Tag: Write 2 Be blog

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Visualize That You Are Already There

October 14, 2011October 14, 2011 jcladyluv

“See things as you would have them be instead of as they are.”

~Robert Collier

There are people who say that you become what you believe. So it’s simple, right? If you visualize something you want in your life, then you will eventually achieve it. However, it is difficult for a lot of people to believe in things that have yet to be seen; to believe that what you visualize could actually be tangible.

We are told to step out on faith. We believe that through God all things are possible and we stay true to that (for the most part), but we can’t see God either. So just as we blindly trust in God to always be there for us and guide us in the right direction why are we not so trusting in our own instincts and our own belief in ourselves? Why is it that we can’t trust that what we envision for our lives is not what we can actually have?

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Jim Carey said that before he made it big he would drive around and he would visualize what he wanted for his life and he would envision that he actually had those things but that they were just temporarily out of his reach at that moment. That’s an ingenious way to look at things because in reality, nothing that any of us wants for ourselves is impossible. What takes the possibility out of succeeding in our goals is the lack of determination and persistence at going after them because as Jim Carey also noted in his interview, visualizing does nothing if there is no work done to obtain that vision.

When you think about what you want your level of success to be and what you can achieve, you should not set those standards according to what others may be thinking your level should be. Your calling in life has nothing to do with anyone else but what you see yourself doing and what you see yourself achieving. Visualizing your goals and not just the possibilities but the realities can allow you to see that they are right within your grasp, if only you would just reach out your hands and grab a hold of them.

So the next time you start hearing yourself say you wish you could just achieve this or that and you find yourself feeling as if there are nothing but what ifs hanging over your head, just stop and visualize that you are already wherever it is that you want to be and that you already have the things that you wish to have. It’s a lot better then thinking that it will never happen. Until next time…Grab onto the image of success that’s right in front of you instead of the possibility of failure!

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

Should I Really be Content?

October 8, 2011 jcladyluv

“If you are foolish enough to be contented, don’t show it, but grumble with the rest.”

~Jerome K.

I am not a perfect person. I am a good writer, but by far, I am not the best that there is. I am driven and overly ambitious but I do, a lot of the time, tend to let my fear get in my own way. I will not do everything right all of the time and I am sure to get many more things wrong in this life before I leave it. It is a waste of time to pretend that I am anything close to what people might wish I could be.

I read online somewhere the other day something that said ‘until you make peace with who you are, you will never be content with what you have’. The only problem that I have with that saying is that I don’t think that anyone should ever really be content with what they have if their goals in life far exceed where they are right now. I have made peace with me and with all that I am, and more importantly with all that I am not and it took me a very long time to get to that point where I could be at peace with myself.

However, I can not say that I am content with what I have. Not out of some sense of being greedy and wanting more. And not because I don’t appreciate the things that I do have right now at this very moment, but because I know that there is so much more that I can be doing and goals that I am striving to get accomplished, and I can’t say I’m content yet. I know I could be doing better.

I think a state of contentment happens when a person gets to that point in their life where they can check off the majority of the things they set out to achieve, when they are where they need to be in life, and they don’t necessarily have to be rich, but rather self reliant and independent, and more importantly, stable. I am grateful, and very aware of the good things that I have had happen in my life, and of the potential that I have to do more with my life, but I do want to do more. I am not content with being ordinary, but rather, I strive to be extraordinary.

I think that sometimes people get complacent and they settle for what they have managed to achieve. Maybe they get in this rut where they honestly feel that they can’t accomplish the rest of their goals that they had wanted to achieve. That is not being content. That is settling for what you have managed to do so far. I think that it is okay to be at peace with the person you are and still not feel as if you are content. Once you reach the point of contentment, what else is there to strive for? Then what will our purpose be? I am who I am and I am okay with that, but I don’t think I will ever think that I am done doing what I was put on this earth to do. Until next time…If you think there is more in your life that needs to be done, are you really content?

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

Let Me Not Wallow Anymore

October 5, 2011 jcladyluv

“There is no advancement to him who stands trembling because he cannot see the end from the beginning.”

~E.J. Klemme

I was thinking the other night, yet again, about how bad things are and how I can almost see that light at the end of the tunnel but I’m getting frustrated because I feel as if that light should be much closer by now. I was thinking of how I just wish things, for once, could be going the way that I need for them to go. What I was doing was wallowing, and it wasn’t the first time. I was focusing so much on what isn’t going right that I wasn’t thinking about the things that are going right.

My best friend, Ms. L., hates it when I get so far down in the dumps that I can’t see any possible chance of something positive happening. She doesn’t like to hear me speak of all of the things that I think I can’t do because of this, that, or the other. She tells me that she doesn’t want to hear it and that she’s there for me but she can’t be around the negativity. To tell you the truth she actually has had the nerve to hang up on me once and I was mad. Those times when she would shut me down when I’m just simply trying to express what I’m feeling at the moment I could not understand how she couldn’t just be there for me and listen. But more and more I realize that she was being a friend, a really good friend.

Not only was she not going to let me tear myself down and make light of my goals or my potential, but she also wasn’t going to let me bring her down into my pit of negativity. I can appreciate that now because I have a person that is in my orbit that constantly tries to find one way or another to bring me down to her level of negativity and tries even harder to keep me feeling that way. I find myself constantly having to cut her off in the midst of her trying to make me commiserate in her own misery and negative feelings just so I can maintain my optimism that I find myself having to work at maintaining on a daily basis.

Sometimes I get stuck feeling a certain way, I get in a funk and too many times I allow myself to stay in that funk for far too long but it is having a friend like Ms. L. that can give me a good shaking (not physically of course) to make me see that wallowing is not going to change anything, but rather allow things to continue on being the same. Changing one’s circumstances can only happen once you stop questioning why me, and why did this or that happen, and actually do something about the situation that you don’t want to be in anymore. It’s good to have a friend that will risk hurting your feelings and upsetting you in order to save you from yourself. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Until next time…Stop wallowing in the things you can’t change and get out there and make the changes that you have the power to make!

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

And Now She Can Breathe Again

October 3, 2011 jcladyluv

“We’re given second chances every day of our life. We don’t usually take them, but they’re there for the taking.”

~Andrew M. Greeley

Today someone has been granted a second chance at living the life that they should’ve been living all this time. In an Italian appeal’s court, Amanda Knox was acquitted of multiple charges that two years ago got her sentenced to twenty six years in an Italian prison. She was falsely accused and then wrongly convicted and now after spending far too much time already in prison, she has a second chance at freedom. Now she can really breathe again.

What will she do from this point on? She’s had this stamp placed on her now that when people look at her they’re only going to think about the girl who went toItalyand was put on trial for murder. For those that still believe she is guilty, she will be known as the girl who got away with murder. She is the girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was thrown off the road to success that she was on and everyone has to be wondering the same thing that I am; what’s next for Amanda Knox?

Many people might say that her life may be forever derailed. I, however, think that this would be the perfect time for her to show the world just how strong she really is. There is an opportunity that can come from this tragedy. There is a story that she has to tell that can help to steer someone else that may soon be going off course. This can be a new beginning for her and a chance for her to use what she went through to enhance her greatness and propel her future.

Perhaps we all don’t share the same hardships and tragic events that Amanda Knox has had to go through but the lesson is still the same. She persevered, and she fought for her future (along with her family), and she never gave up, not for one second. When I think of the little minor things that I have gone through, at least minor in comparison to being on trial for a murder I didn’t commit, I am made to feel foolish. I don’t have the stigmas that she will now have and I don’t have the long road of adjustment ahead that she will have to make. Compared to her struggle, what do I, or any of us for that matter, really have to complain about?

Many times I have wanted to just give up and throw in the towel and I didn’t have nearly as much on my plate as she did. And she never gave up. So why should I? Why should anyone? I am thankful for Amanda Knox having this second chance at living her life and that her family will have the chance to support her in living that life. I am happy to know that there are second chances for those of us that consistently loose our way. I think I’ll take God up on the one he’s always giving me. Until next time…be thankful for all of the second chances you are given to make something right!

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

Born This Way

September 28, 2011 jcladyluv

“Don’t you ever let a soul in the world tell you that you can’t be exactly who you are.”
~Lady Gaga

Just last week a young boy, Jamey Rodemeyer, who was only fourteen years old, committed suicide. He had been taunted and bullied for years because he wasn’t sure of his sexuality and he was different and he just couldn’t take it anymore. He was a huge fan of Lady Gaga, whose main mission through her music is to promote acceptance and being proud of who you are and the differences that you may bring to the table in any circumstance. There is no acceptable reason for someone, or a group of people to single certain individuals out because of who they are and because they don’t fit the general mold that society sets for any one person. There is a reason why God created us all to be different and not to be copies of everyone around us.

We live in a world where appearances are everything and where being different is not rewarded but rather ridiculed and condemned. People whose lifestyles are not the same as others are treated like they are diseased. Those that are unique and creative are made to feel as if there is something wrong with them because their mind thinks differently than the average person’s. Simply put if people do not know what to make of you, then you are too different for them to accept.

Bullying is a nationwide issue. It’s not just happening in one city or even just one state. People are literally killing themselves to get away from those that are bullying them. It should never come to that. Fourteen and fifteen year old children should not feel that they have no other way to escape the judgment of others just because they are their own person and don’t strive to be a carbon copy of everyone else around them.

When someone writes an eloquent book that touches people’s hearts and souls, maybe even one that causes them to make particular changes in their lives, then the words are powerful and meaningful. However, when someone uses their words to pick at and ridicule someone and goes to the extent of bullying them, then all of a sudden people’s excuse is ‘their just words, they don’t mean anything’. So which one is it? Words are powerful or words don’t mean anything? Well coming from someone who knows all too well what it feels like to be bullied, words do mean something. They hold the same amount of power for the negative as they would for the positive, perhaps even more so.

Words can hurt. No matter how many people think that what they say shouldn’t greatly affect someone else’s life, chances are, they do. Sometimes what a person says can shape the rest of someone else’s life. Perhaps those individuals out there that feel the need to condemn someone else for being themselves should take a much harder look inside. Who is it that you are trying to be? Until next time…Be who are, it’s the way that God intended you to be!

“I’m beautiful in my way, ’cause God makes no mistakes. I’m on the right track, baby. I was Born This Way.”
~Lady Gaga

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 Theme of It All

September 26, 2011 jcladyluv

I was talking to Ms. L the other night and we were reminiscing about T.V. show theme songs from back in the 90’s and before you knew it we were googling some of those theme songs and singing along with them into the wee hours of the morning. We went from the Mary Tyler Moore show, All in the Family, and Good Times, to Growing Pains, Family Matters, and Friends. There were many more and perhaps even a CD of theme songs may have been involved but I won’t run down the entire list. In between singing these songs together, we even shared common gripes about the fact that it seems as though most of the TV shows now do not have theme songs and how we missed them.

I realized, somewhere between Perfect Strangers and Laverne and Shirley, that the difference between television shows then and now is that the writers seemed to want their shows to be graced with theme songs that were motivating and that uplifted their audiences into believing in themselves and in their dreams. The songs promoted family unity and families supporting one another through good times and bad, and through the things they want to accomplish. Now there are no theme songs, just a flash of music in the beginning of the shows and sometimes a few words to the beat of a random song, but no real theme song. No real promotion of family unity or uplifting of the spirit. It’s almost as if the writers of the shows stopped caring, along with the rest of the world, of the spirit of the people that watch their shows.

The theme shows from before were large reasons that I watched those shows in the first place. The songs would get me motivated and before the show even began I was rooting for those people, for their dreams, and for their family. I got valuable lessons from those promotions of family unity and the empowerment of following your dreams through the music of the theme songs. So when did they stop feeling the need to inspire the audience and to motivate and uplift them? When did the writers of the T.V. shows stop realizing that we still need that push and that empowerment, even if it is in the simple form of a song at the beginning of a show?

Sometimes it is the littlest things that can give someone the inspiration they need to do something different. The writers of these television shows may just see it as an insignificant theme song that cost too much for just that one minute sound bite, but that one minute sound bite might be just what that one person in their intended audience needs to hear. It might be what gets them moving and gets them motivated and lights a fire under them to do something great. That one minute sound bite is more than worth what it cost if it incites someone to be better and be greater than what they were before they sat down to watch their show.

In one of her blog posts, Ms. L said that we sometimes think that with us just being one person, what we do doesn’t count and that it doesn’t make a difference. But one person actually can make a difference and even when you might not think that what you say or do is affecting someone else, there’s a great chance that it is in fact touching someone else’s life in some way. Those writers of television shows may not think anything of the theme songs of the shows in television history and may not consider it worth their time or money to go that extra mile to find or create something that will incite inspiration but I would assure them that those songs mattered and they meant something and if anything it made people more drawn to watch. Just as everything a person does matters, what they don’t do also speaks volumes. Until next time…Do what you do best, even when you think no one will care or is paying attention; chances are that someone is watching!

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

A Wrong That Can’t Be Undone

September 22, 2011 jcladyluv

“Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders.”
~Albert Camus

Today I am deeply saddened by the unjust execution of Troy Davis last night at11:08pm. For a moment there it was a small glimmer of hope that people that are a part of this so-called justice system would do the decent thing, the right thing, and stay his execution. But nevertheless shortly after10:00pm the Supreme Court unanimously decided not to even give a thought to the fact that the man that they were about to put to death was more than likely innocent. They cared more about saving face and not having to admit that they were wrong then the life of this man and his family.

They claim that their reasoning had everything to do with giving closure to the family of the victim but I don’t understand how closure can come from the real killer being allowed to still walk the streets free and the life of yet another innocent person is gone. What will they say when Troy Davis’s family does in fact dig deeper and they do discover that they got it wrong? Do they think that sorry is going to help the suffering that his family now has to feel? Or are they just so blinded by their need to have been right about his conviction that they couldn’t see fit to entertain the possibility that they were wrong.

I’m not going to go into the exact details of the case because I would just get more enraged at the clear evidence that he was innocent, but I will just say that last night might have been the very first time that I was not proud to be an American. The death penalty is wrong to begin with for so many reasons; one being that just because a person takes another’s life doesn’t give the government the right to play God and do the same. More than anything the death penalty is wrong because too many times they get it wrong.

I shed a few tears last night for Troy Davis, for his family, but also for the victim’s family because they think that they’ve gotten some kind of closure and justice when this is anything but. I hate feeling powerless and as if there is nothing I can do to make things in this world better for me and for my daughter and for her future children.

I think what also saddened me that much more was the statement from President Obama, or the White House rather, that it would have been inappropriate for him to weigh in and share his thoughts and his opinion. I think that it was actually inappropriate for him not to say something, as the President of THIS country. He cares more about the end result in another country than the life of an innocent man being executed here in this one. I am completely disgusted with the legal system in this country that is supposed to provide justice. After this I don’t know why anyone would ever put their faith in it again.

Even in Troy Davis’ last words he proclaimed his innocence and asked that they keep looking into his case so that they can find out the truth of what happened. He even asked God to bless the men who were ending his life and that God would have mercy on their souls. I guess we should take a page from his book when thinking about all of the people who actually had the power to do the right thing and pray for them and for their souls. It’s just a shame when you have the power to make things right and you blatantly choose not to. Until next time…Fight for what you believe in until you don’t have any more fight left!

“To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice.”
~Desmond Tutu

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

What Could Have Been

September 21, 2011 jcladyluv

“You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.”

~Jan Glidewell

The other night I was talking to Ms. L and I was feeling a little down because I had a lot of things on my mind. I was thinking of all the curveballs that I have been thrown in life. I was doing a lot of wondering about what could have been.

What if I had done what I was supposed to do all the way through high school and had been able to get a full scholarship to the college of my choice inNew York? What if when I did go to college, not necessarily the one that I wanted to go to, and I had been better prepared for college life and had gotten the grades that I should’ve gotten or at least sought help when I was failing? What if I hadn’t gotten in a really bad relationship and gotten so steered off course from what my vision of my life was? What if I hadn’t met a man who I thought was the love of my life and had a child with him which derailed me going back to school until the late age of 27?

The truth is my life would more than likely be at a very different place, maybe even where I envisioned it being. Had I done all the things that I should’ve done in the correct time frame that it should have been done in I may very well already be into my writing career and perhaps even a lot closer to the top of that media mogul ladder that I am now struggling to climb. But in talking to Ms. L. the other night she helped me to see that everything does in fact happen for a reason and that just because the course of my journey has had to change, the vision has always remained the same and that’s what matters the most.

If I had never been directed to Morgan State University (which was not the school I had always wanted to attend) then I would’ve never met Ms. L. and I can not imagine going through this life without a friend as good as her and as supportive and motivating as her. If I hadn’t met the man who I thought was the love of my life, then I would not have my amazing daughter and I can not even begin to say how thankful I am for her and I wouldn’t trade her for all the money and success in the world.

So many of the things that I have been through are responsible for shaping the person I am today. But in all of that my vision of what I wanted in terms of my career goals and what I feel God put me on this earth to do have never changed. I have never questioned what I am meant to do. Now I may not have answered all of the previous doors that opportunity was knocking at, and looking back perhaps those doors were not meant for me to answer, but I certainly believe that there are still more opportunities out there that I may just have to build my own door to.

What could have been in anyone’s life is not always how things should’ve been and I firmly believe that God knows your path before you even develop a path in your own mind. So who am I to question what could have been when God already has a plan for what will be and the least that I can do, after all he has seen me through and all the talents and abilities that he has blessed me with, is follow the path that he has mapped out for me, not the one that I had mapped out for myself. Until next time…Don’t get sidetracked by the curveballs, just change your plan of how to attack them the next time you’re up to bat!

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 Stigma Behind Creating Greatness

September 19, 2011September 19, 2011 jcladyluv

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.”

~ Marianne Williamson

I was listening to a clip the other day of a speech that author of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert gave discussing the need to nurture creativity and to dismiss the automatic assumption that all writers, or creative types in general, are tortured souls. I hadn’t realized until I watched this clip just how much I had always bought into that myth in the past and in some ways had fueled my creative ability behind it.

Now it’s not that I would be any less of a writer if I didn’t have a terrible childhood where I grew up with no father and a very angry and all around abusive mother. In my case I think that my bad childhood was indeed the fuel behind my early beginnings as a writer. But I think that sometimes I got it into my head that if I wasn’t going through hard times and struggling to find my footing then I wasn’t a true writer. However, I’ve realized that in the most recent years, when it comes to my writing, pain and suffering actually stifles my creativity rather than enhances it. I feel more of a fluid movement of words when I am optimistic about things and when things seem to be going in the right direction.

It’s always been projected that writers, artists’, and creative like minded people have this angst and anguish, this pain that lies behind their genius. So does that mean that these creative people can not produce greatness without their individual tragedies? You hear of great writers and poets like Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, Virginia Woolfe, Edgar Allan Poe, and so many others who have had such tragic lives and their own demons to deal with and they dealt with them through their art. However, if they were truly meant to be artists’ would it have mattered if their lives were happy and filled with never-ending promise?

You write something today that’s a fictional story of tragedy and suffering and undoubtedly one of the first questions that someone will ask you is “Is this a true story.” It’s as if our minds can not possibly come up with a story that is brilliant and filled with drama and tragic events that is not our own actual reality. They do after all call it fiction for a reason.

My daughter has a great talent brewing for writing and my best friend’s son is a movie director in the making who also has a great love for writing and they are not tortured souls. They don’t have some tragic incident that has happened to them to suddenly make them begin to use writing as their source for directing the pain. Why can’t there be writer’s who have come from a happy childhood and have experienced wonderful experiences throughout their whole lives?

Why can’t writer’s, or any creative individual for that matter, not have that label of alcoholic, or drug addict, or suicidal that can be placed on them at any point in their career? Why must writers, past, present, or future, be afraid of being doomed simply because they are doing what they feel they were put on this earth to do? I would like to think that our future generations of artists don’t have to have that cloud of darkness hanging over their head simply because they wanted to explore their creativity. Are we really only as great as our greatest tragedies or could it be possible that our tragedies are what strengthen the talent that is to be our greatness? Until next time…don’t ever allow yourself to feel doomed for doing what God put you hear to do!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”