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How to continually inspire yourself

August 7, 2017

I am one of those people who gets bored very easily. What this means for me is that I get high bursts of creative energy during inopportune times, when I am busy with other things (i.e. finals week). When I was in school, this always presented as an itch I had to scratch so I usually ended up drawing various sketches on my study material. In retrospect, I’ve now realized that this usually happened because I used to continuously suppress my creative urges during the semesters while I tended to more “important” things at school or work. After many years of doing this wrong, trust me when I say that is not the way to go.

I think the most important thing in finding and sustaining inspiration within yourself is self-care. If you put you and your creativity last, you’re more susceptible to burn-out with whatever else you’re pre-occupying yourself with. I am not saying put your job and other priorities last. I am saying you should schedule time dedicated to you and your creativity. If you know you thrive on physical creativity such as through sports, you should find a way to include such activities through-out your week. If you thrive on mental creativity which is a little bit more challenging to come by, you should try to expose yourself to things that inspire you to create (i.e. going to museums if your creativity is based on art or reading books/poetry if your creativity is based on writing).

Lastly, creativity does not have to be a solo journey. We live in a time where we are blessed with technology and the ability to connect with people with similar interests. It’s completely fine to keep your creativity to yourself but I believe that you can grow your creative skills much more if you expose yourself to people who can give you constructive feedback.

My testimony about this advice that I am giving you is this blog of mine. I started my first blog during my senior year of high school and never shared it with any people I personally knew because it was more of a journal to me. I also wasn’t as dedicated and only blogged sporadically. As compared to this blog, my first blog barely captured my creative juices whereas I have never missed posting a new story every week to this blog. I know my art and fashion sections have some cob webs on them right now but I am planning to update those later this week.

In the spirit of constructive feedback, I would love to hear some honest reviews on my blog. Thank you for the support thus far.

Ten things I learned from my Brothers

July 31, 2017

bro pic

Keep calm in the eye of the storm because stressing never changes a situation.
Finding a sport you enjoy can help you have to lots of fun and most importantly to make friends
When you have a job, you should treat it as if you owned the place. If you treat the place like your own, you’ll always be considered for management positions.
This one is a dating tip from my younger brother. If a girl expects you to have your own house, car, and job, then she better have those things for herself too.
If a girl makes an effort to have a relationship with your mom, she’s a keeper.
Always try to save more money than you spend.
Family always comes first.
A girl doesn’t have to be a better cook than your mom but she should at least be a better cook than you (I guess unless you’re a professional chef).
Your connections always mean more than your grades.
Patience is the key to life. Everything happens at its own time.

On being an Awkward Black Girl

July 23, 2017

I think when it comes to black girls and women, society has this preconceived notion about who we are supposed to be. This stereotype has the greatest disservice to those of us, I would argue the majority of us, who do not fit that mold. We are supposed to be strong, loud, and opinionated when some of us, like myself, consider ourselves awkward black girls because we don’t fit into these self-limiting roles. In 2011, we were blessed with a youtube series known as “The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl” by Issa Rae which showed us black women in a more authentic light. Issa Rae proved to us that it was okay to not fit into what society defined as a black woman.

I swear I am Issa Rae’s biggest fan right now because I follow her on all her social media outlets and I also read her autobiography which has the same title as her youtube series. I would strongly recommend reading her autobiography because it helps you understand Issa Rae’s awkwardness better. I totally connected with the fact that she grew up in Senegal and the U.S. as I migrated to the U.S in the 4th grade which was a totally awkward experience especially with people not understanding my accent and me not understanding theirs. Similar to Issa, I never knew how to do the popular dances like the “Superman” which is a let down cause “black people are supposed to know all the cool dances”. To this day, my go to dance is the cupid shuffle because all the steps are outlined in the song which makes it quite simple to follow.

I also related to the awkward relationship phase that Issa went through where she thought she had to cheat in a relationship because she assumed the guy would cheat on her. (I had a similar love defense mechanism which I talked about in my post “still searching”). Issa’s cheating behavior is brought up in her now HBO syndicated series renamed “Insecure” (probably to not pigeon hole the show with the name Awkward Black Girl but I ain’t mad at her hustle). If you haven’t followed the series, do yourself a favor and get on it (even if you have to mooch with friends that do have HBO). I am so proud of Issa’s journey as it goes to show that black women who do not fit into society’s misconceived stereotypes can still make it by being true to themselves.

On self-love and modern day life

July 16, 2017

YOU ARE ART. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The way you breathe and live is art. No one can do it like you. So love yourself as such. Treat yourself like the rare Mona Lisa and protect yourself from people with the wrong energy. If someone says you love yourself too much that says more about their self-esteem than yours.

If you are a creator, create for yourself before blessing others with your gift. As some of you may know, I dabble in painting. When I first drawing portraits, I was inspired to paint other people some of whom disappointed me because they didn’t appreciate it enough. Therefore, I decided to be my own muse and started painting myself. I remember that during that time, one of my male friends came to visit and upon seeing the painting, he questioned why I was painting myself instead of other people. I found his question weird because he owned a blog and wrote a lot about his life story so as an artist he should have understood that you do not have to apologize for self-love.

I don’t know if this is a male ideology but I always laugh at the thought that women should not acknowledge their own beauty. The thought that women should be humble because “there are supposedly more beautiful women out there” that they should not celebrate their beauty. This reminds me of the One Directions lyrics for their song “beautiful” where they state “you don’t know that you’re beautiful, that’s what makes you beautiful”. In my opinion, that’s a load of crap. A woman who recognizes that she is beautiful should be more attractive than a woman who has self-esteem issues.

Anyone who recognizes their beauty, male or female, is infinitely more beautiful than those who are afraid to acknowledge theirs. So let us all love ourselves louder. If someone tells you that you’re too proud, tell them they’re not proud enough. Remember even Beyoncé has haters but even she doesn’t let them stop her from showering herself with the best maternity photo shoots.

On God, relationships, and unconditional love

July 9, 2017

screen-shot-2017-01-07-at-12-54-08-pm — destin, florida

In this society of fast relationships and mistrust, one thing that we’re all hopelessly searching for is unconditional love. However, the way I’ve seen this play out is sometimes irrational. For example, in my relationships this has played out as a way for the person you’re dating to excuse their flaws. We’ve all heard of people saying or said so ourselves that we can’t love someone who doesn’t accept us for who we are. But what happens if you have a tragic flaw such as addiction? Should you still expect your love interest to love you unconditionally? It’s selfish but we usually always expect people to love us unconditionally. But doesn’t the person who wants better for you actually love you more than the person who is alright with your tragic flaws.

Take God for example (if you believe in a higher power), God loves us all unconditionally but he expects us to strive to be more like him. We were all created in his likeness and he expects us to please him by following his word (The Bible). Most of us accept and understand this so when we sin, we repent, and aim to do better. Why? Because there’s this thing called hell that we fear but most importantly because we know that our relationship with God will improve when we stop engaging in things that God does not approve of. So in that case why is it difficult for us to accept constructive criticism from our significant others on why we can improve as individuals and as their partner.

Some people say that if you put God first in a relationship, there’ll be less conflict. I tend to agree because if you’re both striving to be better for God then you’ll be even better for each other. I recognize that this applies more to heavy issues like addiction, laziness, and gluttony which are sins and applies less to issues like your partner chewing loudly. However, those lesser issues are things that we can tolerate and live with. So my advice would be to keep God first in your relationship and the rest will take care of itself.

I would like to put a disclaimer that even if someones claims to be putting God first, you should judge them by their actions and not by their words. For example, if you’re dating someone with drinking issues and he claims to put God first yet he still drinks to a stupor, then it might be time to call it quits and find someone who is truly committed to improving himself. For my non-religious people, you can take religion out of this and still stick to the principle of striving for greatness for both you and your significant other.

As you may know from one of my first posts, drinking irresponsibly is one of my turn offs. Feel free to share your turn-offs below.

The Jay-z and Beyoncé cheating saga and its implications on modern day love

July 2, 2017

Screen Shot 2017-07-02 at 12.52.06 PM

Shout out to black twitter because nobody knows how to shade other people like black people (cue Maxine Waters and her no non-sense attitude). The real MVP of black twitter this week is the tweet above addressing Jay-z new album which confirms that he cheated on Beyoncé and the implication of that cheating. To really dissect this topic, I would like to revisit the scandal of April when Carmelo Anthony (basketball player for the New York Knicks) stated that the reason he cheats on his wife, Lala, is because she is married and he is not. Let’s run that again, he said that his wife who he walked down the isle with is married but he is not. Either there’s something wrong with the water in New York cause Jay-z hails from Brooklyn or these men have some mental retardation. But the worst part is that apparently Carmelo has been cheating for a long time with Lala knowing about it and this month, she dropped the divorce to continue in her half-sided marriage.

Just to make sure y’all don’t think this is a black phenomenon, let’s cue Hillary and her man Bill ( I don’t even need to drop the last name here). Bill embarrassed Hillary with his cheating on a national scale and she still took his sweet talking presidential butt back (some may argue Hillary did it because she had her eyes on the prize but considering she lost the election last year, girl was he worth taking back?!)

So let’s revisit that tweet. It drives the point home that “cheating isn’t about who women are but who men are allowed to be”. Men are allowed to gaze at other women. Men are allowed to come home late and say they spent the evening at the office. Men are allowed to go on so called business trips when you know he’s at the hotel downtown with another woman. Men are allowed to disrespect marriage while women are pushed to uphold it all costs. That’s not fair. If we’re married, we’re both married. We both state vows that are supposed to be upheld in sickness and in health, till death do us part. If you cheat in a marriage that should be considered death and us women should walk away with our dignity in tact and hopefully a nice alimony check.

I am tired of this “he cheated and she still stayed” narrative. It’s a narrative that is as old as Adam and Eve. Just as God punished Adam and Eve for cheating him with Satan, there should be a consequence for cheating in marriage. Maybe there should be a separate hell for those who cheat that is like 50 degrees higher than normal hell. Who knows what the solution is but all I know is that if my future husband cheats on me that will be my cue to throw his clothes out on the lawn and change the locks cause he won’t be welcome in the house ever again.

On the reality of dating and having close friends of the opposite sex

June 25, 2017

This post is inspired by one of LeToya Luckett’s new song and album titled “Back to Life” which I’ll link at the end of this post. If you don’t know who Letoya Luckett is, she is one of the girls who had the premonition to jump the ship known as Destiny’s Child before Beyonce dropped everybody and took over the world. Letoya Luckett may not be a household name but I think she turned out far better than Michelle and Kelly. Letoya dabbles in acting and has had an above average musical career without having to bow down to Queen Bey. But anyway, let’s get back to her new album “Back to life”.

The video to the first song “Back to life” describes a relationship in the “going steady” phase where you introduce your significant other to your friends and family. So in “going steady” tradition, Letoya’s hunk of a man introduces her to his best friend from when he was in diapers and who just happens to be a female. Naturally, Letoya questions her man and his relationship with his best friend as she senses some chemistry there. After that introduction, their relationship goes south as her man becomes more distant and is always on the phone either texting or on a call with his female bestie. The climax of the video is them fighting in the kitchen with the punch line from Letoya being her telling him “you don’t value what you have, because you don’t know what you have”. So naturally, they break-up because she wants to get back to her life, back to her reality, and back to herself. Fortunately, there’s a follow-up song and video titled “Used to”.

In “Used to” we find out that Letoya’s hunch was right and that her ex-man’s female bestie had confessed her feelings to Letoya’s man. We also find out that old boy is stressed out trying to get her back by calling her and kind of stalking her, telling her that he was wrong with his punchline being “I didn’t know what love was till I met you”. Naturally, Letoya is out there thriving, serving looks, and going on some horrible dates.

Ladies, this goes to show that you should always listen to your gut in any relationship because you’re usually right. But I still need to give my two cents on dealing with friendships of the opposite sex. As established in my tom boy post, I do have a sizeable amount of male friends and I’ll use one of them as my case study. Every time I am in Kenya, I usually hang out with one of my brother’s best friends who has grown to be one my good friends as well. We have a brother- sister type of relationship but since we’re not actually related, I usually un-intentionally ruin his chances in courting girls because they think we have something going on. On the other hand, he’s usually my wing-man and 75% of the guys I’ve dated in Kenya, were set up by him.

In my opinion, I think that the jealousy that stems from opposite sex friendships is more of a female issue. I think this is because guys recognize that if the male best friend hasn’t gotten with the girl, it’s probably because the girl has friend-zoned the guy and he’s not a threat. On the other hand, female best friends try to play the role of mother in law and they don’t think any girl is good enough for their guy friend. In turn, the female best friend tries to sabotage their guy friends’ relationships. Girls are also more likely to get jealous of all the time her guy friend is spending with his girl and might try to destroy your relationship because of it. Of course this is immature, but it does happen. This is why I think that as much it’s okay to have close friends of the opposite sex, they should not be your closest friend (I am speaking on heterosexual relationships here). You should leave that spot open for your future spouse or get ready for drama in your friendship and relationship.

Now that you’ve heard my opinion, I am interested to hear other thoughts about this issue. Please leave a comment below.

Ten things I learned from my Dad

June 18, 2017

If you know my dad, you know that he is sometimes known for taking the autocratic route which might have something to do with him working as a high school principal in Kenya for over 15 years. One of his closest friends always makes it a point to talk about my dad’s “there’s one thing we must agree” principle. Basically, it’s a principle he uses when he wants you to take his way or the highway but instead of saying of that, he says what he wants by opening the conversation with “there’s one thing we must agree” which literally means you have to agree with him. Fortunately, the “must agree” talk was not necessary for the following ten things that I learned from my dad. Throughout my experiences, I naturally arrived to the conclusion that he was right about the ten following ideas:
1. Always protect your heart. My dad strongly believes that love is a choice so you can only blame yourself if you fall for the guy that is clearly not for you.
2. Never date someone just because you’re lonely. Too often we get caught up by our primal instincts during “mating season” and get a bae for the sake of it. Do yourself a favor and don’t be that person.
3. If you’re with a person who tries to push you to do things you don’t want to do, they’re not the one for you.
4. Love is 90% respect; if you don’t have respect in your relationship, it’s doomed to fail.
5. The definition of love is “taking care”. This reminds me of Le Petit Prince where the pilot tells the prince that you have an obligation to take care of those you love. This can be as small as taking your wife’s car to the car wash to planning a holiday together.
6. You must also take care of yourself so that you sustain yourself. If you’re not in good health, you can’t take care of anyone. If that means treating yourself every once in a while, go ahead and treat yourself.
7. Good posture is a must. They way you walk communicates how confident you are to others.
8. It’s always important to have a hobby; all work and no play makes you a dull person.
9. Considering my dad used to stay up late to help me decorate my science fair posters, he instilled in me the principle of working smarter not harder.
10. Gossip is for the feeble minded. Smart people discuss ideas not what other people are doing.

On Soulmates: myth vs reality

June 11, 2017

Screen Shot 2017-01-07 at 1.05.44 PM This past week, I revealed to one of my guy friends that once thought I had met my soulmate. This led to us discussing what we believe about soulmates and since there’s controversy on this topic, I decided to dive into it with a blog post.

According to google, this is the definition of a soulmate:

ˈsōl ˌmāt/

noun

noun: soulmate

a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner.

I agree with google that a soulmate can either be a friend or a significant other but I disagree with the “ideally suited” part, whatever that means. I’ll explain why from my own experience.

I thought I met my soulmate in Summer 2012 when I went to Kenya and worked at the Institute of Primate Research having fun with monkeys among other things while also living in the same forest they were housed in. While in Kenya, I was talking to many different guys cause flings seemed better suited for my short stint. One day I was meeting up with a guy friend who was coming from the city to come meet me in the suburbs where I was living. While I was asking one of my co-workers of suggestions of good places to go out, she suggested that me and my friend join her and her friends to an outing to one of the happening night clubs in the area. All was going well until we decided to pre-game at a bar at one of the local shopping centers. This led them to start talking about one of their friends who was basically described as an alcoholic and who would most likely be at the same bar. So they called him up and it turned out he was there so he went to join him there. Mind you, my date hadn’t arrived yet so I was open to it since the place to the bus stop my friend would meet me.

When we went to the pregame spot, I was introduced to about three different guys so I wasn’t sure who the supposed alcoholic was. However, I did feel a lot of attraction and intrigue to one of the guys, he was tall, handsome, and as you probably wouldn’t guess, he was also white (yes Kenya has white people who actually live there). Fortunately, the two other guys left and were left with the white guy who I’ll call Lucky ( cause I do think he has a lot of mystical fortune). I shortly discovered that he was a chain smoker just like my co-worker (usually this is a turn off for me but for some reason, I didn’t think much about it cause a lot of Kenyans are social smokers when they’re drinking). It was clear that there was mutual interest between Lucky and I which was a weird predicament to be in especially when my date finally arrived. Upon his arrival, we all moved to a different bar and we were all now sitting in a circle of chairs getting to know each other. I remember bringing up my spiritual beliefs( see My Spiritual Journey (No propaganda involved) and somehow that intrigued Lucky who was into meditation and some buddhism tenets. At this point my co-worker’s boyfriend had arrived and her other friends from before had left. So this was an awkward group of five with two couples but ironically it was my date who became the odd one out because of the chemistry between Lucky and I. After enough pre-gaming, we moved to the night club and things became even more awkward because I would take turns dancing with both guys. My date would find other girls to dance with so it was cool to some level. At the end of the night, I was very forward and got Lucky’s number.

The next day, Saturday, I texted Lucky and he later called me proposing we go out and of course I said yes despite my co-worker sending me a “judgy text” stating that my behavior the night before was interesting. At the time, I didn’t feel much guilt because I wasn’t committed to anyone so I didn’t see anything wrong with what I did. Anyway, we went to a pretty cool rave even though he was clearly nervous in the beginning especially considering I was almost about an hour late to the date (I blame Nairobi traffic). To be funny, I bought him a pair of socks on the bus that I was on (they’re a lot of random hawkers selling different things on Kenyan public transport, I think this is very common in Africa overall). He didn’t seem very impressed with the gift which is probably the natural reaction to getting socks as a gift but later that night he gave me, a wooden rosary that he wore on his neck. Later he wanted to go to a late night pharmacy to buy something and I won’t go into what he bought, but that’s when I realized that he might have some addiction issues. During the next few days, alcohol was always involved in our activities and I pleaded with him to get some help. Similar to a stereotypical addict, he cited that his life had been difficult etc ( keep in mind that this guy is from a very wealthy background and didn’t have to go to university because he would be the future CEO of his parents’ business regardless). He were both infatuated with each other but I tried to stay level-headed. For example, he once claimed that he would buy me the new Ranger Rover Evogue if I stayed in Kenya with him and of course, I said no. This was also the summer after Whitney Houston passed away from a drug overdose and in the back of my head was a voice saying, Mercy your parents worked way too hard for you future for you to ruin it with a drug addicted love interest. So when he became distrustful when I went to visit my family friends in Nyeri (where I am from), I decided to let the fling go and moved on to the next one.

It wasn’t until I was about to leave Kenya that I started to think that maybe Lucky could have been my soulmate. He wasn’t “ideally suited” as google claims but we did have a lot in common. He also seemed to just get who I am and we had a lot of chemistry. Part of me started wondering maybe I could have helped him fight his addictions but another part of me knew that was a decision he’d have to make himself. I honestly have never met another person who has made me feel that way. But maybe google is right and when I meet my true soulmate, he will be “ideally suited” for me.

The 3 friends you need in your life

June 4, 2017

living singe — From the iconic show “Living Single”

Today’s post is inspired by friendship and in my world less is more, so I’ll break down the three types of friends you need. Three is a good number to have as it evens out with your inclusion so nobody feels left out. To drive my points home I’ll use examples from 90s shows I used to watch such as Living Single displayed in the picture. I am currently re-watching Girlfriends which is an iconic show as well and a bit more relatable because it aired in the 2000s when shoulder pads were no longer a thing.

However, despite the fact that the shows were set in two different eras, the personality of the characters are very similar. So to make this easier I’ll break down the characters into the four types of characters you need in your friendships with one of the characters being you.

The straight-shooter

In Living Single, you had a high strung lawyer named Maxine who was a tom boy and was crude in her humor. She was also very focused on her career and claimed that wasn’t looking for love. I have to admit that I never finished the series but I do remember that she had a friends with benefits situation who was clearly perfect for her but denied her feelings due to her pride. Based on this description, you might ask yourself why you need a friend like this. The answer is simple, straight shooters always think with their head not their heart so they’re the best people to give you advice although you must take their relationship advice with a grain of salt.

The level-headed one

Undoubtedly, the most level-headed character in Living Single was Khadijah, ironically played by Queen Latifah. She happened to be the realest person on the show as she had good relationships with everyone and was the glue to the girl squad. This type of friend is necessary as she keeps everyone in check when they take things to far without sounding too harsh. Most often times, this person also happens to be the mother of the group so everyone often turns to them when they’re in a crisis. Unsurprisingly, this is also the person that everyone else is closest too. So if you fail at having more than one friend, make sure this is the person you have in your line (I would say circle but you need four people for that haha).

The bougie one

Every friend based show has a bougie (translation: uppity) friend in its circle, in Living Single it was Régine whose real name was Regina but of course bougie people try to make their names sound more chic. This is also evident in Girlfriends, where the bougie friend goes by Toni when her real name is Antoinette. Despite how annoying the bougie friend can be as they seem to value material possessions more than anything else, they can be valuable in helping you figure out what to wear and any type of shopping activity from buying a new duvet to a new condo. These friends are also selective about the men they date in terms of their net worth so if you’re looking for a millionaire, they’re the friends that you turn to. On the flip side, their savings are probably non-existent and they’re probably at greatest risk of getting bankrupt so take their shopping advice with a grain of salt.

The optimist

This is the friend that sees the world through rose colored glasses. In Living Single you had Synclair who was a little bit slow but maintained a constant good nature. She never stayed mad at anyone and was always chipper to a fault. You might find such a friend annoying sometimes but it’s good to have them when you’re in a dark corner of your life. They help you stay grounded and always help you see the silver lining. However, these friends usually don’t make good planners as they expect everything to work itself out so you should take their ideas with a grain of salt.

The main point of this post is that we need different types of people in our lives as they’re all useful in different situations. However, you should always understand their flaws as well so you know what to and what not to expect from them.

If you were amused enough by these characters to watch the shows. They can be found on youtube at the following links:
Living Single: https://tinyurl.com/ycjb9qc6

Girlfriends: https://tinyurl.com/yax5fcps