It has been over twenty years since I delivered a Sunday morning sermon as the Preacher’s wife. But this is one that I have spent a lifetime preparing…and shall spend the rest of my time upon this earth delivering whether in my fiction or non-fiction writing, public speaking, REALity YouTube or just the way I live my life every day. So here goes:
Do What Makes YOU Happy…
From the moment we are born (and perhaps before), other people are trying to change and mold us into what they want us to be. Parents, teachers, friends, bosses and above all society. By the time, we are ‘adults’ most of us have forgotten our dreams.
PanKwake is always teasing me that the next time she tries out for Britain’s Got Talent this is the song she is going to sing…because she knows how much I hate it.
I HATE the mother in The Amazing World of Gumball. She is everything that has become bad about women as wives and mothers. And this shows her crushing her children’s dreams as she did her husbands…because of course fitting into society and this F’ed up world is more important than doing and being what makes YOU happy.
Way too many people have climbed the corporate ladder, done everything their parents wanted them to, become a huge ‘success’ only to discover that they were just as miserable when they ‘arrived’ as they had been all along the way. Stephen Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People called this having your ladder against the wrong wall.
So what if you are one of those people, who have been so beaten down that you do not even know what you want to be when you grow up? Learn to dream again! Give yourself permission. Begin with…you just won $1.3 BILLION in the PowerBall…what would you do? Now…figure out how to do that…without a damned lottery. Then you will be a REAL winner in life.
Oh…and for the parents among us…DO NOT CRUSH YOUR CHILDREN’S DREAMS! So what if they want to be a singer and can’t carry a tune in a tin bucket? Take their cute asses to Britain’s Got Talent to try-out anyway. School and society over which you have little to no control will do their best to crush their dreams…you be the one in their corner…ALWAYS.
Be REAL…
When you do discover who you are, what makes you happy, don’t F’ing compromise on it. Don’t go hiding your little weird light to make other people comfortable or to fit in a world that is screwed up as it is.
This one may take some time and work, folks. Obviously if the REAL you has long, purple hair and you are in the military, then you need to do some serious thinking. Which is more important…more YOU? And realize that life has seasons…maybe now is just not purple passion season.
That is an extreme though…most of us have way more power in our lives than we realize. If you are just working a ‘job’ (not doing what you are called to) then maybe it is time to change? What job could you get with long purple hair? In fact, perhaps that is even MORE the issue that the color of your tresses?
And when it comes to your friends? Well, this one is totally your choice. Surround yourself with people, who celebrate you…not those who merely tolerate you.
Here it gets a bit tricky…family. You are talking to the woman, who has not spoken to her mother in over five years…after a string of truly hurtful things. BUT this week I am being faced with the reverse…am I going to compromise myself for my children?
I am the process of finding my lines here, but short answer…no. Not even for them. Oh, I will bend, meet them half way perhaps, but I will not compromise core values…those things most important to me…like being REAL. And that one is harder than you know, folks, because I taught them…
Accept others…
That’s right…how can you possibly ask society to accept you if you cannot accept others?
This applies to loads of things, folks…
- Body size, physical appearance…a size 20-something with long purple hair and tattoos?
- Religions (I admit to struggling with this one…because the line between faith and fanaticism is too often exceedingly thin).
- Race/Nationality.
- Mental Health…depression, anxiety, PTSD, autism…and so many others.
- Sexual Orientation…lesbian, gay, transgender… BUT it does not stop there, ya’ll. BDSM…and the one that is causing so damned much trouble in my family…Polyamory too.
As I said at Christmas…screw world peace, a mere outcome, I want ACCEPTANCE…because human intolerance of differences is the root cause of it all…war, discrimination, genocide, prejudice, hell, our very monetary system is built upon it with a few at the top taking from the vast majority at the bottom.
So if you do all those things is the whole world going to change over night? Open its arms and embrace your fat, purple haired poly ass? No, but you will have something that a life time of living by other people’s rules will never give you…
Peace and Happiness…and that trumps success in this girl’s book any day.
Oh and like those core values of 1) life sux 2) love is the only thing that makes it worth living and 3) GREAT sex is the best way to show your partner/s that love…expect to keep hearing this…over…and over…and over…AND OVER AGAIN. It is the message I was put on this earth by the goddess to give.
Tara Cox - Literary Erotica 