May 2010 – Write 2 Be

1. Don’t deny whatever is happening in your life, It’s not a question of whether or not life is going to hand you a surprise along the way; you will get knocked down. In a sense you do sometimes have to “fake it until you make it” but don’t fake it so much that you deny what the reality of the situation is. Facing whatever is really going on is the best step to overcoming it.

2. Be honest with yourself about how you got knocked down. Don’t try to find several reasons or someone else to blame for the position you are in. When you are honest about what brought you to the place you’re in it makes it a lot easier to pick yourself back up. Remember that when you are living through excuses, you are designing your life to repeat your wrongs.

3. Don’t be afraid to ask the right people for help. The key is asking the “right people.” When you get knocked down don’t look around you for help; look up and see those who are standing emotionally taller than you. Reach to them for help.

4. It is critical for you to find the lesson that goes with the fall. If you don’t find the lesson, you are bound to repeat the event until you do. When you are willing to face with honesty what has happened then you will see the reason for the fall and contained within that understanding is the lesson. When the lesson has been found getting up will be easier.

What we dream for our future is important. If you fail to dream no harm will be done, but then again, you really never know what you, or the world might miss if you don’t. I think that I have always had something that I dreamt I could be. From the time when I was in elementary school and had to share with the class my speech on what I wanted to be when I grew up to the time when I was grown up and realized that my dreams had changed and evolved. I was always told that my dreams were “bigger than me” and that I should shoot for something that’s “within my reach.” I never really paid attention to that, or so I thought, but over the years I’ve realized that somehow I had began to believe that to be true. I started to feel that what I wanted for my future was over-the-top and far too extravagant. But what’s wrong with going past what we first imagined could be possible? What’s wrong with not being afraid to step outside of our box of normal and concise to see the bigger picture? Is there really anything wrong with having dreams that are larger than life?

We hurt ourselves not by what we ask for, but by what we settle for. So many of us out there with goals and dreams that are larger than life are working hard and just settling for whatever gets them by. The question that I am plagued with is why is it that we just settle for ‘good enough’ instead of striving for ‘more than we could possibly imagine’? The only dreams that are even worth dreaming are those that are far greater than the life we lead. I believe that our goals in life are really just our dreams with deadlines. We set them and than we attain them but who says we have to stop and just settle. We have to realize that just because we dream something that to someone else seems too over-the-top doesn’t mean that it can’t be achieved? Why do we have to settle with the smaller dreams instead of shooting for what’s beyond our reach?

If you are going to dream, you should never be afraid to dream big because the dreams that are worthy are the dreams that challenge our limits. Why not dream the impossible and just believe that you are just the person capable enough to make those dreams a reality. Our dreams are only as distant as we make them. If we just reach out and grab them they are right there for the taking. There’s nothing wrong with having ambitions that supercede our expectations for ourselves as long as we put some action behind them and don’t just let them remain a dream that might or might not come true. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t enjoy the simple things in life that we already have and that we shouldn’t treasure every blessing that comes our way. But if we stop there, at the point of contentment, than we’re just settling and not going beyond the treasures that we are capable of grasping. The real question that we really need to ask ourselves is not are our dreams small enough to be attained, it’s are we really dreaming big enough?

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Release Date TBA)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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