life | The Mocha Café

Life Is Good

November 15, 2010 Leave a comment

I know, I just disappeared. My deepest apologies. Life has been quite a whirlwind the last several months, and I honestly just needed time to focus on the things that would undoubtedly affect my future. That said, in my time away from the blog, I have received a new promotion at work and am in the processing of moving into a new (very nice) place, and working grad school tests and applications. Life is finally working itself out for the better and I must say I couldn’t be happier about it. Life is good.

I have received many questions about the state of the blog, and I am so grateful to have such a faithful following. You all have made the rough days brighter, so thank you. While this promotion takes away from the time I previously used to write, I am dedicated to finding a balance to continue to do what I love and what I get paid to do- both well. I hate half-assing anything with my name on it. So I won’t.

The most asked question among my friends since I took a break from the blog is, “has your finding love and/or being in a relationship now made you feel like you no longer have the need to write?” I think that is a valid question because so much of my blog up to that point was about self-assessment and the things I desire in my next (and hopefully, prayerfully LAST) relationship. In while being in a relationship does deplete some of my free time outside of work, I hardly ever wrote after work anyway. However, in regard to the question, I feel the complete opposite. I feel as if I have so much more to write about and from a better perspective than before. If anything, the relationship should add validity to what I’ve always said, eh??

Well, that is all I have for today. So much to write about this week, but I wanted to start here before I just jumped back out there. Again, thank you.

Life’s good!

Filed under Good Times Tagged with life, love, progress

The Struggle

July 26, 2010 9 Comments

It is around this time in my life that people are moving out of the post-college transition and are making headway in their respective fields. Most are happy that success is in within grasp and relieved that the struggle is over. Others had no struggle at all and success has always been a given as they have sailed through life this far with no major setbacks. But there are some lessons in life only the struggle can teach.

I’ve always said I never wanted to be with a man that has never known what being broke feels like. There are serious life coping skills that come having only a dollar to your name. Here are the lessons I think the struggle teaches:

1) To be compassionate. If you have always had everything you needed, it is hard for you to be compassionate toward those that need a helping hand. These people tend to think the system is fair and their taxes shouldn’t go to help others and thus become Republicans. However, it is the man that picks up an extra sandwich for the homeless man outside that wins my heart.

2) Lose that sense of entitlement. After a while of good things coming your way, it is hard not to feel like success is a given. However, good things require hard work and even then our efforts can be futile. In the struggle, you find there are no shortcuts to long-term success. And in every set back, there are the valuable lessons of how to be more effective and more efficient in pursuit of greatness.

3) Learn how to make do. This one is most important to me in a man because everything may not always be in abundance and I need for you to be able to make do. Every night there might not be shrimp and steaks, some nights there may only be an 8-piece and fries and I need you to be okay with that and not flip out. I’ve seen one too many recession stories of a man taking his whole family out before killing himself after he lost his job. I don’t have time to be dying because you can’t handle the idea of moving back to the hood.

4) Find a way to have a good time anyway. Speaking of the hood, everyone knows the hood has the best parties, hands down. There are no fancy dresses or tuxes, no champagne with chocolate fondue fountains, and no live ensembles. All you need to have a good time is some music, some red Solo cups, and a few friends that can appreciate a good time without the bougieness.

Filed under Good Times Tagged with life, relationships

Making My Way

July 6, 2010 2 Comments

Life is full of choices. There are the right choices and the wrong ones. It is usually those decisions that we put the least amount of energy in that most critically define us a person. It is those well-planned choices that make us ordinary. Some find safety in ordinary; however, I find security in knowing I towed the lines of my limits in an effort, no matter how futile, to be better than I am.

You would think as you get older, the more decisions you make, the easier the decision making process would be. The confusion is not in what is right and wrong because that line is thick and undeniable. However, the ambiguity comes if right is always the right decision to make or if it is even desired that I go right. Some of the world’s greatest inventors, artists, and leaders were great because they did not follow the norm or standard protocol. There is a time to go left, and deter from the path laid before you to in fact create a new, better path and to reach new, uncharted destinations.

So when is right right and when is right wrong? I would be lying if I said I knew the answer to that question. In the meantime, until clarity arrives, I will continue to do what feels right in my heart and in my spirit in an effort to create my own right. I have no desires to live in the shadows of others that came before me’s right. I know where the paved trails lead to – complacency. I have no desire to be there, complacent, because that doesn’t feel right to me. So I packed my hiking boots prepared to go off course to follow my intuition knowing the path will leave scratches, bruises, and at times be a brutal adventure. But I will take pride knowing that is all mine- the successes and the failures. I will sleep well knowing that I tested and realized my potential. I will smile knowing that my gifts were used. And the only contentment will come in knowing that my boundaries were expanded and I defined my own right.

Filed under The Re-education Tagged with choices, decisions, life