Becoming What You Try to Avoid

Are you the type of person to point out what you don’t like about someone else before taking a look into the mirror? Ever heard the saying, “point one finger at someone else, three point back?” I believe it is both safe and easy to observe the things we dislike about others. Yet we have a hard time trying to take a look at ourselves to see the part that we play. Sometimes we become too self-absorbed making sure a person knows our likes and dislikes. By doing this, we take the focus off being able to take a look at ourselves to see how we attracted that energy. We attract either who we currently are or who we used to be. The more we try to avoid the qualities or dysfunction, the more we open ourselves up to becoming that very thing we said we disliked. Once we develop a mind to become aware of the qualities and triggers of what we don’t like, it can help us pay attention to when we may develop these traits. By becoming aware, we will know how to deal with ourselves and change these things. The best remedy to aid becoming what we don’t like is sometimes remaining silent. Silence is golden. In my recent development as a 24-year-old, I have learned the essence of silence. I no longer feel a need or yearning to get a point across to a person. If that person knows how I feel, and whether or not I was affected, that’s all that matters. The older you become, the more aware you are of your self-development. Sometimes is not the relationships we form, but why and how these relationships form.

Living Your Best Life

Have you ever tried to live your life trying to meet the expectations of those around you? Made a decision based off of what someone else said worked for them or made a decision to better fit someone else’s happiness besides your very own? If you can at least answer yes to any of these posing questions, chances are, you are not living the best life to fit your happiness. The longer we go on doing things to make others happy, the more we subtract from ourselves and our happiness. I believe the best remedy to aid living your best life, is simply asking yourself, if these same people you're living your life through, will stop and do the same for you, by stopping their happiness and living their life through your expectations. Chances are when the opportunity presents itself, I’m sure they wouldn’t. Don’t get me wrong, it’s some cases where people will consider those around them and how they could be affected if they chose to make a certain life decision. Considering how those can be affected is fine, however, if we considered everyone’s feelings, it could potentially change our aspect from wanting to do something to not wanting to do it. How to avoid this; is by having a mind of your own. Don’t allow someone’s opinion to alter your own. Why try to fit in with the opinion of others, when we all were created as unique individuals to all standout? I believe where we all fall short daily, is making the mistake to believe that how a person did something, is how we have to do things, or how things will map out for us. People share testimonials and experiences to inspire, so that people may believe that it is achievable. Live your best life and not through someone else’s camera lens.

Miss 20 Something

Thank God for them 20 somethings. As a young woman being 24, I can honestly say these few years have been quite the experience. They say with your 20’s that you should be selfish. Your able to fully immerse yourself in life by doing anything possible. That is travel the world, experience love, explore, and be selfish with your time. Your learning about yourself most during your 20’s. So I believe it is an important crucial period that a person is willing to involve themselves with themselves fully, before being in the company or relationship with others. If we’re not able to identify ourselves, and we start to deal with a person who knows who they are, we tend to dismiss who they are at times because we don’t who and what we are. What a person values you may not have the same value. What bothers one person sometimes won’t bother the next. However, possessing the quality of transparency allows for us to try to meet a person halfway. Transparency is a quality I’ve learned in my 20’s and it in fact is very important to me. Use your 20’s to be open for change, transparency, love, no love, lessons, trial and error, and happiness. Your 20’s help make you strong for life, it is the time to experience true adult growth pains. As my sister told me for the first time in 2017 when I was living with her in the summer, she asked, “Wanae have you ever heard of the term GRIT?” I’m sitting in silence and then I reply, “no.” My sister then proceeded to tell me to look up the term. She wanted me to look up the definition due to some of my conversations I had with her about some difficulties I may have been experiencing in life. I was both surprised and humbled to learn that GRIT means, “courage and resolve; the strength of character.” She would say that although I may experience things in life that may cause obstacles, how I handle them and true humbleness shows true GRIT.

Be Kind

In life, I find that we try to change the perception of people’s feelings. What I mean by this exactly is, we say things to individuals and they are either affected positively or negatively by it. If they are affected negatively, we may say what was actually intended and by doing this, we think this will change the outcome of the person’s feelings. Perception is something that we are all entitled to. We shouldn’t try to make others feel as if they’re wrong for their feelings or perception if we don’t agree with it. When it comes to perception there is no right or wrong. We should be sensitive to others when it comes to the things we may say or do to them. Although people may forgive us, they do not forget our actions. Be mindful of how you treat those around you. Apologies correct behavior they do not comfort feelings. Don’t say something you know you’ll later regret saying. What we put out into others and the universe, we get back in return. Be of a positive spirit to others in order to experience life’s true blessings and happiness.

Into Consciousness

Do you ever hear the inner voice inside your mind that you’re afraid to listen to? That inner voice that tells you what you want to do, but just are too afraid of doing? I mean the kind of inner voice that after a while; causes discomfort in your daily existence in life. Sometimes, it’s the result of fear that keeps us from wanting to listen to what this inner voice may be telling us to do. I don’t know what speaks more volumes; fear or ignoring the inner voice to the point the point that the inner voice isn’t in your subconscious, but becomes apart of your conscious. You begin to bring it to your state of awareness and presently converse about this voice. Don’t be afraid of this voice. Fear causes us to miss out on what life has to offer for us. Our thoughts are the blueprint for what we want to do, but sometimes not knowing how or when to do them. Centralizing our thoughts, and becoming aware of everything that crosses our mind is a practice of good mental health. It’s important that we take into account our mental health just as much as we do our physical health. The best way to work towards practicing mental health is by journaling all the things that come to mind daily. By doing this you allow your mind to get rid of the things that really don’t matter because nine times out of ten, you won’t think about these things again. Our mind has a way of thinking about important things we need to think about, while on the contrary we also may think and take on what we give our energy to. Be careful of consuming the energy of other people’s problems because it’ll throw your energy off balance.

Inside Story On: What Young Women Struggle With Today

With modern issues in today’s society, we all can find one way or two to relate to one another. Whether it be by our dreams, aspirations, struggles, accomplishments, or failures. According to the 2010 census, the world is consumed by 157 million females; men came in at 151.8 million. I know you’re probably thinking wow that’s a lot of women, I myself thought the same thing. So many women with many relatable struggles. I had the luxury of being able to connect with many Queens in my circle from around the US. They may be far in distance, but they all share the same view on what they feel young women today struggle with:

QueenMelanin: "What do you feel young women struggle with today?"

Annmarie (20, Toronto)
“I believe a lot of young women struggle with trying to reach goals that aren’t true for themselves but to seek validation from others. Sometimes it does make them happy in the end but overall a lot of the times it’s because of societal or family influence”

Niyah (23, New Jersey)
“Trying to live up to the expectations that society and even more so the media has placed upon us when it comes to our appearance. A lot of young women feel they need to live up to this in order to fit in/be accepted by others.”

Taylon (17, Mississippi)
“I think that the problem is that we’re afraid to show people the real us. Our confidence is low because we are constantly shown by celebrities how we are supposed to look and how our bodies are supposed to look as well.”

Atiya (34, New Jersey)
“The struggle
1. Self-love
2. Self-awareness of emotions(what’s the root of where the pain ignites
3. Knowledge of their power- thinking pass materialistic and surface areas...divine power”

Chanty (20, Montreal)
“I feel the struggle is a lack of self-confidence. a lot of young women have no proper support, no foundation & that’s mostly where self-doubt & lack of self-confidence comes from. Us women have such high standers in today’s day, so we push our limits.”

Bria (24, South Carolina)
“I think young women of today struggle with self-love which equates to self: confidence, awareness, and happiness. The young women of today need to learn how to turn off the judgmental voice in their head that may say how they're not pretty enough, smart enough, or deserving, etc. because it is not true. To the beautiful young woman reading this, “you are perfect because a perfect being created you. Carry an open mind and a heart filled will love. Let go of fear and pursue your passions. Your purpose has already been established because you were born. All that's left is to live and let live free of judgment; there is no one way to live your life.”

Cherise (25, New York)
“I think the biggest problem facing young women right now is the ability to be heard and taken seriously. As, women we already have many doubting our abilities, being young on top of that can make things even more difficult.”


Miya (23, New Jersey)
“I think young women today struggle with comparison the most. So many young women (including myself ) compare themselves to other women we see on social media. We feel like we are suppose to look or do what we see other young women our age doing (ex: vacations, apartments, degrees, body goals, boyfriends, cars ) it’s like in this generation if you don’t have a certain amount of likes or followers you are irrelevant. The important thing to remember is that we as young women have to find our value and worth, not in what society accepts but within ourselves ❤️”


QueenMelanin: Thank you, queens, for sharing the vulnerability of being the voice for all the young women out there. We hear you, Queens, we know what you are going through, and you are most definitely not alone. Far in distance but close in spirit. Be who you are, love who you are, and remain true to who you are.