Life Lesson 3: Be Your Own Best Cheerleader

Yesterday: Your Happiness is YOUR Happiness
Today: Be Your Own Best Cheerleader

You have to advocate for yourself because this world is full of shitheads who will take advantage of you. No one can afford to be helpless. You have to learn how to be a (polite) pain in the ass to get what you want.

I don't remember where I first heard this idea of being your own best cheerleader, maybe it was Oprah who taught it to me, but it took me awhile to get it.

I mean I got it right away. No one will cheer for you, laud your successes, highlight your greatness, as well as you do. Not even your mama, and for many of us, that's saying something. You're the one who really knows how hard you work, how smart you are, how fast you can go. Just you. You're the only one with you all the time, every day. Others may see potential where you don't, but you're the only person who can really get yourself to your potential.

It's often said that for women, this particular life advice can be hard to learn. We are often conditioned to let others take the spotlight. In fact, in the interview for the job I now have, when asked what one of my weaknesses is, I admitted that I often will allow others to take credit for my work in the interest of getting a job done or making the team look good. I've been blessed to now work with people who often remind me to take credit for my work; however in the past, I've worked with people who were more than happy to take credit for my ideas and thoughts.

Even now, I watch people I know and love copy the things that I say and do, and pass them off as their own original thought. I don't usually say anything because why? What's the point? The point is, we live in a world where people always want to know your value. Even in personal situations, people want to know why they should keep you around and if you are talking about you, who else can you trust to do it?

Yeah, I know, you don't wanna be that kid. The self-important, self-aggrandizing kid everyone hates. That's not what this life lesson is about. There's a difference between making people think you can do something you can't and making sure people know that that great thing that happened just now was because of you. It's important to remind people of your worth because it only serves to remind yourself. Ultimately, getting recognition for being great is 1 part being great and 2 parts talking about said greatness. It's uncomfortable, it's awkward, for some it's annoying as hell but it's NECESSARY when you want something. Closed mouths don't get fed, the squeaky wheel gets the grease and all those other adages we know and say but have a hard time putting into practice.

At church, our pastor often says "you are valuable, your dreams are valuable, your mind is valuable, your body is valuable." We make jokes about that line from The Help where Aibileen tells the little girl in her care "you is kind, you is smart, you is important" but these are the things that are important to remember about ourselves and most of us don't have an Aibileen in our lives to tell us that every day and make us repeat it so we have to be our own Aibileens, our own cheerleaders.

Tomorrow: People Love You, Then They Don't.

Why I'm Not Going Back to THAT Church...

A few disclaimers...

One, it's a SHAME that my first full post on my churchin' activities is going to be negative. It really is.

Two, I hate when people use random acts that happen in churches they've never been to as their excuse for why they don't go. Er'body ain't into church, but to act like you're not into church or by some extension Christianity because some screw up like Bishop Eddie Long got accused of abusing boys is RIDICULOUS. So this post is by no means that. This post is a little talk about how there's a way to do everything and it's using the setting of a church I recently attended and is why I'm not going back to THAT church; not why I'm not going back to church. I church, so I'll be back in one on Sunday.

We good? Aight then, let's go.

One of my most major beefs with the black church is the uber traditionalist ways. That's for some people, and that's fine, but there's so much done in the black church because of tradition that is not biblical. Now, I'll be honest and say that my issues with the traditions are less with that they're non-biblical and more that they feel self-serving, arduous and pointless.

I say all that to set the stage for the following statement: It's already a lot to get me to go to a traditional church, so when I do, let's don't give me reasons to further be disappointed and irritated.

This past Sunday, I attended church with my mom because I've missed a few weeks and I know she likes for me to go with her when I'm in town. From the word go, even though there was really nothing initially amiss/different from what I usually experience there, I wasn't feeling it. The pastor, who is a good friend of my mom's, made the unusual ask that the choir sit down in the congregation so he could see everyone. This church isn't big, it's two aisles of about 8 pews on either side. Not big.

This particular preacher is well-versed in the Bible. He knows his stuff. More than that, he's passionate, which is a good thing. He really wants to serve God and he wants to expose people to Christ. It's awesome... in theory.

His passion tends to display itself in a very whiney, y'all suck, lecture manner. That is to say his sermons tend to end by lecturing his small congregation on all their many shortcomings. I'm not above that. Sometimes we need people to get real with us and say "Yo, you messin up, b..." but EVERY SUNDAY?

This past sunday, the thing that set him off was so miniscule that his being set off pissed me off so bad that I considered walking out. My mom's relationship with him is what saved him.

He was upset that so many people (and remember, this is a SMALL church) weren't reading along in their Bibles.

That's it.

He was mad that not absolutely everyone in the congregation bothered to follow along in their Bibles.

In 2011, churches are posting twitter feeds up behind pastors, putting up the verses being read, encouraging people to use their mobile devices to access a Bible -- church is going high-tech in 2011 and for a myriad of reasons. For one, the idea is to attract more young people, for two going high-tech suggests a willingness to expand and meet our society where it is. Within that, I see also a recognition that there's an easy way to reach people you might not otherwise reach.

So here we are, faced with a few people who aren't reading/following along in their Bibles during the sermon and the first reaction is to lecture. That didn't sit right in my spirit. Have we addressed some of the possible seed issues? Maybe the folks who weren't following along don't have Bibles. There are none in the pews. Maybe these folks can't read. That's still an unfortunate reality in 2011. Maybe these folks don't know the books well enough and feel overwhelmed by trying to flip back and forth. And then maybe they don't care. Maybe they just show up for the look of it. But until the issue has been determined, who are you to stand up in a powerful spot -- behind the pulpit -- and yell at them?

I was so disappointed. God and I had to have a chat. I needed to calm down on that Sunday afternoon. This isn't the first time something like this has happened and so what I thought was a fluke is apparently a regular occurence. When I walked out of the door, however, I didn't even pause as I thought to myself, "won't be stepping back in here..."

Please don't mistake what I'm saying. Anger, and forthrightness and in your faceness has a place in the church. Jesus went all up and through the temple overturning tables and yelling and being very angry because folks were in there acting up and being disrespectful. Jesus was no meek and mild mannered man, and Christianity isn't a meek and mild type of situation. It's not his anger that bothers me -- it's the what are you doing about it question that goes unanswered that's bothering me. Church is where people come for help and it seems our churches are doing that less and less...