You will fall in love...

You will fall in love with someone who annoys you, whose orgasm face looks and feels pathetic. Despite all of this, there’s something keeping you drawn to them, something that makes you want to protect them from the harsh world. What you fail to realize, however, is that you are the harsh world. You aren’t their noble protector — you are someone to be protected from but it takes a lot of dates, a lot of nights where you question whether or not you are actually a good person, for this to ever resonate with you. When it’s over and whatever love is left is put back in the fridge like a sad plate of leftovers, you will finally understand that you have the power to hurt someone. You can either hurt them or love them and it’s up to you to decide what kind of role you would like to take on in future relationships. What feels more comfortable — being the one who loves more or being the one who’s loved less?

You will fall in love with someone who’s cold and always seemingly pushing you away. When all is said and done, they will be forever known as the one person you couldn’t get to love you. Unfortunately, it will hurt and sting worse than the good ones, the ones that chopped up your meat for you and picked out an eyelash from your eye and were nice to your mother, because love often feels like a game we need to win. And when we lose, when we realize we couldn’t get what we ultimately desired from a person, it makes us feel like a failure and erases all the memories of those who loved us in the past. It’s a permanent smudge on your love resume.

You will fall in love with someone for one night and one night only. They’ll come to you when you need them and be gone in the morning when you don’t. At first, this will make you feel empty and you’ll try to convince yourself that you could’ve loved this person for longer than a night, but you can’t. Some people are just meant to make cameo appearances, some are destined to be a pithy footnote. That’s okay though. Not every person we love has to stick around. Sometimes it’s better to leave while you’re still ahead. Sometimes it’s better to leave before you get unloved.

You will fall in love with the old couple down the street because to you they represent the impossible: a stable, long-lasting love. You’re trying to get someone to like you for more than ten minutes. A monogamous “never get sick of ya” love seems unfathomable. “What’s your secret, sir? Do you just say yes a lot?”

You will fall in love with smells, the good and the bad kind. You will want to wear your lovers shirt because it makes you feel close to them and you’re okay with being that PSYCHO who is legitimately sniffing their shirt in public. You will fall in love with sweat, certain perfumes, the smell of the season in which you fell in love. This particular love smells like fall. It smells like Halloween and a roaring fire and leaves and fog and mist and candy and food and family and whiskey and sex and the lint that collects on sweaters. When it ends, if it ends, you will never experience another fall without thinking of him, her, it. The memories will stick to the ground like a mound of leaves and will only dissipate when the weather drops.

You will fall in love with your friends. Deep, passionate love. You will create a second family with them, a kind of tribe that makes you feel less vulnerable. Sometimes our families can’t love us all the time. Sometimes we’re born into families who don’t know how to love us properly. They do as much as they can but the rest is up to our friends. They can love you all the time, without judgment. At least the good ones can.

This is where I’m supposed to tell you that you will fall in love with The One, a person who isn’t too cold or too nice. Their “O” face is perfectly fine and they’re not afraid to show how much they love you. This person is supposed to wait for us at the end of the thirty something road as some kind of reward for all the heartache and loneliness. We deserve them. We’ve earned this kind of love.

So fine. You’re going to fall in love with The One. You’re going to fall in love with someone who will make sense beyond college or a job or a particular season. They’ll make sense forever and won’t ever want to leave you behind. I’m telling you this not because it’s true but because it NEEDS to be true. Everyone is entitled to this kind of love, so why not? Have it. It’s yours. Blow out the candles on your 40th birthday, holding their hand, and let out an exhale that’s been waiting for ten years. Do it. Now…

 

Rules to self, you can make them yours too...

1. Do not kill yourself. Killing yourself is very messy and your mother will cry over you. It is not beautiful or brave, and even if it was, you will not be around to see that.

2. Washing your hair is going to be a chore. But you should do it anyway. Because you will feel better about yourself.

3. Get up late. Have a lay in. Sleep past your alarm. You have a very long life ahead of you and for now you should appreciate the cold side of your pillow.

4. He is going to break your heart but he’s just another male human who finds it hard to deal with Mondays, too. So in a month you’ll wake up and you won’t even remember that little scar on his knuckle you kissed.

5. Don’t spend hours looking up what your name means on google. Your name is your name and you should go out there and do heroic and good deeds and give your name your own meaning.

6. Don’t fight your demons. Your demons are here to teach you lessons. Sit down with your demons and have a drink and a chat and learn their names and talk about the burns on their fingers and scratches on their ankles. Some of them are very nice.

7. Music is good for your soul. Rap music will energize you and boost your ego and pop music will cheer you up. Indie music will make you think and emotional songs will make you cry and think about that boy again. It’s healthy.

8. Victim complexes are not attractive. Boys and girls will not date you because you are sad. They are not going to date you and kiss your aching bones and cure you of your dragging depression. Wake up. Take a bath. Do your hair. Be attractive.

9. Sadness is not poetic. Depression is not beautiful. Laying in bed all day and eating too much is lazy and disgusting and it is not tragic or pretty. Get up. Go outside. Let the sun warm your bones. Live.

10. If it makes you happy, buy twenty of it. Dedicate your life to it. Print it on tv shirts and collect things and draw art of it. Do not care what people think. They are the unhappy people you need to avoid. The abuse they will hurl at you is painless compared to how sad they are. Pity them. Remain happy.

11. You are allowed to be angry. But the world is not working against you. The flowers do not bloom for you and when your mother shouts ask her if she is okay instead of thinking she hates you. She never will. The world walks beside you and is silent. It does not trip you up or carry you.

12. Day and night cycles are natural. Humans only sleep at night because we used to avoid predators in the dark because of our poor eyesight. Stay awake until 5am watching bad reality shows. Wake up at 7pm and have breakfast.

13. Eat when you are hungry. Being bored does not constitute a chocolate bar. Sleep with you are tired. Do not mindlessly obey the sleep at night rule. If you are not tired, do not sleep.

If I gave you my....

If I give you my love,
Be aware that it is fierce.
It is stronger than an ox,
More ferocious than a river,
And with the loyalty of the moon.

If I give you my body,
Be aware that it is fragile.
It breaks if you beat it.
It withers if you deny it.
And it glows if you shine it.

If I give you my mind,
Be aware that it bites
With teeth of daggers
And a sword for a tongue
And doesn’t let go.

If I give you my soul,
Be aware that it is dark.
It is coated with dust
And buried in a cave,
But it will shine if you uncover it.

The best compliment!

When asked about the best compliment they have ever received, most people would respond with “beautiful” or “sexy” or “attractive.” My question is- why? Why do we, as a species that prides itself on its intelligence and superiority, consider our appearance to be so crucial to our self-esteem?

When asked about the best compliment they have ever received, most people would respond with “beautiful” or “sexy” or “attractive.” My question is- why? Why do we, as a species that prides itself on its intelligence and superiority, consider our appearance to be so crucial to our self-esteem?

As a woman, as a teacher at the American School, as Sunday school teacher as mother of a teenaged girl (who accompanies her everywhere ) I am privy to this phenomenon on a regular basis. I notice fellow teens in the hallways exclaiming over attractive members of the opposite sex or how good they look that day. I hear students using the phrase “well, at least you look hot” to comfort one another. I see girls wearing scandalous outfits and flaunting their bodies for the enjoyment of men. And I wonder- why?

Why do we worry so much more about how someone perceives our outsides instead of how they perceive our insides?
I have a friend who is incredibly intelligent. He’s sweet and friendly and loving. And yet, he has extremely low self-esteem because of his appearance. Because people look at his clothing and hair and slight chubbiness and criticize him for it. Here is this amazing young man who lacks confidence just because he is not as attractive as some. When he confides this to me, I am angry. It frustrates me that he does not see the same thing I see, which is the beauty of his heart and mind.

I, myself, am considered to be attractive by some. For so long I have struggled with this, not knowing if I believed it or not. Eventually, I wondered why I cared so much. I have good friends who do not care about my looks. My significant other does not care about my looks. And my teachers and bosses definitely do not care about my looks. In fact, the only people who do care about my looks are the people who I would never associate with anyways.
So why should I care?

Since this discovery, I have decided to focus on the aspects of myself that I would be proud to associate with myself, like intelligence, integrity, empathy, and strength. What I have noticed is that I am happier, less insecure, and generally more confident than I ever have been before.

With this in mind, I implore the current generation of parents, teachers, and role models to teach this to students. Instead of always saying, “oh, you’re so beautiful,” use words like smart, fun, happy, sweet, and other accolades that appeal to the personality of a student instead of just their appearance. If we teach the upcoming generation this, and they pass it on to the next and so on and so forth, we could potentially lower the amount of teenagers with self-esteem problems and create humans that strive to be better people instead of better-looking people.

Maybe then the richest people in the world would be humanitarians, scientists, teachers, and ordinary beings, instead of the beautiful people of Hollywood

No more my Lawd!

As part of my research into the African Slave history, I found this piece of music that I remember listening to in Liberia at one of the timber concessions I once had.

Between years 1933-1959 Alan Lomax recorded black inmates singing on chaingang. There is a theory about these songs and calls that they were sung by the first slaves while they were working and in the prisons these songs continued living after slavery (Black man in a prison at the time was much the same as a slave) From these songs blues is believed to be formed and this is probably the reason why blues was called "devil's music" like rock-n-roll later was.


No more, My Lord
Sung by Jimpson with men chopping trees.

Chorus:
No more, my Lord,
no more, my Lord,
Lord, i'll never turn back no more.

i found in him a resting place,
and he have made me glad (chorus)

Jesus, the man i am looking for,
can you tell me where he's gone?
(chip strikes microphone)

Go down, go down, among flower yard,
And perhaps you may find him there.

 

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The Ultimate Guide To Understanding A Man's Commitment - How to marry him and stay married!

This one is for all of my girlfriends... Those not married and those who are. It hurts that I know so many women who don't know how to treat their man....

 #1. Do what he asks you to do, without question -

If a man asks you for a favor, and you question him and say “why”…he will instantly feel like you just don’t want to do it. If you have to ask him why, it sounds like you need him to CONVINCE you to do it. If he has to convince you to do things, do ...you really understand him?

#2. Maintain yourself -

Men are visual, which means if you let yourself go, he will lose interest. He doesn’t want to commit to a woman who is only going to get worse. Maintain yourself physically and health wise, to prove you are willing to be the best you can be for him.

#3. Trust him -

Don’t be scared that he’s going to run off with some other woman, or that he’s lying to you about everything.

 #4. Regularly give him space - Every guy wants time alone. We all need our personal space, and it’s better if you can give that to him without him having to ask for it or beg you. Do it naturally, and he will appreciate you and think you are marriage material.

#5. Be there for him, even if he says nothing about the problem -

Show you are supportive of him, by BEING there; WITHOUT questioning him on the problem.

#6. Be financially dependent -

It can help a man to know that you aren’t going to take every last penny he has. Some men fear marriage, because they are afraid of losing all of their money (in a divorce, or even just because of a wife’s spending).

#7. Compliment him

#8. Learn his insecurities -

It’s not something people walk around talking about, but sometimes a man hints that he is insecure about something, so that you can avoid the topic or avoid hurting him in the future.

#9. Don’t act out toward your man -

If he says something that hurts your feelings, or if he does something you disagree with…most women’s first reactions would be to become dramatic and emotional and nag the guy. Don’t do this…because it tells him that you are a nightmare to marry, because instead of remaining calm and allowing him some room to improve, you are just lashing out at him.

#10. Accept responsibility in a fight -

Every relationship has its moments where they are disagreements and fights. The difference between a healthy relationship that encourages a man to marry you, and an unhealthy marriage that pushes a man away is this: blame or responsibility.

 #11. Learn to take a joke…even if its personal

 

#12. Learn to take criticism - Men criticize to see improvement, and they do it in order to try to help you see things in a different light. They also criticize to try and show you a solution or a better way to do something, if they see you are struggling. This is why you should learn how to take criticism, because if you freak out every time he criticizes you, you tell him that you won’t be able to improve in the future. (We are talking constructive criticism not the ones that will put you down)

#13. Be serious where it’s necessary - There’s nothing more discouraging, or annoying to a man, than a woman who does not take SERIOUS issues seriously. A serious issue is something that he considers to be important, and if you can’t take it seriously, he thinks that you don’t take HIM or yourself seriously.

 #14. Keep your promises

 #15. Don’t use excuses

#16. Be COMFORTABLE around him

- He wants to grab your love handles, and suddenly you are pulling away, asking him if he thinks you’re fat. You also become insecure when he wants to make love to you. Or you just struggle to open up to him. All of these things tell him that you are not comfortable around him, make him feel insecure, and make him QUESTION the point of marrying you.

#17. Show love with ACTION - Sure, you said you love him; but words only get you so far. He wants to see you SHOWING it with your actions.

 

 #18. Don’t be afraid to draw the lines

 #19. Show appreciation

#20. Encourage him to succeed daily

#21. Take his problem solving advice

#22. Be calm when he is stressed - When a man is stressed it can be a HUGE problem, because he acts out of character, is unpredictable, may lash out at you, and may withdraw. BUT, instead of blaming him and arguing, just be calm and let the storm pass. He needs to know that you UNDERSTAND him in that area, and doesn’t need a woman who makes it all about “herself” when he has something stressful going on.

 #23. Use the things he gives you 

 #24. Do FOR him before you ask OF him

#25. Disagree without disappointment

- There will be differences, BUT the main issue is how you HANDLE the differences between each other. If you handle disagreements by arguing and becoming disappointed when you don’t take his side, you are showing him that you are emotionally immature. But, if you disagree without feeling disappointed, you show him that you can respect his opinion, even if you don’t think its right for you.

 #26. Ask when you don’t know -

If you’re afraid to ask him something, how will he ever feel like he can truly communicate to you? Not only this, but if you never ask him the things you are curious about, you’ll often end up looking for answers on your own, which leads to assumptions.

#27. Don’t pressure him

#28. Respect him -

If he has boundaries, don’t cross them. If he values privacy in certain areas, observe it. If there is something you dislike about him, don’t go complaining to your family and girlfriends about it, behind his back. There are many examples, but the main point is that you RESPECT him, so that he can feel valued, appreciated, and upheld.

 #29. MAINTAIN his interest - Marriage is a LONG-term relationship, which means that you will consciously have to make efforts to keep his interest. You won’t be able to keep his interest if he knows EVERYTHING about you, and nothing changes. This is why it’s important to learn new things, new skills, and to create a life outside the relationship so that you have things to keep and spark his interest.

#30. Learn from your mistakes 

#31. Understand your emotions

#32. Evaluate yourself regularly

- A guy doesn’t always want to have to point out everything that you’re doing wrong, or your flaws, or mistakes…because you are completely oblivious to them and have to ask him what’s wrong. Evaluate yourself regularly to ensure you are improving and are moving forward internally and externally.

#33. Show him that you can let things go 

#34. Prove you are committed

– Stay with him mentally, physically, and intimately no matter what.

#35. Listen to him as much as possible
He wants to be able to talk to you about anything that’s on his mind.

#36. Be able to be alone and quiet with him
 

#37. Let him know your expectations
 

#38. Challenge him
He wants someone who can challenge him in all kinds of ways, such as challenging him to change or be better, challenging him to keep your interest etc… This keeps him glued to you, instead of having him interested in other women.

#39. Be sexually pleasing - Sex can become pretty boring, especially if you always do the same things over and over…which is a HUGE problem, because intimacy is important in a long-term relationship. Ask him what his fantasies are, learn new tricks in bed, and ultimately surprise and encourage him there, so that he feels like you’re someone who he could stay with and marry…because you don’t disappoint him in the bedroom.

#40. Divide your time elsewhere
 

#41. Be honest
Remember that honesty is accepted, and even if it hurts its temporary…but lies are REJECTED, and is permanent pain, because they take away his trust in you.

#42. Trust him with your personal things
 

#43. Accept him

#44. Surprise him
The element of surprise in a relationship keeps him interested and gives him a reason to stick around for the long run, because it shows that you still have lots left to offer that he doesn’t even know about.
 

#45. Be spontaneous
 

#46. Make him laugh
As the saying goes “laughter is the best medicine” and it most definitely is an attractive trait for a “wife”.

#47. Be romantic

#48. Place importance above your-self where necessary - Relationships are about TWO people, not one…which is why it can’t always be about you.

#49. Know your role

#50. Let him know that he fulfills you NOW - Men worry about whether or not they will be able to support you, keep you happy, sustain interest etc… which is why they avoid marriage and avoid the commitment topic. If you want him to marry you, let him know that everything he is doing RIGHT NOW, is exactly what is necessary to sustain you in the future, so that he sees he is truly fulfilling and pleasing you…and stops worrying about being unable to, because he’d see he already is ABLE.

 

After having said all of this, there are some men out there who still wouldn't care and do the things they do...then you know exactly what to do, MOVE ON!

I don't work for Money, I work towards achieving my dreams and goals

Yesterday someone was asking if I or someone else would be able to create a program on how to become a financial success. I answered that I cannot provide a "get rich" scheme any more than I can catch the same handful of water in a river; money passes like a fluid that... carries you from the mouth of the river, by milestones and landmarks, to its end.

I was once homeless (Oh yes homeless) surfing couches and starving cause my pride wouldn't let me take handouts of food. I had found me a new job, and one evening when my friend and I were just hanging out , in order to keep a conversation going I asked how I could become wealthy. He replied, "What are you going to do with the first paycheck from your new job?" I answered, "Pay my bills." He continued, "And the paychecks following?" Rent a flat or house, a car and a computer, I replied. He asked why. I answered, "So I can get a better job." He asked why again. Puzzled, I responded, "To give my Anushka a good education, fulfill my goals, and achieve my dreams."

He inquired as to my dreams, and I replied, "To help others prevent the hardships I've endured, or hasten their way through them with greater ease and less suffering."

He said, "That can be the RIGHT question! Don't ask how you can become rich. Ask what you will be doing with your wealth! Formulate your goals and then pursue those big dreams step by incremental step."

I can share with you how I achieve goals, but I can't charge you money for it. From my perspective, the more successful you become, the better off we all will be.

There are three ways I have taken my friend's advice on how to accomplish new goals:
1. Through experience - the most bitter. I learnt the hard way. The courage to dive into the breach will take you far, but I won't lie that it doesn't come without a toll.
2. By imitation - the simplest. Studying at the feet of great teachers provided me with the fastest acceleration toward my pursuits. Deepest bow to my teachers for enduring my endless questions.
3. With forethought - the most noble. Trusting in my own intuition, imagination and intelligence has allowed me to offer unique expressions of the experiences I've had and lessons I've learned.

When I prepare for a new goal, I download my ideas to paper to organize my plan, check my strategy against how others in the field have accomplished similar goals, and then evaluate my performance against the experiences I have once I have received feedback from the current step.

But money hasn't been a goal for me; money is only a means to realize my goals. As Jim Carrey offered, "I wish everybody could get rich and famous, so they realize it is not the answer."

Money only acts as a form of energy, like a prism, to help others achieve their goals. It couldn't make me happy. Every new medal I won, award I received or paycheck I banked, held lackluster fool's gold when I expected it to make me happy. These things don't have happiness; they only hold potential energy to help with the next goal.

So as my friend suggested, what big dreams do you want to accomplish with the wealth you acquire? You may not have any idea how to achieve those goals yet, but you can find others who have, or you can repeatedly, through trial and error, figure out how to do it anyway. Success is inevitable when you have courage and conviction. Albert Einstein supposed, "The person with big dreams is more powerful than the one with all the facts."

If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough. Do big frightening things with your life and at least one small thing that scares you everyday; the wealth will arrive as it needs to facilitate your goals. Wealth will come and go, like a river flowing. Make your real goal to sail smoothly, carry as many passengers as you can and teach others how to sail happily along on our short trip together.