Using your VOICE!—>R E S P E C T!

People will only do to you what you allow them to do. There is a such thing as RESPECT!

It took me a long time to realize this. I used to wonder why people treated me the way they did. “Why are they so mean to me?” After looking at how they treated other people better than how they treated me…I started to notice that the problem was me…mot them.

I have always been taught not to make a scene. Be as polite as possible, say please, thank you, and always keep a smile on your face (it’s a southern thing!). But what I didn’t notice at the time was that my pleasant southern charm was turning me into a push over. It hit me about 6 years ago when my husband and I went to McDonald. I order a burger, extra onions (again, its a southern thing) extra mustard and no pickles. We received our order and began to head home. In the car, as I unwrapped my sandwich, I noticed that my order was wrong! I was a little disgusted as I told my husband how they screwed up order, but I continued to eat it anyways. My husband looked at me as I began to take the first bite “No! Take it back! If that’s not what you ordered take it back and demand that it be corrected!” He quickly turned into the nearest driveway to turn around. “You should always get what you paid for!” He shouted as he whipped the vehicle around heading back to the McDonald’s.

I was to ashamed to go in and request that my order be fixed. My husband on the other hand, being a New Yorker and all, had no hesitations doing it for me. As I sat in the car, I realized that I was the reason people treated me so badly. I didn’t use my voice! I started to review some of the times in which I allowed people to mistreat and use me. I many cases, it started out as me overlooking a “mistake” or unkind words from someone. That entailed gave them permission to talk to me and treat me as they wished. It was kind of like I said to them “Come on, throw dirt in my face…I’ll just walk home and wash it off!” As I watched my husband through the windows of the restaurant, I noticed that he was calm and respectable while handling the issue. He walked back to the car and handed my the bag with my sandwich neatly tucked inside. I unwrapped it and checked its contents. “Is it correct?” He asked before backing out of the parking space. “Yes. It’s correct.” We drove off to enjoy the rest of our evening.

After that incident, I began working on how to be assertive without being an asshole! I found that humor and kindness goes a long way when you are trying to get a point across. I no longer have issues when it comes to the treatment of ME! If I don’t like something, I will tell you, and I won’t be an ass about it either. Once I started using my voice, I noticed that my circle of friends began to get smaller. Their reason for dropping off was “they didn’t like the new me.” Typical!

So..the moral of this story is that people WILL only do what you allow them to do. Don’t blame others for the mistreatment of YOU. You have the power to correct their behaviors or either rid them of your presence all together. In many cases, they may not know the effect that their word or behaviors have on you. TELL THEM! They might just change how they approach you. If they truly value the relationship they have with you they will! Regardless, never put your feeling on the back burner for anyone! You are a wonderful person that deserves to be treated as such!

Ms. VeeAllVa

 

 

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New Years Realizations

New Year, New You….People don’t just change overnight.

Every year millions of people, myself included, make promises to better themselves or their situation in the upcoming year. Either its developing a plan to be healthier, or to save money, we often fail due to poor planning. Planning that we should have done weeks in advance in the “old year” in order for us to advance into the NEW YEAR.

We need to realize that change takes time. Just because we have turned the page on the calender should we expect a magical reset button to appear in our lives. Change takes preparation. Besides, why put off tomorrow what we can start improving on today. You want to lose weight in the new year; go get a gym membership today. You want to get your GED in the new year; go pick up practice materials now and start preparing to ACE that exam! You want to start a business or write a bestseller, or go back to college…PUT IT IN MOTION NOW!!!! Don’t set boundaries within your mind about what you can and cannot do. Start preparing for your dream! There is no time like the present to better yourself.

My New Year Realization is that I am better than what I give myself credit for. I am capable of doing anything that I set my mind to if I make time to prepare for what it is I want to achieve. The only person stopping me is me. It has taken me 4 years to come to these realizations. It took trials and many, many errors to come to the point that I am now in my life. Am I pleased…not exactly…but I’m preparing to embark on the next phase of becoming a better me…and I’m not waiting until 2014 to do so.

So… we are all waiting on the ball to drop, remember not to drop the ball on your future. Complete your dream in 2014.

Leaving a Lasting Print in the Sand–>Taking an INVENTORY

There comes a point in your life when a person finally realizes that they can’t continue to live a fast life! Spending time ripping and running the streets, not taking care of responsibilities, being loud, disrespectful, harsh, smoking weed, buying lashes and outfits from rainbow, rushing to the club because it’s free before 11, or parting at hole in the walls while you don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of is only “cool” for so long! There comes a time when a you have to stop living carelessly and start building a legacy. I was 25 years old when I decided I wanted to start building my legacy. I didn’t just wake up and decide that it was time to leave the foolishness alone; it was a gradual change that happened when I started taking an inventory of what was going on around me. Being that we are products of our environment and the company we keep, I decided that in order for my life to change I needed to change my environment AND the company I kept.

It is so easy to walk in the footsteps of others. All you have to do is watch and follow. The thing for me was that I didn’t like the path in which the footsteps I was following was leading me towards. The path I choose could eventually be the path that my children walked as well; I wasn’t just choosing a path for myself anymore. I had to be careful in my actions. I had to make decisions wisely to ensure the well-being of the future generations of my family. I had to start building a legacy that would lead to constant improvement, generation after generation. In order to advance in life you have to leave some of the old behind. Just like a rose bush that blooms in the spring, it has to be pruned and shaped to ensure buds for the next season, we have to do the same with our environment and the company we keep in order for us to bloom into the new season.

Taking an inventory of your surrounding helps when it is time to prune and shape our lives. Like all living things, there are certain things we need in order to survive and evolve; people that care for our well-being and positively influence you to do and be a better person, those that motivate and encourage and are there when you need a helping hand, a  place of safety, warmth, love, peace and happiness. Elevate yourself of the things/people that bring drama, hostility, negativity, sorrow, guilt, pressure, and emotional and physical pain. If you want to build a legacy positivity and advancement to greatness your surroundings and your environment should reflect that.

What kind of legacy do you want to leave? In what direction do you want your prints in the sand to lead? Are you taking the necessary steps to ensure your legacy?And if not, have you taken inventory? Its never to late to work on leaving your mark. Just always remember, tomorrow isn’t promised; START NOW.

What will be your legacy?