For Those Who Are Sick

If you want to follow this blog, I warn you. We are emotional, here. We are sometimes frustrated, tired, and some of us are beaten and broken; looking for words that will bring calm to storms that have not passed yet. For the messiah himself was sent to those who were sick.  Some of us are sick. Walking mistakes looking to be healed in places technology has not tapped into yet. Waiting for the ink in this pen to heal the shattered pieces of our souls. You see this pen, all courage shaped in my hand, is here to lift the fallen, to restore the broken, and to heal the hurting. The people here, those who follow this blog and the person who owns it, do not all have it together. So, if you want to join us I caution you: We are not robots mechanically maneuvering our way through social media. We do hold ourselves accountable, I must add for excuses do not live here, but we are not fake. We do not inhale html codes and hyperlinks, and our blood is not made of oil. Though I cannot promise you that we won’t leave stains, for we ourselves are stained. And yet, we know that we will not always be this way because our mistakes make room for healing. So we look for evidence of growth in the strangest places, like cracked surfaces, rocks, and hard places. Welcome.

If These Walls Could Talk

Wall

They would scalpel the mask off your face
Pull back the deception bleeding from your eyes
And reveal how dark you really are.
A slave to the ignorance pulsing from your mouth
Cloned imagination
Words bending, tainted by the cold lashes of society
Originality lying desolate
The inability to bring forth substance
Meat
And bone
Without nourishment
No cultivation
Of the mind
If these walls could talk
they would verbalize the truth
that you starve of love
dish out hatred
but cannot take it
glossed over and hidden beneath a poetic lyric
you love blindness
infatuated with the concept of searching your face in the shadows
chasing tails
finding no where
and understanding none at all
it is easier to be real
than to be mask
a lesson too many have not yet learned
what kind of life really exist inside the pen of a poet?
The things they would tell
If only these walls could talk
And you know what

they do.

Why I Ignore Some of Your Ideas

“Stay true to your integrity. I can’t tell you how many times I have said no, even though it sounded like such a good platform-building opportunity. You are good enough doing exactly what you are doing.”

– Dr. Lissa Rankin, Author

In the world of Self-Publishing there are so many ideas out there. Everyone has something to say about what to do and how to do it. This supersedes Self-Publishing however, and can spill over into Blogging and Life in general. One undesirable of the internet is that you can always find someone to agree with you or to support your idea even if it is a false reality, makes no sense whatsoever, or is obviously weird. You can find any expert, and any article that will explain in sophisticated detail something that will support your point of view. The problem with this is that eventually the views of experts will cloud the view of the individual until you’re listening to everyone instead of focusing on why you began doing this in the first place. I write because I love to do it. And I believe that you put your all into those things that you love doing. You also put your all into those things to which you want to expand. Like a blog for example. Whatever personal goals you have for your blog, in order to reach them you have to put your all into it. That’s just common sense.

What I think we’re forgetting however, is to excel at being ourselves. Professional advice come a dime a dozen, but there is only one you whose going to do it the way that you would do it. In the end I believe a lot of us forget to stay true to our personal integrity and to make sure that we are not sacrificing that veracity for the sake of gain. But gain is interesting in itself. When I speak of gain I’m not talking about trying to be seen of men. By gain I mean excelling in whatever it is you wish to excel in. Whether it is a promotion at the job, a best-selling book, a new business idea, or a new blog, success consists of one key thing: those who excel at being who they are. They find something they enjoy doing and they do it well without giving too much of that self into the opinions of others. Whatever you do just do it well because it was your personality and talents that drew us in, in the first place. Be not mistaken: WordPress did not convince me to follow your blog or buy your book, and neither did your platform. The fact that you posted a thousand pictures on Instagram did not convince me to follow you, you convinced me to follow you. Marketing and Promotion is simply a leverage to help us to find you, but in the end we have to like you for who you are in order to truly support you. This is what I believe a lot of us are forgetting. That your personality, your writing, your talents, and the effort that you put into what you love will attract others who also enjoy what you love. Your light attracts the light of others.

I see it. The ease of being overwhelmed by following every Self-Published book idea and implementing everyone’s blogging idea. But the truth is that what worked for them may not work for you, and that you’re actually already doing it the way you are supposed to be doing it. I agree totally with Rankin. In that I have turned down opportunities for the sake of preserving my integrity. There are just some things I am unwilling to sacrifice because it will not be me. I love writing, but there are lots of things I love more. My truth is one of them.

The fact that someone thinks I should do something a certain way to be successful is irrelevant, especially since it depends on one’s definition of the word. My success is not yours and your success is, nine times out of ten, not mine. Thus, someone else’s concept of how it should be done does not move me. What moves me is the love I have for it. If I enjoy Twitter more than Facebook, then Twitter is the platform to which I will mostly build. And if I am lead to interact amidst the blogosphere, then Blogging is the platform to which I will mostly build. These are just examples, true examples as I do enjoy blogging and twitter, but examples nonetheless.Eventually, you will find that if you find one thing you love, and you put your everything into that one thing, it will work wonders for you.

The point is not to resist advice. For he who resists advice is nothing short of a fool. Advice is information. It is guidance, correction, instruction. The point is that whatever you choose to do, do it wholeheartedly. Do it well. It is wise to accept advice. And it is wiser to implement that advice into your daily life. And since this post is kinda advice in and of itself, it does not speak against it. But be cautious of the temptation to do more than what it is meant for you to do for the sake of “doing it right”. It may just be that you have struck gold in a particular area, and that everyone else is actually doing it wrong.

Just be yourself. And be good at it.

Genuine

photo-1444837870946-e65ae2ef054e

Loving you is not a game

It will not play psychology

With language

Will not toss rhetoric from walls

Or hang deception on emotional hooks

That dangle temptation like foolish tongues

Will touch neither your body

Or your mind

Without permission

instead

Sincerity is the loudest whisper you’ve ever heard

Laughter fills your belly to the brim

With boldness

And devotion lays its head

In your bosom

Deed will play on the strings of vulnerability

Because when it comes to true love

Defenseless is the only way to be

Open

Honest

Real

Genuine