leave for work and I have a clean 10 hours to spend alone, my mind just goes into this deep realm of thought. I think about my future both in the short term and long term future. I also think about my past and how far I have come. I don’t have a certain scale which I can use to rank my progress, but I think am doing well.

When I was young, my holidays were spent hanging out with friends, eating and sleeping. But now, my hours of sleep have been slashed down to a bare minimum, my friends are all engaged and well eating doesn’t bring the same amount of soul satisfaction that it used to. My holidays are now spent thinking of how to make money, how to Not relax, how to keep busy!

Being home alone has brought me great revelations. It’s funny how this 3 week holiday has led me to completely change my game plan for life….I feel like it’s been ages! But I have been home alone for only two weeks. Soon I will have to get back to work, and I think I finally realize the use of this short break.

A holiday is supposed to bring pace you down when life’s speeds are moving too fast( before the holiday started I was a full time student working a part time job to keep my wallet bulging), it’s supposed to give you time to reroute if need be, evaluate progress and forge on with renewed strength. I can’t say I wasted my first two weeks of being home alone(all those activities just helped me to relax), but now that I know the true purpose of this holiday, I can use the few remaining days to wisely fulfill its purpose.
TC!

To Be or Not To Be? Decisions Decisions.....

I am not an expert in life matters, heck I have no documented qualifications to give any advice about life matters to anyone. However, all that I speak, I derive from what I see, from what I feel and from what my heart and my mind dictates to me. I think that is the perfect definition of an ‘opinion’ of which each and every human being is entitled to. In my writing, I get so immersed in the point that am trying to put across that sometimes I think I sound like a blabbering idiot. My mind operates on overdrive and I go at it like an athlete on steroids. All in all I try to keep on track and I only hope that someone out there understands me, or can make sense of what I say. With that said, I take this opportunity to warn you that the following might be the worst bout or most confusing of my creative rants!

Making choices is what life is all about and a common feature in many of my rants. At any point in life, someone is making a decision for someone else, making their own decisions or having decisions made for them. All the above scenarios can be at any stage of life, whether gown up or just a child. Decisions still have to be made.
Don’t we wish there was some huge guide book from the powers to be where we could all refer before making any decision? Some place where we could go to check is the decision we are to make is right or wrong. Why is that? Why do we always need to seek approval before making a choice? Seeking advice from friends and family, asking GOD?
We try to convince ourselves that we do this in order to make the best choice, to beat the odds. This is where it really gets twisted….. I chose to disagree! I think we seek approval in making decision in order to have someone to blame if we make the wrong choice and quite rarely someone to thank if it is the right one.
Decisions are all about benefits or consequences. That is why they are called decision, there are many options to choose from and not all of them are beneficial to us. Picking one thing may shift the whole equilibrium as opposed to choosing the other. And when it goes bad, we are really in trouble.
No one will ever come up with a formula that we can use to derive the odds or probability for making the right choice. Wrong choices are made every day and there is nothing much we can do about it. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying one should not seek help in making decisions. All I am saying is that we should be ready for the outcome, ready to stand up for the choices we make, ready to take the triumph or the fall for it regardless.
Here’s my little tip/opinion about making a choice, a decision in life. There is an innate instinct in all of us towards right or wrong, many have come up with names for it….free will? Either way, we all know what is right and what is wrong, even though sometimes we pretend we don’t. I gather that we should always listen to that small voice (not that I have voices in my head or anything!) that tells us to do what is right. Fear of opposition, failure or ridicule is always real, but when you make the right choice, trust me the universe will always have respect for that. It may take a day, a month or years but you will still earn the respect for the right choices you make…….
XoXo!

FAIRY TALES

Social websites are the plague of today’s generation….. People spend hours on the net missing out on bumping into their future ex girlfriends at the park 
Getting right into it, social networking sites have greatly affected the currents society’s overview of love, relationships and heartbreak.

Facebook and Twitter are the main culprits where people instantly fall in love with profile pictures that have been airbrushed by Photoshop applications, but only after being taken in the precisely chosen lighting and from the best side of the face of course…..

Newbies in the social websites may not have the same expertise in dealing with the constant flirting and we’ll booty calls so to say. The following are some of the most absurd things I have noticed about social sites that makes people disillusioned about love, sex and heartbreak:

1. Commenting on my posts automatically makes me think you’re interested in me, except if we are blood related.

2. Long inbox threads or TL conversations count as “getting to know each other”
3. A hot profile means she/he is the one.

4. Asking to hook up means we have had enough time to know each other online and we can probably trust each other enough to call it a relationship and copulate!

5. If another person flirts with your online crush…..hehe… this means war!

I wonder how we can get over this sort fairly tail mentality

where Mr. Right now is meant to fall right into your laps from God knows where or….adds you as a friend. Laying claim to a person that you have never met before when most probably ten other people.

There are certain facts that people need to know: profile pictures can be edited, statuses can be quoted from poems, books or songs and the internet is not the place to be looking for love or any other kind of affection for that matter.
However I will give it to those people who have made realistic relationships from social sites. However these relationships where built on something far more beyond the keyboard, a screen and a good internet connection.

Am also concerned about the general safety of anyone who plans to meet with a stranger that they met off the net, criminals and sociopaths take advantage of the vulnerability of individuals to commit crimes and much worse than those heinous crimes is the risk of infections with STIs. *drops mic*