dreams – Page 19 – Write 2 Be

Don’t Fight the Challenges That Are Meant to Prepare You for Your Purpose

June 11, 2013 jcladyluv

“Since the Lord is directing our steps, why do we try to figure out everything that happens along the way?”

~Proverbs 20:24

So last week was not one of my better weeks. I will even admit that things were going so much in the opposite direction of the way I wanted them to go that I had gotten a little bit angry with God (crazy I know, but I can’t be the only one that has) for not allowing things to happen the way that I had expected them to. Of course it didn’t take long for me to realize that that was the wrong attitude to have and to remember that God would never give me more than he thought I could handle.

When I was watching Joel Osteen on Sunday morning (and I did not intend to watch it, it was on a channel that it normally doesn’t even come on) he delivered a message that, once again, was right on time for me and that put everything into perspective. He essentially said that in worrying about your struggles and in getting frustrated about your circumstances you are not trusting God and the fact that he knows what he is doing and that he has already mapped out your entire life, bumps and bruises included. Sometimes God uses our struggles and our tough times to strengthen us and to prepare us for the next level of what he has planned for our lives, for our purpose.

Our wanting to be comfortable and have nothing but constant victory is unrealistic and when I think about it, is probably not for the best. Our struggles and our bad times, that’s what builds character in us. Those are the times when God shows us what we are made of and where sometimes we even surprise ourselves on how well things turn out once you’ve come out on the other side. If we keep fighting the circumstances that make us uncomfortable and that seem impossible to get through we just might miss all of the wonderful things that can happen along the way as a result of those challenges.

We pray for things and when our prayers don’t get answered we get so frustrated and discouraged (this very much includes me) but I have been thinking lately, especially since watching Joel Osteen, maybe those prayers that don’t get answered are God showing us just how much he loves us. There are things that are just not meant for us to have or to experience and God, being the one who sees everything in our future, just might be protecting us by not answering our prayers to begin with.

So while my situation has not yet improved, I am going to start embracing where I am now, and just be grateful for the moment that I am in. I am going to try to remember that sometimes having to be outside of my comfort zone can be a really good thing and it can also be preparing me for the next phase in my life. Don’t fight the divine delays that God is using to prepare you for your destiny. Live where you are, not where you feel you should be!

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

Write 2 Be Magazine is now out so please go check it out at http://write2bemagazine.com/. Also please go and join the magazine on twitter https://twitter.com/write2bemag, join the email listing for the magazine or submit a request for an author interview at Write2bemagazine@yahoo.com, and also like the Write 2 Be Magazine fan page https://www.facebook.com/Write2BeMagazine. Please help support my endeavor and my new journey and help me spread the word about Write 2 Be and its meaning.

Are We Faking It to Our Own Detriment?

May 22, 2013 jcladyluv

There is this mantra that people have come to live by that is supposed to help motivate them to keep moving forward and not get hung up on what they haven’t achieved. “Fake it until you make it” is what people tell you to do when you are trying to achieve certain goals that you haven’t quite reached yet. So often I have been told that even if I don’t have it all together and I haven’t achieved all of the goals that I am striving towards that I should just essentially pretend that I have made it, that I have it all together, and that I am already a success even though I still have a long way to go.

It sounded like good advice and I completely understand what good intentions are meant by this mantra. I have even repeated this advice to others because I firmly believed that it was the right attitude to have. Now I’m not so sure. I mean I don’t think that you are ever supposed to lose sight of the goals and dreams that you are moving towards accomplishing but I am not so sure that faking it is the right way to really go about it.

I read a blog post last night about how the mantra of faking it could actually be the reason your message is falling on deaf ears (so to speak). It made me think, if I am trying to promote brand ME and I want people to connect to me, do I want people to get the me that I am pretending to be, that I think that they want, or do I want people to connect to the real me, the me that just doesn’t have it all together yet. If I am not being authentic, then what is the point of me trying to get my words out there and to connect with readers?

Everyone wants to be accepted for who they are, imperfections and all, but how can that be possible if we are all too busy pretending to be what it is we wish we were, what we think people want us to be. No real good comes of pretending to be someone other than yourself and it is just deceptive to think that we have to put on this false pretense. So I thought that I would real today (I try to be real most of the time but sometimes I hide behind my insecurities) and share things I don’t normally say out loud.

I am a writer, true enough, but I do not have it all together. I am not as successful as I sometimes try to pretend to be. Sometimes, frankly I am just winging it with this whole writing thing and I don’t have even half of the answers. I don’t write as much as I should. I don’t seem to have a knack for this social media thing so my name is not as well known as I had hoped it would be at this point in my life.

To be completely honest, some days I really have no idea what I am doing, I am just trying to be the best writer that I know how to be and I am trying to hold on to that passion that I have for writing. There are days when trying to focus on the business side of being a writer is so frustrating I start to think about never writing again. I question regularly, despite my saying that I know writing is my true purpose, if maybe writing has already served its purpose in my life and that maybe (and only in moments of temporary insanity do I really believe this) it is time to let it go.

I try not to admit those things even to myself so saying them here for everyone to see is hard for me but I feel better having done it. I feel like there has to be someone else out there that gets it and are just as tired as I am of pretending to be something that they are not and who understand where I am coming from. Isn’t it less pressure to just be yourself? As imperfect as you might be, even if you feel like everything is falling a part, be the best version of yourself that you can be. Let’s not fake it until we make it, let’s just make it by being real.

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

Holding On For the Breakthrough Moment

May 21, 2013 jcladyluv

Yesterday I had a day where it seemed like I just kept hitting the wall. Just when it looked like I was starting to get close to that light that lets me know things are going to be okay I felt like another boulder (not a rock) was dropped in my way. I felt like just giving up and I took a moment to cry a little (I’m not ashamed to admit that I cry when I get upset) because honestly I started to feel like things were hopeless.

But today was a new day and with the tragedy that has just taken place in Oklahoma with the devastation of the tornados it really puts things into perspective. I can’t take the gifts that I have been given for granted just because of a moment that seems like it can’t be fixed. I have to be grateful that I still have more moments to fix things. A moment of frustration is not going to keep me from tunneling through to that light on the other side of the wall that keeps blocking me from my dreams and my purpose.

I opened my latest Tyler Perry email today and there on the screen in front of me (right on time as usual) was a message to all of the frustrated dreamers. In essence, he was letting all of the dreamers out there who are hitting that wall know, to keep powering through until we breakthrough to the other side of that wall. That while we are tunneling through that wall, to be grateful for the things that we have to go through on the way, yes even those things that make us want to rip our hair out and scream, because it will be those things that make us stronger and more prepared for when we finally do have our breakthrough moment.

So often we make it all the way to that wall and then we give up right before the breakthrough (just like in the picture above) because we didn’t see it coming. Then we just end up missing our moment, our opportunity and all of the opportunities that were supposed to follow. We (yes me included) have to stop giving up so easily. Just because things seem hopeless at the moment, we can’t just stop pushing through because that light that we are looking for could literally be right around the corner when we decide it’s just too hard to keep going.

Tyler Perry included a prayer in his email for the frustrated dreamers “God, help me hold on, help me to get to what I dream of, help me to honor where I am today so that I can appreciate where I will be tomorrow. In Jesus’ name.” That prayer is something I know I am going to say (on top of my many other conversations with God) so that I can motivate myself to keep pushing through no matter what, until I get to the other side of that wall. I know I can make it and I’m not giving up, you shouldn’t either!

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

Who Is In Your Corner?

April 25, 2013 jcladyluv

It is always good to have someone in your corner. Someone who reassures you when your confidence is beginning to waiver and who is going to stand beside you come hell or high water. Everyone deserves to have that kind of support. Typically you are going to find that support within your family and your very close knit friends but what do you say to those who are supposed to be your family and don’t have your back. How do you respond to the people who are supposed to always believe in you telling you that you won’t make it?

I try to figure that out because I have several of those in my family, people who consistently let me know that they don’t think that I am going to reach my destination. I tune them out most of the time but when you hear people talk about not knowing where they would be without their family believing in them it seems sad when I look at my family and think I don’t know where I would be if I were to actually listen to them. Yes I actually do know. I would have given up on my dreams a long time ago because that’s what they’ve always wanted me to do.

Every goal that you go after is always easier to reach if you have a few people standing in your corner. Not a lot of people, just two or three is good enough to help remind you that you are strong enough and to keep you from turning around and running away from the dreams you have for yourself. I know that I may not have family that is standing in my corner, praying that my successes are made a reality, but I do have at least one really good friend, my best friend, who I know will always be there.

We may not always get to have the crowd of believers that we want around us but then again do we really need a big crowd? Sure it would be nice if everyone was as sure of your choices as you are (most of the time) but truthfully you can get where you going without that big crowd. You want that support system in the corner standing by but the most important person that you need in your corner is you.

You have to fight for that dream and you have to do it regardless of whether you are fighting with that big crowd, or you are fighting for it alone. No matter who I have or don’t have in my corner, I know one thing. I have me (and of course God) and that’s all there really is. So no matter how large your corner is expanding make sure that you remember that no one can fight for that dream you have like you can.

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

There Is No Time Like the Present

April 16, 2013 jcladyluv

Yesterday the April issue of Write 2 Be magazine came out and in my letter from the editor I wrote about springing into action before too much time has passed and you realize that you haven’t even accomplished half of what you set out to achieve this year. As I was uploading the issue to the site the news about the Boston Marathon explosions broke in on the TV and I just shook my head at the actions of someone who was obviously busy doing the devil’s work. It made me saddened for those who were injured and certainly for those killed but I also felt like my message of springing into action was even more relevant.

None of us know what is going to happen from one day to the next and waiting around for the eventual time that is going to come for you to achieve those goals might just result in you wasting time that you may not have to waste. We have to stop living for some time period that is a year or two from now and live for the moment, for today. We keep putting things off and biding our time until someday gets here when you’re finally going to get moving and attack those goals, those dreams, with the determination and drive that should have been there all along.

For the ones at the marathon that died yesterday, particularly the eight year old little boy, they won’t get a chance to wait for someday to get here. Their someday is gone now and while there is nothing that we can do to bring them back, there is something that we can do to honor them and to honor all of the lives that have been taken way too soon from their eventual tomorrow. We can stop waiting for someday, or for a year from now, or even months from now. We can start living out our dreams and serving God’s purpose NOW! Not tomorrow, but right now.

They say that there is no time like the present and when I was younger I really didn’t get the depth of that saying. However, as I have gotten older and as I have seen terrible things happen throughout this world I understand what that means. There’s no time like the present because that’s all there is, is the present. Live as if today was the last one you had. I don’t mean live as if you’re going to die tomorrow, but rather enjoy your life today, enjoy the opportunities that you have today, take advantage of the goals that you can achieve today, and be happy today. None of us knows what tomorrow will hold. All we have is today!

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

Sometimes I Question the Journey

April 9, 2013 jcladyluv

“Faith isn’t believing without proof – it’s trusting without reservation.”

~William Sloane Coffin

So I’ve been having one of those days where I’m wondering what all of this is for. What is the point of pursuing all of my dreams when the journey to get to them is so daunting and frustrating and exhausting and painful? When I still find myself having to worry where the next flow of income is going to come from and nothing is definite (which is what the beginning stages of a writing career looks like), it makes me wonder what I am really struggling for.

I am a chronic worrier and while I know that it is not good for my health to stress about things that are beyond my control I still somehow manage to do it. I keep thinking, this year it’s going to happen for me just the way that it’s supposed to, and then it doesn’t so I get geared up for the next year to be the year that my hard work begins to pay off. Yet still, not the rewards I had hoped to be reaping by now.

I get worried sometimes that this is all for nothing. The struggle, the sacrifices, the tears, the anxiety, the not knowing, all of the things that come with following your dreams and just throwing caution to the wind. I wonder if I made the right decision years ago and if maybe I was wrong about my ability to really make this work.

Yeah it’s been one of those days. I have those days sometimes, and some are worse than others. But then I remember that writing is something that I live for. It is my purpose in this world and it is my vehicle to express myself and to be able to change the world. Writing is something that I was born to do and it is the purpose that God gave me in this world. On the days when I am in a state of constant worry and when I am wondering what the point of it all is I will have to try harder to remember that the point is to serve my purpose no matter how hard the struggle or how long the journey.

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

My Younger Writer Fantasies

March 27, 2013 jcladyluv

I was reading an email ezine that I subscribe to from Christina Katz this morning that got me thinking about the side of writing that I don’t often like to think about. That would be the business side of being a writer. It’s the side that has to eventually kick in if you really want to turn your creativity into your source of income and have the ability to make a living doing something that you love to do. Apparently it is the side that I haven’t figured out how to turn all the way on yet.

There are those who can manage being the creative person for a designated period of time and then switch on the business person when necessary for a separate length of time. Then there is me, and other writers like me, who just simply are not born business people. I am the creative person, not the business person. For as long as I can remember I never liked to deal with the business side of anything. But I think that was the fantasies of my younger writer self that just didn’t know any better.

Christina Katz spoke about writers who, when they are younger, have this big idea of being discovered and turned into an overnight success, living an ideal life free from all daily trials and tribulations. I was that writer. I didn’t think so then but looking back on that time now I can see that there were a lot of things about being a writer that I wasn’t factoring in. Things like hard work (on the business end), extreme work ethic, determination, and patience. One more thing I didn’t factor in was confidence. Not necessarily confidence in my writing (because I always knew that writing was what I was born to do) but confidence in the person writing those words, confidence in me.

I thought that I would just be discovered one day, that someone would read my words and feel that they had to be the one who discovered me. I thought that I would be under the umbrella of a major publishing house with a publicists and a person who did marketing professionally so that someone who knew what they were doing could get my name out there.

I imagined living in New York (Manhattan at that) at a young age, working for national magazines and newspapers, and being on the New York Time’s Bestsellers list. I imagined that by the age of 30 I would already have had a dozen or so books out, on bookshelves, or whatever else there was that sold books. What I didn’t imagine, was having to be the publisher, and the publicist, and the marketer, all for myself.

I mean you see it happen to other writers (or so you think because that’s how things appear) and you think why can’t that be me. The truth is that just because it seems like people such as Steven King, or J.K. Rowling, or Tyler Perry were overnight successes with no obstacles in their way, doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a great deal of the other side that went into that success. At some point there is a need to tap into that business side of the writer self.

I’ve been trying to avoid it for years now and it may have just been to my detriment but I have to stop fighting the business side of being a writer. In a perfect world I would love to just focus on my creativity and have my talent be able to stand for itself and propel me forward but that just isn’t a realistic ideal to cling to. I can’t just worry about figuring in time for writing and all of the creative projects I have in the works. I have to figure in the time to be my publisher, and my publicist, as well as my marketer. I have to be realistic in the fact that I can not be the writer who solely focuses on the creativity of it all without fully committing to the business of it all as well. Time to dismantle those younger writer fantasies I once had! Did you fantasize up the writer life in your mind?

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

Blooming Late or Right In Season?

March 26, 2013 jcladyluv

Everything happens for a reason and at the time that it is supposed to happen. That is how the saying goes right? When frustrations set in about my slow (and I do mean slow) progression to writing success (and financial comfort ability) it is really hard to believe that there is any truth to that saying. Half of the time I want to say that it is really just how people justify having a bad round of luck and the walls just crumbling in around them (or maybe that’s just me). However, deep down inside I do know that there is actually truth to it.

When success happens later than you expect it to (or planned for it to) it gets frustrating watching people who are barely out of high school or college achieve success on a fluke or by a chance meeting with just the right person. Meanwhile you work hard and consistently at something that you have the talent to back up and it just seems like mountain after mountain just keeps forming right in your path. You get around one mountain only to be challenged with another.

You’re left wondering why this person can just snap their fingers and have all of what you’ve been working hard for years (and years), and where’s that person’s mountain. Sometimes success just seems to come so easy for some and so much of a struggle for others. I guess some people (myself included) are late bloomers. It can make a person just want to throw up their hands and say the hell with it.

When I think about it, there are a lot of people who didn’t become a success when they first started out. They struggled, stressed, and fought hard to get to their current place in life and it was a mountain to climb every step of the way. Just because success doesn’t come easy does not mean that it isn’t coming. There is a reason that some people have to go through more than others in order to accomplish what they set out to do. Blooming late sometimes just means that you are blooming in season.

The writer I was in my 20’s is not who I am as a writer now in my 30’s. Naturally I have grown, both in life and in my writing, but I have also been through things that have given me experience (and a little bit of wisdom) to be able to open up more within my writing. If I had gotten the level of success that I wanted in my 20’s I’m not sure that I would’ve known what to do with it, or how to handle it with the level of maturity that I could now or in the future.

There was a reason why it didn’t come to me then. I wasn’t ready for it, and I wouldn’t have been prepared. It just wasn’t the time. There is a reason why I haven’t bloomed yet but I do feel that the blooming is about to begin. Better late then never!

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

Live In the Moment of Resilience

March 13, 2013 jcladyluv

There are a lot of things that you must be to make it as an artists’, particularly a writer. Patience, courage, diligence, and perseverance, those are just a few of the qualities that someone who goes down the road of creativity is going to need to possess. However, the most necessary quality, the one that you absolutely can not do without in the creative field, is resilience.

You have to be able to bounce back from whatever comes your way, no matter what. It’s not the way that you fall that matters, it’s the way that you pull yourself back up. Think about the stories that you hear of the people who have succeeded. What’s the most memorable thing about their story? It’s the struggle that they went through to get to their success.

From J.K. Rowlings state of poverty and her dozens of rejections before she became one of the world’s richest women with her Harry Potter Series, to Tyler Perry’s homelessness and empty seats in a theater before owning his own multi-billion dollar production company. What you remember just as much as the way that they succeeded is what they went through to get there.

I was watching the television interview that actress Valerie Harper (from The Mary Tyler Moore Show) gave on the Doctors show the other day when she came on to discuss her diagnosis of terminal brain cancer. She wanted to show to the rest of the world that she was okay and that while she remained realistic about the time given to her (3 months to a year) to live, she also has not given up hope.

I watched in awe, and not just because I loved her on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Rhoda Show and I think she’s awesome, but because she was just so brave and so inspiring. I don’t know that I could be smiling if a doctor told me that I have a limited time left to be on this earth.

She said one thing (well there were many) that really stuck with me, “don’t go to the funeral before the day of the funeral.” That applies to every aspect of life but just as a writer, as someone who thrives off of creativity, I had to apply it to the artists’ world. You know that there are going to be rejections, but let’s not claim that rejection before it happens. There are going to be moments of defeat, but before the moment that we are defeated, let’s not live in that defeat.

There will be disappointments, times when our expectations aren’t met, both by other people and ourselves. There are going to be struggles so hard that we are going to assume that we can’t get past them, moments when we want to just throw up our hands and say I surrender. Those are the moments that we have to remind ourselves of why we are doing this in the first place.

We’re waiting for that yes, for that feeling of being on cloud nine because everything we ever imagined for ourselves is finally becoming a reality. That is what drives us to continually getting back up and we have to keep reminding ourselves of that. We must keep getting back up. We have to live in the moment that is now so that we can keep reaching for the destiny that awaits us. Let’s not ever forget, even when we are being told no, that there is a yes waiting if we keep getting up. Getting knocked down is inevitable, let’s just remember to always bounce back!

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

Does Playing It Safe Just Get You a Lot of Missed Opportunities?

March 7, 2013 jcladyluv

There’s this saying, “with great risks comes even greater rewards”, and I thought about that as I was watching a news segment about Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, discussing her success and her new book that is causing much controversy. She was discussing her thoughts on women and their role as leaders in the business world and how women, albeit ambitious enough, are always playing it too safe and that is often what holds them back in their efforts to succeed. She has taken many risks throughout her career and her several different roles as a leader and she has had many great rewards simply because she refused to play it safe.

It made me think about the fact that I am not a huge risk taker and if that is what is holding me back it would be a terrible shame. Is that what is slowing me down on this journey to the top? To say I am cautious would probably (if you ask my best friend Ms. L.) be putting it mildly. I think things through, sometimes too much, and then once I decide something I rethink it through again, a couple more times. The funny thing is that I don’t remember being this way when I was younger. Granted when I was younger I was limited in the things I could do because I was not yet an adult and most of my childhood I was not a working individual so I relied on my mother for monetary well being, but I don’t remember being so scared to do things.

I don’t remember over analyzing things nearly as much as I do. I mean I did to a certain extent because I had to analyze whether or not the risk I was taking was going to get me beat by my mother or in trouble in other ways, but I never thought of myself as playing it safe. So now in a time in my life where I should be throwing caution to the wind and just going for everything and every opportunity that could possibly come my way, I am resistant, I find that I just want to be safe. I don’t know if it was motherhood that made me that way or not but I know that I want my daughter to take risks and go after the dreams she wants without worrying what is or what is not going to go wrong.

The author of Wild, Cheryl Strayed, wrote her memoir about the journey that she took along the mountainous Pacific Crest Trail from California, all the way through Oregon and up to WashingtonState, with practically no money to her name and little idea of what it was she was really in search of. Somehow she managed to complete her trip as well as accomplishing a level of self discovery that she didn’t even realize she was looking for. She didn’t let the fear of not really knowing where she was going stop her, nor did she let the fact that she had barely any money stop her and she managed to get a New York Times Bestselling book out of it that landed on Oprah’s book club lists. She didn’t play it safe and she took a huge amount of risk and she got great rewards.

Now obviously, it is not realistic for most of us to go and try that, but the point is that we shouldn’t let things hold us back and we shouldn’t play it so safe that we miss out on the adventures that we could have in our lives. Now being overly cautious is a hard habit to break and I am not crazy enough to think that overnight I am just going to be this “throw caution to the wind” type of person but I do know that I don’t want to play it safe anymore and I can’t afford to over-think myself out of the next opportunity. What about you, have you been playing it safe lately?

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