Tag: Jimmetta Carpenter

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

The Mark You Leave Behind

March 31, 2011 jcladyluv

“The purpose of life is not to be happy – but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all.”

~Leo Rosten

I didn’t know what I would write about today and then I checked my email inbox and noticed a new (long awaited) blog post from my best friend Ms. L, Blessed to be a Blessing, and suddenly it got me thinking about the marks that people leave on this world. In our conversation the other night in which we pondered the actions of a man that I saw on the show “Secret Millionaire” who literally took the shoes off his own feet and gave them to an elderly man on skid row in L.A. who desperately needed them. We wondered and questioned ourselves as to whether we would actually be so selfless. As much as we would like to think that we are and that we would do something that generous and that kind hearted without so much as a second thought, we could not say with absolute certainty that we would. Given the fact that both of us have discussed many endeavors that we want to delve into in order for us to be in the position to help someone in such a grand way it was pretty shocking for both of us to have come to that reality.

The mark we leave behind in this world should not be notebooks and pads of paper filled with the good intentions that we had planned on doing when we got to the point where we could do them. Ms. L says it best in her post today when she talks about how even the small things that you can see fit to do is still a big thing because it’s the best that we are doing with what we have right now. Frankly, someone giving $10.00 is just as valuable as the person giving $10,000 if the person giving the $10.00 is giving what might be their last little bit they have to give. The value should not be placed in the dollar amount that a person gives but rather in the manner in which they give it and how open their heart is when they are giving it.

Sometimes we are so focused on the fact that we are not able to give all of what we would like to give to help those less fortunate that we end up not giving anything because we think it’s not enough. Every little bit counts and lord knows when I have been down on my luck I never cared whether someone was able to help me with a little or a lot because I looked at as something is better than nothing. Maybe we should think about the marks that we leave behind as just that. Not the grand gestures that we would love for them to be but the very best of ourselves that we have in us to give. Come the day that we are all judged I don’t think that God will be looking at one person who gave just $10.00 as not giving enough if he knew that was all that they had to give. You have to start somewhere or else the mark you leave behind will be no mark at all.

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.”

~Edmund Burke

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

Defining Moments

March 30, 2011 jcladyluv

“Our lives are a series of defining moments, strung together by passing time. Surrender fully to this moment, because it is not the moment itself that defines us, but how we choose to live in it.”

~Jill Pendley

Imagine having to make a decision today or tomorrow that can potentially define the direction your life takes in the future. In every person’s life there are choices to be made and more often than not the choices get harder to make the closer you get to where it is that you want to be in your life. We all have those moments, whether big or small, that will reshape our lives and define not only who we are and what direction we will take but also what we stand for. Your defining moments, whether positive or negative, will inevitably be the outline for your life and will help you to get some clarity about your life’s purpose and values. It is the way you choose to perceive those moments that will help guide you in one direction or another. The choice is always up to you.

There are times when you may find yourself standing still trying to figure out exactly what moment it was that changed the course of your life? What moment was it that made you the person you are today and would you change things if you could? Apart of being able to make good choices for ourselves is to be able to reflect on the bad decisions that we have made and to use those hard lessons to get it right the next time. There is a lesson to be learned in every experience but that’s not to say that we don’t sometimes need to make those bad choices in order for us to appreciate the times that we do get it right. The difference between a mediocre life and a great one is all in the way a person handles a handful of moments. How they choose to act and react to them. All of our greatest successes and our greatest failures are merely two sides of the same coin and it is all in the function of choice.

All of the moments that helped shape our lives are not going to be positive ones but it is in the challenges that are presented to us that we strive and persevere. Understanding the decisions you’ve made and where those choices have gotten you can make life a little less unpredictable and a lot less confusing and help you realize just where you veered off the course you thought you were on. In order to figure out where your life is headed sometimes you have to realize where your life has been. It provides great comfort knowing whether those decisions you’ve made along the way, good or bad, have helped make you who you are and knowing exactly what impact they have made in your life.

In everyday life you will find that someone is always making you doubt your choices and that life is somehow always trying to knock you down and it may even succeed at keeping you down for a while. It is you who have to take that particular moment in your life and figure out whether you are going to stay knocked down or if you are going to pick yourself back up off the ground and use that moment to empower you to move forward. At each and every crossroads you are free to choose between the high road and the low road. That defining moment is going to be in the decision that you make and that decision that you make could very well affect the course that your life ends up taking. Have you done everything you could’ve done in those moments that life has given you? What do your defining moments say about you and your life and?

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

Writing in the Reality of the Moment

March 16, 2011 jcladyluv

“Reality isn’t the way you wish things to be, nor the way they appear to be, but the way they actually are.”

~Robert J. Ringer

I am a writer of many things. Fiction of all types, poetry, articles that motivate and uplift, and articles that are meant to inform. No one who writes, unless they particularly write nothing but children’s fairytales, is going to always produce things that are considered motivating and uplifting. Some things that people write are just real. It comes from a place of reality and living in the present moment and in the knowledge of knowing that, as much as we would like it to be true, every moment of people’s lives is not going to always be happy and uplifting and completely void of negative obstacles. That’s just not the reality of things.

So when someone tells me that an article that I wrote to be informative and educate people, who may or may not know certain aspects of a health related disease, is stemming from a place of darkness and negativity it makes me want to literally curse them out and throw something, preferably at them. This particular person would like me to write of nothing but motivating and uplifting things and speak of absolutely nothing that might be negative. That’s not real for me.

For one I don’t consider the article that I wrote, “The Rise of Lung Cancer in Non-smoking women”, to be dark and negative. It simply is meant to inform people on things they may not even know concerning the disease. I was informed just by researching the subject. Secondly, I don’t feel like I have to be placed in this box as a writer of only writing and producing motivational articles. I like to write a little bit of everything but most importantly I like to keep whatever I write (except for fiction) very real.

The funny thing to me is that someone making that type of comment to me appeared and came off as completely negative. As if they were someone just trying to get me riled up and trying to plant seeds of doubt or self consciousness in my mind. It’s almost as if they somehow thought that this would make me just all of a sudden change my style of writing and the things that I put out there for the world to see.

Truthfully it did make me angry but it didn’t deter me from writing my way and on my terms. I write from the heart, whatever way I happen to feel, whatever information I want to convey or educate people with. While I do love when people like what it is that I have written, I write for me first and for the world second. Now maybe that’s wrong in some people’s eyes but if I wrote to try and please everyone else then I may possibly be the one who is not pleased with what I am writing and then I am no longer writing for the sheer love of writing.

My words to the world of writers today is to always stay true to who you are in your writing. Everyone is not going to like what you have to say but the important thing is that you say it, however you want to say it. Write for the moment you are living in and from the place you are coming from. Don’t ever let anyone else dictate what your voice as a writer should be.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

The Hand We Were Dealt

March 15, 2011 jcladyluv

“Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.”

~Arthur Golden

“That which doesn’t kill us can only make us stronger.” It’s a phrase that quite frankly I sometimes get tired of hearing but as cliché as it may sound the statement is very much true. Often times we get overwhelmed by things that are simply beyond our control and aren’t really able to step away from the situation and discover the value in the hardship. Difficult times can also be good times in the sense that our struggles not only make us better but they make us stronger as well. With life there comes adversity and while we don’t exactly expect it nor look for it and we most certainly don’t enjoy experiencing it, it is inevitable but most importantly it is necessary.

There are many faces of adversity and many lessons that it teaches us. One of the more important ones that I have come to take to heart is that when one door closes there will be another one to open. The thing is that you have to stop dwelling on the door that has just closed in order to see the other doors that are opening up for you. There are many starters in life, however, very few people actually finish what it is they started. When we want something and experience obstacles on the way to our goals we can’t just give up because it gets too hard. Everything that is meant for us to have in life is not going to come easily. Instead of focusing solely on the obstacles that are standing in our way we have to persevere long enough and have enough self-control and discipline in what it is that we want and go that extra mile to obtain it.

We can’t just get the sweet out of life without getting a little bit of the bitter. If there were nothing to challenge us how could we truly be able to enjoy our accomplishments and be proud of our successes? Part of succeeding through any adversity is hanging on even when deep down inside you really want to let go. It is in the bitter moments that we find our inner strengths and are able to discover what we are really made of. Adversity is bound to be a part of our lives but how well we come out on the other side of it greatly depends on the way we choose to face it. I think that with the bitter that we get in life we become even more equipped to appreciate the sweet and not take what it is that we do have for granted.

“If you live with a problem long enough it could eventually become your blessing.” Sometimes adversity presents itself in our lives solely for the purpose of change. Change in our beliefs, change in the way we think and the way we view things. Even change in the way that we view ourselves. Despite that little voice inside your head that constantly tells you that you can’t do it, there is a solution to every problem and a way to overcome any and every obstacle. You just have to change with the situation and keep reminding yourself that you can do anything as long as you have the determination and the will to do it. It isn’t the hardship in itself that stops us dead in our tracks on the way to our destination. It is us refusing to change the focus of where we are going and not being willing to accept that an obstacle has come along and we just have to change our course of action and redirect ourselves. I believe that everything happens in our lives for a reason and that there is a lesson in every mistake that we make and a blessing in every obstacle that we overcome. But if we don’t somehow embrace the situation and the cards that were dealt to us and stop wasting time dodging all of our roadblocks instead of facing them head on then we may just end up missing the bigger picture.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

Staying the Course

March 7, 2011March 7, 2011 jcladyluv

“When you feel like giving up, remember why you held on for so long in the first place.”

~ Unknown

Often times in life while trying to strive toward our dreams and make them come true we tend to get off track and stray from the course. We start to lose momentum and seem to forget what matters the most. We lose focus and let other things and people become more important and change the direction in which we are going. So when do we reprioritize our lists of goals and finally get focused enough to turn them into the reality that we want them to be?

Apart of staying focused on moving forward with your future involves letting go of certain things from your past. Sometimes we don’t realize that we tend to hold onto what hinders us the most because we like what feels familiar and comfortable. In order to stay focused you have to be willing to put other things that are not conducive to you achieving your ultimate goal aside. You have to come to the realization that whether we want them to or not people and circumstances do change and the people that we re-route our lives for may not be going in the same direction.

How our life ends up depends on how driven we are to get what we want out of it. However that involves knowing exactly what it is that you want and what it’s going to take to get there. Being focused takes practice and action and the process begins in the mind. Once you’ve set your goal than all that’s left is putting it in motion and if you act like you already have what you want you’ll feel as if you’ve already succeeded. You have to have the confidence that you will attain your dreams because without that confidence you’ll start to let in the doubt.

Being focused is a journey in which you have to keep learning and practicing along the way. You’re directions and paths may change and you may even get sidetracked from time to time but you can’t get distracted when what you’ve always wanted could be right within your reach. Its hard to just throw caution to the wind and toss out all of the things that are familiar to you but if you want to get the best out of your life than you have to take action every day because there’s no time to waste. Actions speak louder than words, and nothing in life ever just happens.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

Are You Just Another Busy Body?

March 5, 2011 jcladyluv

Procrastination is opportunity’s assassin.

~Victor Kiam

How serious are you about your art and exactly how much are you willing to sacrifice to invest something in it?

More and more everyday I am reminded of just how short life really is and as a writer I get to thinking about how much time I waste on a daily basis doing things that are not going to help me get to where I need to be in life. With the hours that I have spent watching television that was not necessary to watch I could’ve literally written quite a few novels by now. The same goes for the hours that I have spent on the telephone with non-productive idle chit chat.

It seems as though I am always busy yet somehow I still feel like I don’t get anything done, or at least not as much as I should. While I am productive to an extent I certainly have begun to realize that my output could be so much more then what it is. But I have come to a reality that just because someone is busy being busy doesn’t mean that they are being productive.

One of the two key elements in trying to remain productive is time management and using the time that you have available in the most efficient way is a crucial component and affects just how productive you are or can be. It’s really easy to let life’s little distractions turn into excuses as to why you’re not actually working towards what you want but those excuses don’t get you any closer to what it is that you are trying to accomplish. You have to know your limits and be more realistic about your time. While you do need to establish a routine to effectively balance the workload that you have you can not create a schedule that works if you don’t manage your time well thus knowing how much time to designate to any given task.

You also have to know your distractions and how to avoid them. For example my distraction is television. I have come to understand that for me to produce the amount of work I feel I should be putting out I need to go somewhere where there is not a television so I have adjusted to going to the library or a coffee shop in order to get my writing done. Everyone’s distractions are different but you need to recognize them and adjust them according to the time that you have available. Productivity begins with you having an awareness of what works and what doesn’t.

Another key element in productivity is prioritizing. You have to know what you want most in order to know what to do first. You also have to know your goals before you can productively meet them. If it takes you making a list so that you can better visualize what it is that you need to do in order to meet those goals then it’s time to pick up your pen and get writing. Most of us don’t have a problem coming up with things that we want to get done but when we try to keep everything in our head that’s when it can get overwhelming. A little organization and prioritizing of your time can go a long way. Once you have that list written out you can become more organized about how to achieve those goals and assessing their levels of priority which will make your output that much greater.

Time is very precious and valuable and if you don’t use it well and do what needs to be done in the amount of time that you have then you are wasting time that you will not get back again. Saying you are too busy is not going to get things accomplished because the truth of the matter is that if you were busy doing what needed to be done then you wouldn’t be scrounging around for the time to do it.

Look at what it is that you are so busy doing and evaluate it. What is it in your “busy” day that can be cut out? How much of what you do can be eliminated from your schedule to allow for the necessary things. Learn how to manage your time because if you don’t you’re just going to wake up one day wondering to yourself where did all the time go and how come I’m still not where I wanted to be. It’s because you can’t be productive if you’re not prioritizing your time. Time can not be re-created so I suggest that we procrastinators stop being busy just to be busy, and get busy producing greatness.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

Still Standing

February 21, 2011 jcladyluv

We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot.
— Eleanor Roosevelt

When I started writing this blog post the other day I was questioning everything from whether I am really as good of a writer as I think I am, to if I really had enough strength in me to do what I believe I am destined to do. I was beginning to feel as if the tunnel that I am in is getting longer and darker with no light at the end. It felt like all of the walls were closing in on me and that I was going to be suffocated underneath the rumble. I was completely defeated, feeling all out of my share of miracles and the devil had a tight grip on me. I had almost surrendered. Almost.

And then I had a conversation with my best friend in which she said something that reminded me that I already knew all of the answers to the questions that I had and that the one thing that I am not is a quitter. As I was talking to her I got a link in my e-mail to her latest blog post, The Vision Cannot Wait, which was just the icing on the cake of what I needed. It reminded me that what I believe I am destined to do is a part of a vision that I have had for myself since I was six years old. In twenty four years I had never let go of that vision and I was not going to let the devil take my vision away now.

The devil is always busy but it seems like he’s been really working on me a lot lately. He has been throwing every obstacle at me that he knew would stop me dead in my tracks. Picking away at any part of me he knows to be vulnerable. Plucking away all of the petals of a purposeful flower, holding it back from its full bloom. I have been up against so many walls lately, hell it seems like my whole life has been an obstacle course. But lucky for me, the devil is no match for God.

God has his way of stepping right in when you feel yourself sinking under. Just as you throw your hands up to tell him that you can’t take any more, he is already there relieving you of your load. He may not come to rescue you before the storm passes, but he will never let you drown. While I know that I shouldn’t, there are times when I forget that. There are times that I forget the strength that God instilled me with. I just have to keep reminding myself that those walls that are blocking my view of that light at the end of this tunnel won’t always be there.

I have faith that if I just keep putting in the work and jumping over all of the hurdles that come along that my vision will become a reality. There is a reason why I am still standing, still surviving, still dreaming, and still pushing and its called purpose. That phone call from my best friend reminded me of the strength that I sometimes forget that I have inside. My determination to see my vision become a reality is stronger than any attempts the devil makes to take it way. If nothing else I am a survivor and this storm too shall pass and I will still be standing when it does.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”