Dear Belinda,
I am writing to you this day because I am sick and tired of what you are doing to yourself. You are so much better than this and bigger than the situation. How dare you let one circumstance get to you so bad that you can longer think and fight the way you have always fought. How dare you forget that within you is the Amazonian strength you are known for? How dare you waste precious time on things that are not productive and then moan that you are lacking behind?
Belinda, I am writing to you on behalf of myself and I double dare you to stop sleeping, wake up, get on with the business of life and get on with the dream because no one is going to make it happen for you.
Please read the next lines below because I have thought deep and hard before I started writing and I know you will find the strength to look yourself in the mirror and admit that you need to wake up from that slumber and get working again.
Interests make you interesting and when you have no interest, you cannot be interesting. Develop some personal interest. A good lesson I learnt today from listening to TD Jakes.
You can develop interest if you find that you don't have any. Just take up a hobby dear. It will be good for you. The same way you develop an interest is the same way you should get on with the business of life.
The last three months have been challenging for me mentally because I found myself at the crossroad of life where I have had to do a lot of soul searching and ask myself a lot of questions. The questions that if others asked me, I would throw a feat and get all worked up, might not even speak to them again. But you know what? I had to ask those hard hitting questions because if I don't ask myself, who will ask me?
In less than a month's time, I will hit that number which makes you think, what have I done with my life and what am I going to do from this point onwards?
I have been telling people since January 2009 that I was 30 years old. In fact even before January for the very fact that I have been looking forward to 30. It is an achievement for me for a whole lot of reasons. The foremost thing being that I am here against medical odds, living, loving and kicking it. (Kicking it but not in that sense y’all)
I have been looking forward to 30 because I have a lot of things I want to do with my life. I have a career to forge, plays, poetry and books to write and stories to tell, get married, have children, build a home, support my husband and bless those around me. I want to reach out to my generation and a whole lot of people by doing the right things and helping others. I find joy in being there for someone and I am passionate about teenagers. I have a number of them as my babies.
However, in the last three months that I have been down in heart and spirit and feeling sorry for myself. I have not done as much as I should. So, I have been doing a lot of searching within me to find me again. So, I started asking the hard questions which I needed to ask.
Guess what the first question was, Belinda do you think you are lazy? My response... yes, I can be lazy sometimes...is that acceptable? No, not when I have a vision, a goal and a purpose to fulfil and dreams to make happen.
Belinda, do you procrastinate? Yes, I do sometimes and keep saying tomorrow when I can do what needs to be done right now. Belinda, is that acceptable? No, what are you going to do about it? I am going to start doing what I need to do and when I need to do them. Belinda promised herself that she was going to stop doing the wrong things at the right time and the right thing at the wrong time.
Am I allowing myself to become intoxicated with the wrong emotion? Yes, I have let myself get to that point where the negative emotions of my present circumstance get the better of me. I forgot about my previous achievements and my future plans and I got stuck in the moment that I didn't have or didn't get what I wanted.
I let myself get carried away by yawning and getting hungry for things which their season in my life is yet to come. You know they say, your memories can either make you or break you. I want my memories to make me and not break me.
It hasn’t all been bad…as I am quite hard on myself and so expect a lot from myself. I have been getting commissions and writing features, worked on a radio package, worked in a news room, made the finals of a bursary scheme though I didn’t get the bursary. Not because I was a bad interviewee, in fact I was a good interviewee and so they thought I did not need the bursary and others needed it more than I did.
I admit... it knocked me for six. I cried but in the words of my mentor, so, it didn’t happen the way you wanted it to, move on to the next task. Waking up with palpitations and killing myself for what, a bursary that I was not going to get, Belinda, you know better and your life trajectory is not based on a bursary.
I know I am worth more than meets the eye and I am valuable. So, I must sit and plan all over. And this takes me back to the questions I asked myself at the beginning of this entry. Am I lazy? I said sometimes and what am I going to do about that? Admitting it is the first step because what you don’t confront, you cannot deal with it.
Do I procrastinate? Yes and what do I plan to do about that from now on? Do what needs to be done and at the right time.
Do I plan on having fun? Oh, hell yes, I plan to do that and much more. If I am going to get on with the business of life, then I must balance it out.
So, how do I plan on getting on with the business of life? By strategising, planning and giving myself a defined direction. It isn’t that I never had that…I have always had a focus and a direction. I know what I want out of life and what I want to do with my life. However, I made plans for this season of my life around a few things and now that that is not the case, I need to re-plan and make life work for me. It is ever so true that there is a time and season for everything and life is indeed a cycle of seasons.
Belinda promises herself to be good, disciplined, and diligent and do her work. Belinda promises to send the emails which need to go out, call the people she needs to call, read the books she needs to read, write the features that won’t write themselves and above all, get back to the board with my creative writing and start writing again. I have started doing that I must be honest; I need to do more writing. My blogs need to be updated and I need to revisit my plan for a business of my own.
Here is to the business of getting on with life as it should be.
From Belinda to me, myself and I.
Regards
Belinda
