african american blogs daily – Page 46

It’s difficult starting over, (but) that’s better than going backwards.

I learned that from the rapper Starlito.

Back in 2020, I bought a handwriting workbook. I didn’t really like my handwriting at the time, so I figured it was time to finally go back to the basics and start over. That workbook helped my handwriting tremendously. I went from writing in chicken scratch to… just a regular person’s handwriting. It’s still nothing special LOL.

I began to ask myself why my handwriting was so bad in the first place, and all I could think about was being in elementary school and not caring too much about those handwriting workbooks. I wanted to do other things in school, like disrupt the class or flirt with girls. I didn’t know at the time that my handwriting would look like a 2nd grader’s for the next 20 years.

Last year I wrote a book. It’s a memoir about my life. The book is over 64,000 words long. Would you believe that I typed that entire book with only like three fingers?! I never mastered typing on the keyboard. I remember practicing as a kid, but somewhere along the way I stopped using the home row of the keyboard and all the mechanics they teach you when learning to type went out the door.

The past couple weeks I have been reteaching myself how to type the proper way. I can now use the home row and type without looking at the keyboard. I can’t believe I made it all those years just using three fingers. Although I can type decently with three fingers, I know I will be more efficient typing the correct way.

So here I am, a grown man, relearning how to write and type the correct way. Don’t get me wrong, I love the feeling of self-improvement. I love the feeling of not being able to do something, then seeing myself gradually improve with practice. The thing is, you can practice bad habits and get good at that also. Like I did with my handwriting and typing.

I could have used my free time learning new things, instead of relearning things I was taught as a kid. All I had to do was: do it right the first time.

That goes for anything in our lives. You gotta do it right the first time so you wont have to redo it later in life. Sometimes you might not even get a second chance if you do not do it right the first time. You know how many people are in prison who wish they could go back and do things right the first time? Or that dude who lost his wife cause he wasn’t doing right, who wishes he could go back in time and treat his wife better? Or that athlete who wishes they could go back in time and not smoke weed so that they didn’t fail their drug test?

Doing things correctly the first time saves you a lot of time and stress in the future. One of my favorite quotes is from Marshall McLuhan. He says “The future of the future is the present”. So think about how you want to be in the future, and do it right now. Want to be that healthy, fit person with a nice body in the future? Eat healthy and workout right now. Want to gain 50 lbs of fat in the future and be out of shape? Start eating bad right now and don’t exercise. You’ll get there LOL.

Whatever it is in your life that you may not be doing right, fix it now. Like Starlito says; “Not a quitter at all, but I’m giving up bad habits”. Just start over. Don’t go backwards. Sometimes doing things the wrong way is the same as going backwards. And for all my Christians out there, this might be the only life we get, so if you want to go to heaven, you gotta live right the first time. I don’t know if God will send us back to earth to redo things correctly. Well, there might be purgatory (for my Catholic readers), but even that’s the result of not doing things right the first time.

There are no shortcuts in life, so just do things right the first time. The future you will thank you.

And for my next trick, I will write a blog post every day.

I have always been a very competitive person. I’m not a sore loser, but I can for sure be a sore winner at times. I want to win at anything that I do. I’ve always been that way. I like to challenge myself all the time. There’s no better feeling than when you challenge yourself to do something, then eventually fulfill that challenge or goal. It’s always reconfirmation that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Growing up, I was very competitive with my siblings. Everything was a competition. We even had a game where whoever put their seat belt on first when we got into the car was the winner. Y’all know I won most of the time.

When I was younger, my brothers and I would always play the video game Madden NFL against each other. We used to love to play this mini-game mode called “Rushing Attack”.

The concept of Rushing Attack was simple: A player is given control of a running back and a full back and there’s also a few moving blocking dummies that would simulate a run play. The objective for that player is to score as many touchdowns as possible within a minute. The opposing player would be on defense with two to three players.Their objective is to stop the person on offense from scoring touchdowns. After one minute, you switch sides. The person who was on offense is now on defense, and vice versa. Whoever had the most points after each player got their one minute on offense, won. You earned points from things such as yards gained, stiff arming someone, tackling someone, etc. The most valuable objective was scoring a touchdown. Those were worth the most points. If you scored consecutive touchdowns, you would earn even more points. That’s pretty much all my brothers and I wanted to do; get consecutive touchdowns.

Playing that game mode all those years and trying to get those consecutive touchdowns helped shape me as a football player. “Rushing Attack” taught me how to run the ball efficiently. It taught me how to read blocks, how to set up blocks. It taught me about angles and leverages and even taught me how to do moves such as spins and jukes. It’s amazing what can happen when you do something repetitively. You will naturally get better. You might even be rewarded even more for doing it consecutively.

That is how I plan to approach writing blogs. I will do it everyday. I got the idea from Seth Godin. He has written a blog post everyday for over 7,000 days. That’s crazy! It’s possible nonetheless (Jordan shrug). He says his blog posts are not to get people to read it, or even for monetization. He posts a blog everyday because he made a decision, one time, to write everyday. He doesn’t post a blog post because he feels like it, and he doesn’t post a blog post because it is perfect. He writes a blog post because it is tomorrow. It’s that simple. Having that mentality helps the work move forward.

To reach any big goal, or to do anything of greatness, you have to do it consistently even when you do not feel like doing it. Imagine if your dentist only performed well at work when they felt like doing it. There would be many days where clients got subpar dental services. As an athlete, you got to show up everyday (every play actually) and perform to the best of your ability. If not, someone who does show up everyday and perform will eventually pass you up.

I love to challenge myself. I love to compete. I love to be consistent and I love to stay out of my comfort zone. Only good things have come out of my life when I have done so. I know that the same will be true with writing a blog post every day. I encourage you to do something consistently also. Rather that’s reading everyday, working out everyday, or practicing whatever skill/craft you are passionate about; just do it.

Posting a blog everyday is not too hard. Neither is doing any other task, such as working out everyday, or eating healthy everyday. But as Jim Rohn would say, “What’s simple to do is also simple not to do. The magic is not in the complexity of the task; the magic is in the doing of simple things repeatedly and long enough to ignite the miracle of the Compound Effect.”

So here’s to my first blog post of many. Each new day that the Lord blesses me with, I shall bless y’all with a new blog post. For this is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice (and blog) and be glad in it. -Psalms 118:24 KJV

Tag: african american blogs daily

Do it right the first time

The first of many