the journey from lazy….

I did’t know what my first post (in three years) would be like, I feel like I have been waiting and waiting for my hopes and dreams to catch up to my reality. I tried to motivate myself time and time again to write because I believe that is why I am here on earth but nothing would come. There was a secret that I was holding from everyone but I knew and it captivated my thoughts daily if not all day than most of the day. FEAR, DOUBT, LAZINESS is what it was, clouded with the perception of myself as is compared to the reality of others. Just as the bible says in (James 2:26) “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” Then there is the constant battle within my mind filled with insecurities, ideas and awful suggestions. Who wants to hear from me? This is a question I would often ask myself not recognizing the work I never stopped doing. How I fought for people everyday, provided myself as a living, breathing, walking, talking pillar of strength for people to thrive off of. On the outside I showed nothing but joy and jokes learning to focus on others and deflect the attention from myself and what I wasn’t doing by entertaining uplifting and inspiring when I was half-dead on the inside. Letting my 9 to 5 get the best of me energy wise and the thoughts of not enough time being in a day was another one of my excuses to myself. Listening to how others around me were hustling sometimes as a result of my consultation and inspiration. Now I know what you’re thinking, where is he now? Mentally has he come out of hiding and took the “bib of fear” off allowing himself to just live and get dirty. Trust me I want to say that I have finished my book. I’d love to have been named a published author having at least two or three New York Times Bestseller list publications. Even calling myself a full-time writer/philanthropist/LBGTQ activist having ditched the said two jobs that have kept me bogged down and discouraged for the last 3 years. Instead I have become what most people (especially Americans) have become and that is comforted by Friday nights filled with drinks and food to reflect on the week of work and repetitive complaints about things that only I can change. An Instagram, SnapChat, Facebook, Twitter junkie who is more inclined to telling you all about the latest Beyonce entrance or exit caught by the paps or a dreadful MEME of somebody from the African-American community setting us back thousands of years all in the name of 60 second entertainment that could only result in a ‘like’ and or (usually negative, racist, distasteful) ‘comment.’

Needless to say I am not pleased with myself or the choices I have yet to make that could only make me better, stronger and if nothing else wiser. Now I want you to read this question aloud. Why don’t we push ourselves to be better than what we were yesterday? Could it be that we’ve bought into our everyday lives as our written eternity. Or maybe it’s the fact that we look at our watches everyday not considering how much time plays a part in the short story that is our lives. Not to shift the blame but I believe in the idea that your environment affects your thinking. Ever heard the term misery loves company and how easy it is to allow someone to transfer whatever kind of energy they have onto us. Well that is one way to look at how easy it is to be suckered in to ‘groupthink.’ Living subconsciously in a way that only reflects the things we see and hear that others are doing. Having known all these things you’d think I’d be further in life by now but there’s more. With my 24 hours in a day 13-14 of them are consumed by the jobs I work to pay bills that never seem to go away. When is there time to create or be creative when you leave the house at 5am only to return home at 8pm tired, frustrated and just most times unfulfilled? I’ll answer that of course, there is nothing that happens but a drink, food and some trash reality television while squeezing in the love and affection from my beloved boyfriend of almost 2 years.

As I write this tears well up in my eyes from me knowing the pain while trying to experience the pleasure but I/we must rise. I know how great God has intended me to be but it’s up to me and only me. I have to be my own cheerleader, a liaison to my life and encourage me to put one foot in front of the other to order my steps toward freedom. Not the freedom that Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about or the freedom that Nina Simone or Muhammad Ali viciously spoke on. My freedom is knowing that if I believe it I can achieve it or die trying. My freedom is understanding that most of the things that occupy my time today are merely distractions that causes me to lose out on time. My allowing of others to invade the space in my head and heart causing me to stray from what my purpose is. But now it is time; Time to live, time to create, time to build and time to work!

Let this be testimony to everyone out there surrounded by plight from self inflicted doubt, we shall overcome.

Get ready…… Vashon Wade is and ready to work.