Tag: Destination

Along the Way

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Along the way

Let’s talk about appreciating your journey! When you are pursuing your goals and dreams there is no telling just how long the journey will be to reach your destination. If you are low in the patience department like I am then you want more than anything for it all to come together overnight. You want to be able to map out an efficient plan, put in the action, and quickly see the rewards of all of your hard work and effort.

We can sometimes get so caught up in the end game of what our plans are that we take for granted the small victories that happen along the way. We don’t take the time to celebrate the accomplishments that we manage to achieve as we go along. We want the pace towards success to be quick and preferably painless but that’s not the reality of most people’s journey in life. We even waste time comparing the trajectory of other people’s journey to ours. We get so busy looking over on their road, trying to see how fast they’re going that we miss the scenery of our own journey.

Your journey is your own and you should go at whatever pace is comfortable for you but don’t miss out on the journey trying to rush the process. Stop dwelling on the things that you haven’t been able to check off of your list yet. Appreciate where you are right now and the progress that you have made so far. Don’t rush the journey. Instead, take your time to enjoy the scenery along the way!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

https://write-2-be.com/

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Focus on What is Meant for You

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Focus on what is meant for you

Let’s talk about focus! We all have our own loads to bare. Some of us have heavier loads to carry than others and we tend to compare our loads to what others are carrying. Or maybe that’s just me. I sometimes reflect on the way that I wanted things to go in my life, in my career, on the timetable that I wanted them to go by and I start thinking maybe it’s just too late. I look at people who have somewhat the career success that I thought I would have by now, people I admire and look at as a road map so to speak, and I start to think about where they’re at and why I’m not there yet. I suppose I start to feel envious but not in a vengeful sort of way but just in a way of how can I emulate what they’re doing so I can get to where they are.

However, lately, more and more, I am realizing that what they have is not for me to have. The level of success they have, at the trajectory in which they achieved it is their journey and there is a reason that it wasn’t mine. Granted I don’t know what that reason is at this particular moment and I don’t have any answers as to the why not of it all but I know that there is nothing that happens that God doesn’t have a reason for, even the obstacles that I come up against, are put on my journey for a reason.

As I’m getting my drive back and letting go of all the fear that has been paralyzing me, especially within this last year and a half, I am steering my focus back on track to where it needs to be. I am also keeping my focus on my own lane and trying hard not to worry about what’s going on in the next person’s lane. Not that there’s anything wrong with getting advice and mentorship and taking cues from people who are where you want to be but not so much to the point where it allows you to get stuck and defeated on your own course.

So when you get frustrated seeing others get to where you feel you should be, try to remember that your lane may end up surpassing theirs. Try and focus on where your stretch of the road is propelling you to. If you’re so focused on the lane next to you how can you really get to where your lane is taking you. I plan on remaining focused on my own lane, my own grass, my own journey, so that I can get to where I am meant to be and keep moving forward. The journey may be rough but I know that it will be worth it when I get to where I’m meant to be!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

https://write-2-be.com/

http://write2bemagazine.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

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Even In the Midst of the Storm

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I read an inspirational message on facebook the other day that made me stop and rethink about the things that I’ve been dealing with lately.  It read:

“Don’t confuse your path with your destination.  Just because it’s stormy now doesn’t mean that you aren’t headed for sunshine.”

I’ve been so frustrated with this path that I am on lately.  I have been second guessing decisions I made months ago, even years ago, and wondering if my gut steered me wrong this time.  I’ve been second guessing the destination that I thought my path was leading me to.

I’ve been hit with a recent storm of bad weather and agonizing over just how long this particular storm was going to last because Lord only knows it’s not my first and it probably will not be my last.  When I read that post on facebook I started to realize that maybe that’s what I have been doing for the past couple of weeks during my own personal torrential downpour that I have been experiencing lately.

I have been confusing the path that I am on with the destination that I am eventually headed towards.  I have been forgetting that the rocky path has absolutely nothing to do with the destination that God has already laid out for me.  I’ve had a life full of days of bad weather and what seems like even less days of sunshine.

I may have to weather the storm right now, in this moment, but I have to remind myself that with every storm the sunshine does follow.  And sometimes after the storm there’s even a rainbow just to show you how bright it is on the other end of that storm that you’ve just weathered.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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Proceed Without Caution

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“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.”

~Diane Ackerman 

So I am on a mission this week to re-ignite my fire and drive to become more productive in my writing career and I came across this article by Sage Cohen on ways to harness your fear and make that fear fuel your writing.  There was a specific tip about focusing on the process instead of the results and it struck a chord with me.  I am always focused on the end result of any and everything.  I have always been a planner (at least in my adult post-motherhood days) I suppose I am overly cautious that way.  I have this need to know how things are going to turn out primarily because I just can’t stand the not knowing. 

The reality of any situation and of life really, is that there is absolutely no way of knowing how anything is going to turn out.  There’s no predetermined outcome for things (well there is but only God knows what they are), it’s just a game of wait and see.  I don’t exactly know when I became so obsessed with being cautious about everything because I never used to be that way, at least not with my writing.  My writing was always the one thing where I just wrote and whatever came of it when I was done was what became of it.  I wrote and believed that whatever I wanted to make happen with it would become a reality as long as I put in the work.  

Over the years it seemed like I put in more and more work with my writing and nothing grand (the way I dreamt it up in my mind) was happening and I just started to doubt a little bit more and believed that caution was the way to go.  The problem with that is that caution and creativity don’t really mix well together.  I somehow forgot how to just enjoy the process and deal with the results of that process when they needed to be dealt with.  Now of course results do indeed matter, but not at the expense of the sheer joy of working your way through the process.  

Writing is an extremely rewarding, healing, and invigorating process.  However, by constantly agonizing over what the results are going to be when I am done, I have somehow stopped enjoying the actual process of it.  Maybe that means I need to take a step back and just fall in love with the process again, minus all of the cautionary measures.  Old habits are hard to break but I am certainly going to try to get back to that place where I didn’t worry so much about what was on the other side of the bridge I was crossing, just so long as I made it there.  

Caution can be good sometimes on your way to any destination in life but too much apprehension for anything can hinder you from enjoying the journey you are taking to get there.  I think I just have to accept that I can’t know the end to every story, especially when I am not the author of it.  What God has planned for me is what he has planned and the only part that I can control is the lessons I take away from the process.  I think God has been trying to tell me to enjoy the journey and let him worry about where I end up.  It’s about time that I start to listen! 

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

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Am I Letting the Devil Steal What is Rightfully Mine?

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“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”

-1 Peter 5:8 

I had one of those deep thought provoking conversations today at the gym with the guy that’s training me.  It always seems like we have those conversation exactly when my mind is filling itself with a bunch of doubt and lack of motivation.  As the conversation went on and I shared more of my doubts (fears really) he asked me a very important question that stumped me for a minute but was one that I think all of us self-doubters need to ask ourselves.  He asked me ‘Why are you letting Satan steal what’s yours?’  

He went on to say that with all of the gifts that I possess and the purpose that I was placed here on this earth to do I am in line for so many great successes and abundant rewards, but every time I let that doubt settle in my mind I am allowing Satan to steal what’s mine, little by little.  I had never thought about my many bouts of doubt that way.  He’s right.  I never realized that that was what I was doing.  I never knew that I was giving the Devil that much authority over the journey of my life, and inevitably, over the destination that I arrive at.  

I feel like I do follow the guidance of God on my path but it didn’t dawn on me that those obstacles and bumps on the road that I keep hitting were the Devil capitalizing on my own self-doubt.  I don’t always doubt myself but on the days that I do I seem to be continuously leaving a crack in the door for Satan to work his way in there and steal my successes and my rewards, leaving me feeling more doubtful than ever.  I get what the Devil is trying to do now and I don’t plan on leaving that door open anymore, not even a tiny crack.  

I know what I’m worth and I know what my words are worth.  I know that God has given me a purpose to fulfill and I can not continue to doubt what he has told me I should be doing.  If he didn’t feel that I was up to the task, he wouldn’t have constructed the task solely for me.  It is nothing but the Devil that has me doubting myself and I admit that he was been really busy with me lately.  Well the Devil can continue to be busy, but just not with me, not anymore. 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://write-2-be.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

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No Shortcuts

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We all seek something meaningful out of life.  We have a sense of purpose that is sometimes beyond all rationality.  And when it seems like it will take forever for us to reach that destination that we are striving to get to, we all sometimes wish that we could just wake up one day and be there, right where we feel we need to be in life.  Unfortunately life does not work that way.  Or maybe it’s fortunate for us that it doesn’t.  

I was watching my soap opera today (Young and the Restless) and something was said on there that really struck a chord with me.  What good is reaching your destination without having the experience of getting there?  What good is it, it means nothing, and you learn nothing?  I never thought of it like that.  

If I were to just wake up one day and have it all handed to me, everything that I want in this life, without having the struggle of actually getting to those proud and joyful moments, then would it mean as much?  Without all of the blood, sweat, and tears put into making my dreams come true, would they mean as much and would I work just as hard to hold onto them?  I can say that I would but I don’t know that.  

Sometimes it is the struggle of the journey that makes the end result worth every bit of hardship that you went through.  Sometimes there are no shortcuts in life, and I am discovering (though it took me a while to realize) that taking the long way to your destination can sometimes be the best thing you could ever do to satisfy your purpose.  Until tomorrow…Don’t always go looking for the shorter way around things.

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress