Tag: Jimmetta Carpenter

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

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

Complaining Never Solves Anything

February 23, 2012 jcladyluv

“Instead of complaining that the rosebush is full of thorns, be happy that the thorn bush has roses.”

~Proverb

The other day my daughter was having a particularly moody day and she seemed to be complaining about everything. I was really tired of hearing her complain but she gets it honestly because I am also a big time complainer and whiner (still working on getting better at that). So I decided to convey to her what I had learned over the years of my life and am still in the process of learning as I struggle to curtail my need to complain on a regular basis. I told her that if she stops complaining and whining about the things that she has no control over, she could actually start to realize and appreciate the benefits of what it is she’s complaining about. Essentially if she changes her attitude about things she may find that she actually enjoys them or at the very least can learn from them.

I only wish that I had realized that a long time ago. Even now, while I don’t complain about things nearly as much as I used to, I still have a problem with feeling the need to complain my way through a hard time. At the end of the situation the only thing that I really managed to do was waste a lot of time that I can’t ever get back. I took so much extra time that I didn’t have to work my way through whatever problem it was that didn’t need to be thrown away and it didn’t erase the problem, it only made it take longer to get through.

Being a mom teaches you so many lessons that sometimes never really sink in until you are having those teachable moments with your own children. More than likely your parents tried to have those same teachable moments with you and they just didn’t stick. Attitude has a lot to do with how situations are managed and how you deal with them. If you can change your attitude, you can ultimately change your situation.

I have discovered that complaining about any given problem only gives that problem power over your life and over your circumstances. So in order to take that power away from the problem, you’ve got to stop complaining about it and in a sense dwelling over it. Once you do stop and change your attitude about the situation you will find that you can get through the problem in a more positive and productive way that won’t waste a whole lot of time that you don’t have. My daughter said that she understood what I was trying to say (but she’s 8 so I believe it went in one ear and out the other) but even if she didn’t get it while I was saying it, I hope that it will sink in eventually. Until tomorrow…Don’t complain your way through your struggles, smile your way through it and it will be over before you know it.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

There’s Nothing Wrong with a Little Healthy Competition

February 22, 2012 jcladyluv

“I’m not in competition with anybody but myself. My goal is to beat my last performance.”

~Celine Dion

I have never considered myself to be competitive. I was never an athlete in school. I never competed in anything academically; well not unless you count the elementary class spelling bees. I was never one to really fight for what I wanted when I was younger. I guess I just didn’t really have any fight in me then and I would just step aside if I thought someone could do something better than me. To be honest I didn’t have fight in me until the last several years.

So when someone at my gym said to me today that they knew I could do something that another person was doing (which I kept telling him I couldn’t) simply because he knew I would never let someone else outdo me, I was a little taken aback to realize that he was right. It’s funny but I didn’t even realize that somewhere along the way I had become competitive (but not in a bad way). When I see someone doing something (at least when it comes to physical activity in the gym) that I have convinced myself in my mind that I should be able to do I can’t seem to get rid of the urge to prove that I can actually do it. I think that I am mostly competitive with myself because I find myself trying to beat my own records and my own accomplishments, convinced that I can do better then what I did before.

Now if I only took that competitive spirit that I have in the gym and infused it into my writing. I mean it wouldn’t exactly be the same sort of competition because there’s no strenuous physical activity involved. But maybe if I can keep in my mind when I see someone in my inner circle doing something that I know I should be out there doing, that there’s no reason that I can’t do that. In writing perhaps I just need to stay in good competition with myself, trying on a continuous basis to outdo my own efforts.

I know that some people might think that being competitive is a bad thing, and I suppose it can be if you are not correctly directing your competitive nature to the right places in your life. You shouldn’t be in competition with the person next to you because they aren’t the ones standing in your way. You not trying to become better each time you achieve something is what stands in your way. Sometimes you have to compete with your own best efforts because it can make you a better person and better at your craft or talent. Until tomorrow…There’s nothing wrong with a little healthy competition, as long as you don’t lose sight of what you are competing for.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

Graduating to the Next Level

February 21, 2012 jcladyluv

“The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.”

~Emile Zola

This morning someone said to me as I was coming out of the gym, after complimenting me on my continuous efforts to get better in my physical fitness, that as long as I keep putting in the effort and hard work God was going to keep graduating me to the next level. There was something about the thought of being promoted by God to the next level of my life, or even the next level of my journey to maintain a healthier lifestyle that made me think deeply about what that meant in other areas of my life as well.

I will admit that when I started this conscious effort over two years ago to change the way I eat and my relationship with food, in addition to changing the way I think and feel about physical exercise, I became a little obsessed with it. I think that it might have come at the expense of my passion with writing every single moment I could get. I literally used to write everywhere I went, on napkins, on little bulletins or scraps of paper, I would write while I was eating, sometimes while I was lying down (supposedly trying to go to sleep). I put that much hard work and effort into it and while I had not yet saw the fruits of my labor at that time I didn’t really care, I was just consumed with the passion that I had to write.

When I wonder now why I have not yet gotten to where I feel I should be in my writing career yet, I now have to consider the fact that I simply stopped putting in the extreme hard work and efforts that I used to in order for me to graduate to that next level in my writing career. Now don’t misunderstand me, I have not stopped being passionate about my writing in any way (or I wouldn’t be able to maintain this blog). I simply seemed to have traded one obsession for another and my efforts were unbalanced. I don’t in any way regret dedicating the time and effort that I have to beginning my journey to a better and healthier, more physically fit me. I only regret not finding the balance I needed to graduate to the next level on both aspects.

When you’re younger you have these stages in life that you graduate from to move on to the next level. From elementary, middle and high school, to college and even graduate school. Typically when you’re going through the school stage of your life you get breaks in order to have time to gather yourself and prepare for what that stage entails. However, when you get into that stage where you have to really start living your life you don’t get those breaks.

There is no time to wait until you have thought about what it is going to take for you to get where you need to be, there’s just hard work and effort. Simply put if I don’t find a way to balance my efforts and my level of hard work in both areas that I am passionate about (health & fitness as well as writing) then I may not be able to simultaneously graduate to the next level on both fronts.

It’s hard to put all of my effort and time into just one thing because I am passionate about so many and in the case of my health, that is a passion that is necessary and I can’t afford to sacrifice. But writing is my first love, and like any kind of relationship, I have to put in the time, effort, pay close attention to it, continue to nurture it, and learn how to balance it with everything else that is important to me so that I can make it to the next level in my writing life. Until tomorrow…Are you putting in the time and effort so that you can graduate to the next stage of your life?

Jimmetta Carpenter

Freelance Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

At A Loss for Words

February 20, 2012 jcladyluv

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

~Robert Louis Stevenson

Tonight I am at a loss for words. I have had certain inspirations come to me and I have notes written down but they haven’t completely formulated into complete posts for me yet. But I promised that I would write and post no matter what so even though the words won’t come tonight (not completely anyway) I still had to put myself out there in some way, shape, or form.

So while I promise that tomorrow the words will be much more profound, and much more inspiring and hopefully motivational, tonight these are all the words that I have to offer. It may not be much but it’s something and it’s the effort that counts. Until tomorrow…I hope your words come easy for you but know that if they don’t just put in the effort anyway and something beautiful will come.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

The Questions We Ask Ourselves, and God (Part 6): Is There Anything Too Hard For God?

February 18, 2012 jcladyluv

“I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is there anything too hard for me?”

–Jeremiah 32:27

I know this may not be a question many of you out there ever feel the need to ask, nor is it one that I ask too often, but I have asked this question. I have had times that were just so dark (at least it seemed so at the time) and made me fall into such a deep depression and I just thought there was no way to overcome it. I had people tell me to give my burdens to God but somehow I always felt like what I was going through was too much for him to handle.

I joke now to my best friend Ms. L that sometimes I think I ask God for too much and that he may be tired of me coming to him with such little problems. She always told me that there was no such thing. I know that (in my heart) that is true now but there was a time when I really wondered if my requests were too much of a burden on God. I thought to myself that he has sick people to heal, wars to end, homeless people to help, hungry people to feed, there’s no way that he would have time to deal with my petty problems (even though they seemed like the end of the world to me) because there were people more important than me. Ms. L made me understand one day that I was just as important to God as anyone else in this world because he created a purpose for all of us and that there was no problem to great for him.

A lot of times I don’t ask God for help, not because I don’t need it, but because I feel someone else might need him more. I still sometimes feel selfish to think that my minor problems are worthy of pulling God’s attention away from those that really need him. I have to remind myself that I am just as important as anyone else and that he not only can hear their cries for help but that he hears my cries too. I’m not going to lie and say that I am never going to have that question again but I will continue to remind myself of what Ms. L and so many others have told me when I asked aren’t there some things that are just too much for God; that there is nothing that is ever too powerful, too hard, or too small for God to handle. For God nothing is impossible.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

The Questions We Ask Ourselves, and God (Part 5): Why Not Me?

February 17, 2012 jcladyluv

“Don’t put a question mark where God has put a period.”

~Joel Osteen

I know you’ve had those moments. You get yourself all excited about this new opportunity that is waiting for you. You just know that it will be the start of something amazing for your life. But then it doesn’t happen. Not only does it not happen for you but then you keep seeing other people get what they want and you feel slighted. You feel let down and defeated and you think to yourself, why not me?

It is very easy to slip into the land of doubt when you have to stand by and watch everyone else alongside you accomplishing all of their goals and achieving the success you want. You put in all of this work and most of your time, added in with all of your blood, sweat, and tears, and you still seem to never get ahead of the game. Even worse, that person next to you, who more than likely didn’t put in nearly as much time and effort (at least in your mind), is taking steps towards the next level that you feel you should be at. But instead of counting everyone else’s blessings around you, you have to be grateful for your own.

Just as there is a reason for everything to happen, there is also a reason why things don’t happen. Everything that we want in this life is not necessarily meant for us to have. Many times when we are rejected or when the things that we want fall through it is God’s way of protecting us. Those things were not meant for you to have and they were not a part of your journey. You won’t get your blessings longing for the ones that belong to someone else. Your blessings are on their way, you just have to be a little more patient.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

The Questions We Ask Ourselves, and God (Part 4): How Do I Know I’m On the Right Path?

February 16, 2012 jcladyluv

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

–Jeremiah 29:11

It’s hard to know if the direction you are headed in is the right one. It is even harder to know if the path you are on is the one you are destined for when it seems you continue to make so many mistakes (some mistakes repeatedly). You want there to be some way to know if that dream that you are chasing, and have been for years now, is the right one for you. You want to make sure that when you get to the destination that you are seeking, that you won’t regret the choice you made in picking that particular location. The thing is that you already know, deep down inside of you, if you are on the right path or not.

For a long time I questioned whether being a writer was really my destiny. I still question it sometimes when things seem to be hopeless. But what lets me know that this is my purpose and that I am on the right path is the fact the no matter how many mistakes I have made, they have somehow still all led me right to where I was always meant to be. I am making a living (admittedly lower then what I would like it to be at the time) doing what I love to do more then anything in this world. I am doing what calms me and what heals me. I am doing what God put me on this earth to do, and I am doing it with all of the mistakes I have made included.

Along your journey sometimes you get diverted, redirected, and turned completely around. You go in different directions then you originally saw yourself going in. But are those diversions really unplanned or were they just not a part of your plan. We make plans but our plans always get rerouted when they are not the same as God’s plans. This doesn’t mean that your destiny isn’t what you thought it was. It just means that the mistakes you think you made along the way were God’s way of getting you back on the right track.

The path you take isn’t going to be all on the straight and narrow, nor will it be without experiencing some bumps (and bruises) along the way. That doesn’t mean it’s not the right path for you, just that the right path is not going to be an easy one. You have to remember that you are on the path that God has chosen for you, for whatever reason. Don’t try to reroute God’s path with your own.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

The Questions We Ask Ourselves, and God (Part 3): When Are Things Going To Change?

February 15, 2012 jcladyluv

“If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.”

~Mary Engelbreit

When you get stuck in a period of your life where nothing seems to be going the way that you think it should be you will start to question when things are going to change for you? The answer to that is simple but we tend to make it much more complicated then it has to be. Things will change when you make the decision to change them.

I know how it feels to be in that place where everything is going wrong. You think that things are going so bad that they can never get better. You start to wonder what you did to bring this kind of ‘bad luck’ your way. You even go over in your head things you could have done in a different way so that maybe things wouldn’t feel so impossible. You start to contemplate whether you will come out of that bad place long enough to make your dreams a reality. It’s a place that nobody likes to be in. But you don’t have to stay there.

Your attitude towards whatever your circumstances are determines the outcome of those circumstances. If you stay insistent that nothing is going to get better, that nothing is going to change, then why would you be surprised when they don’t. You attract what it is that you want so if you want to gain control of that situation and you want things to turn around then you have to change your mindset. Nothing is going to change if you don’t believe that it can.

Whatever your dreams are, it is never too late for them to come true. You may be down but you most certainly are not out. If you know that there are some things in your life that you need to change, all you need to do is take that step to change it. When you take that step that is when things are going to start to change for you. You just have to believe that they can, in fact, change.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

The Questions We Ask Ourselves, and God (Part 2): How Did I End Up Here?

February 14, 2012 jcladyluv

“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.”

~ Unknown

The way our lives unfold is due to a series of choices. We wonder to ourselves how we ended up in whatever rough spot we are in but it is often because of the choices that we have made over a period of time. Not just one choice, because one misguided choice would be simple to bounce back from. Sometimes it is a succession of choices made that lead us down the path that landed us at that point in our lives.

But you must then take into account where here really is. We often get so caught up with the struggle we are in the midst of that we aren’t focusing on realizing what it is we need to do to get out of that moment. I am extremely guilty of wallowing in whatever overwhelming mess my journey seems to be taking me through. Sometimes it takes me awhile to stop dwelling on the obstacle long enough so that I can see a way through it. I usually tend to waste a lot of time asking ‘How did I get here?’ instead of realizing that maybe, for that particular part of my journey, here is exactly where I needed to be.

Everything happens for a reason and as many times as you will hear that saying, it will probably always take a while for it to sink in. We give so much energy and time to what we can’t change, the obstacle that is sitting dead center in the middle of our journey. It’s time that is wasted. It is time that you can not get back. And all the while, as you stare at that obstacle wondering why you chose that path to begin with, the obstacle is still sitting there. You staring at it and questioning where it came from does not move it out of your way.

Wherever your ‘Here’ is, make sure you don’t waste too much time questioning the obstacle instead of moving through it. And don’t forget to take the lessons you’ve learned with you to your next stop in the road.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”