I may not be your million dollar bill but i am my own black card

Society provides people with various constructs.
Some of us will fit the mould and some of us won't and sometimes when we don't fit the mould we may find ourselves teased, mocked or ostracised by people that do fit the mould.

Today I learnt something very powerful- I was never going to the typical anything.
I was never going to be the typical woman or the typical man.
I was never going to be the one you'd think of when thinking of the stereotypical male or female and for a long time that bothered me. It bothered me all throughout school, in my personal life and in relationships.
For a while I'd try and emulate people, to try and mimick their conventioniality but it wasn't me and then I watched a B Scott video and he told me to define myself, so I did.

I realized that no matter what you do in this world people are going to judge you and that if you let other people define you- you are putting your potential and happiness in their hands and from past experiences I learnt that when you put your potential and happiness in other peoples hands they either squeezed the life out of it or threw it away.



Defining yourself means accepting who you are and acknowledging that you are who you are for a reason. God put you on this planet for a purpose, you are an individual with rights,emotions,aspirations and feelings- be a Lady Gaga and not an Ashanti.

Being a Lady Gaga means that even when people don't understand or get you they are forced to accept that NOBODY in the world can do what you do because you are the best at it and that although your ideologies and beliefs differ from their own you talk like that because you can back it up.
Being an Ashanti is when you are no different from any other failure- you mould yourself on things that have already been done insteading of being a unique individual, even if people wanted to respect you they couldnt because you have so little self respect for yourself because instead of saying "HEY HERE I AM- I AM UNIQUE" you are saying "HEY HERE I AM- If you liked person x then you'll like me because i'm just the same."


Defining yourself means accepting the way you speak even if it made you cringe before- when alone just speak to yourself so you can used to the sound of your own voice so that when in public people will sense that you understand your voice- how it works- you command respect because you know your voice well enough to manipulate it to get the desired effect.

Defining yourself means understanding "I may not be your million dollar bill- but i am my own black card," don't do things toimpress other people. Live for yourself because my dear this life is too short to spend it trying to appease people who don't get you. As long as you are not hurting anybody and living right dont care what anybody thinks of you- they weren't going to like you anyway- even Gandhi had critics, as did Martin Luther King as did Jesus himself. Black people would still be sitting at the back of the bus if RosaParks didnt define herself, "I am Rosa Parks and I AM tired and so I AM not getting up for this man."
Defining yourself means looking further than today. Think about yourself- did you ever go through something and wonder how the hell am I going to get the stregnth to get through this- I want you to know that you are as strong as your mind will allow your soul to be. Everyday you are going through some pain tell yourself- "another day closer till this pain is over and I find the light I'm looking for."


Defining yourself means loving yourself so much that it doesn't matter when the world forgets to respect or care for you. When the world shuns you and you can still walk with your head up high because you know that you are alive and strong.


Some years ago, I went through something and I was bullied for a long time, I was harrassed, insulted, embarrased and ridiculed because a mistake that I made was exaggerated and twisted by some people who saw fit to twist truths. I cried myself to sleep every night and had to hold back tears in the day so my family and friends wouldnt know how much it was destroying me. I never contemplated suicide but I knew that I could have been close to that- I was lost and then one day I realized something- I intended to live my life.

I didnt wake up and say "i want to live one more year,"i woke up and realized "i want to live for as long as God sees fit," and that meant that couldnt cry a day longer, wasting my nights soaking my pillow with salty tears when I could be dreaming of a better day. I made it my mission to exceed in school because I knew that education and knowledge could never be torn from me and so I did, I exceeded and whilst doing so discovered a world bigger than my hurt,a world where I could be free of shame and ridicule. The people who were spending all their time focusing on me didnt realize that whilst they were schemeing i was beaming. Whilst they spent entire classes throwing stuff at me and calling me every name under the sun I was studying, I dont even have to explain where those people are now because you can imagine what people who could be so cruel are like. It was the people who concentrated on their work that exceeded- even the ones who would get at me sometimes, they didnt waste their energy on me in the same way I didn't waste my tears on people who could NEVER take my joy away.


I learnt to define myself,I learnt who i was, i did things for me. When I needed to lose weight I took my fat ass to the gym and burned those calories so I could feel good about MYSELF, when I noticed that I laughed too loud, I toned it down for MYSELF and when I walk down that street where the people that would taunt and hurt me used to they all know "there goes a bitch who knows who they are," because I do know who I am.


Accept yourself.
Love yourself.
Define yourself
And live in this world- live and eat up life selfishly- be a symbol of stregnth in your world so that when you go to bed at night you can say with a clear chest "today I lived- and tommorow I'm going to live some more."