Leave Your Best As Your Legacy

It has been a minute since I have taken the time to sit and write. I guess you can say that I haven’t been motivated, but I would rather skip the excuses and keep moving forward. My spirit has been moved by a few conversations and many thoughts. The other day I met with a fellow teacher who is about to return to the states as she has completed her year contract. We met to discuss my poetry, or at least that is why the meeting was called. However, once we sat down the conversation quickly changed, and like water, I began to flow.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have the gift to speak, and when I start who knows when I will stop. I don’t like meaningless conversations, ignorance, and people who show up in life, but never seem to perform or in other words, the spectators. Now, I will say that from time to time I have participated in one or all of the above for one reason or another, but I refuse to make it a daily habit and/or a disposition cause life is much too short and I have something I came here to give. So, with that being said I will begin my word for the day.

As I reflect on the things I have been blessed to do and be involved with in my brief life span, I am thankful. I am thankful for the triumphs and failures, for the time alone or the time in the midst of great thinkers. I am encouraged by those who move to do great things with nothing but thought.

Yesterday, I watched Mo’Nique’s “I Could Be Your Cellmate,” and not only is she too funny, but she was really encouraging. When she finished she had me in tears as she brought up one of the inmates from the audience to sing a song. Honey, when I say that woman SANG that song and tears came from way-way back, she sang that song.

So, I began to think about how so much talent was given to one individual and how it was being wasted in a place like prison. I thought about how gifted this young African American woman was and how she has been tossed away by herself and society. Although, her gift could easily be helping the inmates that she communes with daily, I tend to believe that it could be used in ways to prevent people from turning to things that get them placed in prison vs helping them maintain while they are there.

I have no idea what this woman was incarcerated for, but I know that the gift that God gave her has been confined to prison walls, but then I realized that so many people who are free confine their dreams without the boundaries of a prison. At what point do you begin to fully live the life that you were placed here on Earth to live? When do you stop making excuses for living beneath your dreams? When do find the courage to move from ordinary to extraordinary? How do you find the faith to be a butterfly instead of a caterpillar?

Well, I am not really sure if there is a defined time all those answers come, but there is a quote that I try to focus on every chance I get, “When faced in the right direction continue to walk.” However, many people have no direction and so they end up with huge amounts of talent in places like prison, or even worse in my opinion, self inflicted mazes wandering hopelessly in life.

Today, is the best day to change what you don’t like and start living the best life you could ever live, and you don’t have to have a master plan all you need to know is that you no longer want to live like you are currently living. All it takes is one step in the right direction and you are well on your way because remember, that once faced in the right direction all you have to do is continue to walk.

So, today I refuse to make another excuse about why I can’t do something, why I have not finished something, and I refuse to allow myself to get in my own way. I will not be imprisoned by my inability to know and trust in a God that I believe still performs miraculously every day in many different ways. I believe that if the idea was placed into thought you have the ability to bring it into reality, and with that I know that everything you need is provided. I know that the words are much easier than the action, but if it were easy then no one would have an excuse in the first place. However, we all owe it to ourselves to leave this plain empty, meaning that you have given everything you got to the cause of being everything you desire to be. I encourage you not to take your best with you, but rather to leave your best here as your legacy.