God talks to us in many ways, and it’s up to us to really listen.
The devil talks to us in many ways too, and it’s key for us to not listen.
He might tell you to sleep in, not go work out, be gluttonous, get upset at someone, cheat, steal, or kill.
Whenever you get that inkling that might cause you problems or self-destruction, that could be the devil talking to you. We should all work on our willpower to avoid certain things and continue to make the right choices.
The other week, I said, “I haven’t had a bad day since my daughter was born.” That’s still how I feel.
Every day with her is a blessing and full of adventures. I think another underlying reason I haven’t had a bad day since she’s been born is because she (and all kids) brings good traits out of me like positive affirmations, a positive attitude, motivation, and even consoling.
All day, I use positive affirmations with my baby. I tell her what she can do and good things about her. I encourage her daily, I do things to make her happy, I console her when she isn’t. I help her learn and do new things daily.
I think me doing those things daily naturally has a positive impact on me and even my subconscious. She brings out traits that I shouldn’t just have towards just her, but everyone, including myself. So that’s exactly what I’ll do.
When it comes to taking care of others, a lot of the time the best thing you can do is take care of yourself and make sure you’re good.
It’s like in sports, every player has an assignment. If you do your assignment to the best of your ability, the team will be better off. If you don’t do your assignment and try to help another player do theirs, you might actually hurt the team.
When you take care of yourself and you’re good mentally, spiritually, physically, financially, etc., you’ll be available to help others in their time of need, or at the least you’ll be one less person that everyone has to worry about.
My wife got our baby dressed all cute this morning.
An hour later, she had a diaper blowout.
My baby didn’t care though; she gladly put on some random clothes I found in her drawer.
💩 happens. Move forward.
Today, while at the grocery store, I was picking out some eggs, and an old man came over to me asking to confirm the price of the eggs he wanted. Once I confirmed the price, he simply took a carton of eggs and put them in his car, then left. He didn’t open the carton to check if all the eggs were still intact or cracked.
That was crazy to me because I can’t buy eggs without checking every single one of them first. For me, it’s all about attention to detail and making sure all my eggs are intact before I go home and try to cook them days later, only to realize a few are cracked.
Maybe the old man’s method is better. Perhaps he just trusts that the grocery store will package the eggs correctly, saving him time from having to check them himself. It’s like Schrödinger’s cat, the thought experiment illustrating quantum superposition where a cat in a box is both alive and dead until observed. Maybe the eggs are both cracked and not cracked until observed.
Alternatively, maybe having a cracked egg or two isn’t as bad as I think, and they are salvageable. People have different perspectives and approaches to even the simplest tasks, and there is no one correct way to do things.
Thank God for chickens and eggs, though.
I hate it when I’m looking for a parking spot, then I finally see one, and when I get to it, I notice the person parked next to the empty spot parked their car crooked, making it hard for anyone to park next to them.
Or when I park in a spot correctly, then I come back to my car and I can barely open my door to get in my car because someone else parked too close to me.
It’s simple things like that that show how much we depend on each other to do things correctly in order for things to function properly.
Those white painted parking lines help us park efficiently, and they also show how considerate of others we are.
I know parking is something minute, but how you do anything is how you do everything.
Accountability goes a long way.
It can save a lot of time, help avoid many problems, and improve productivity. It’s something you should want for yourself and for others.
No matter the situation, things may not go as planned. Problems or errors will arise. If accountability is established, you can get past that problem. You can learn and improve. If accountability is not established, you can create even more problems. It’s hard to move forward with anything without accountability.
Start by holding yourself accountable, then be okay with others holding you accountable, and then hold others accountable.
You have to be your own worst critic and your biggest motivator.
You have to be brutally honest with yourself, but also loving and understanding towards yourself.
Sometimes, adjustments from our errors don’t come until we’re the ones to point them out ourselves.
Sometimes, you aren’t as motivated until you believe in yourself and your ability to carry out a plan.
Nowadays, I have to stretch every morning and every night. When I don’t do so, I can definitely feel the difference. This helps keep me loose and nimble.
I have to stretch even more before partaking in a physical activity. There was a time when I could just jump into an activity without even warming up and be just fine. I might hurt myself if I do that now. The body changes over time, so I now must do more in order to perform the same way I did in my youth.
I’m glad I know this, because the same applies to life. Sometimes we have to give more or do more than we did in the past to get the same results or better results. I can’t expect to do the same exact things I was doing in 2023 and get 2024 or 2025 results. I must adapt.
I might have to do even more now, the same way I have to stretch more nowadays. So maybe you’re going in the right direction with your action, you might just have to do more.
People often say they miss being a kid because childhood represents a time of innocence, freedom, and a more carefree existence compared to the responsibilities of adulthood.
I think it’s all relative though. Kids may not pay bills or make adult decisions, but they do work hard and have characteristics that we can still model after even as adults.
Kids learn a lot. They learn multiple subjects every day. That’s something I miss about childhood and something I still try to do. Kids are very active also. They play a lot of sports and have a lot of extracurricular activities. For a lot of people that’s the most active that they have been in their lives.
We might still need a “recess” as adults, or just 30 min of some physical activity. Kids dream big and have a big imagination, both of which can be helpful to have as an adult.
So we can miss being a kid but at the same time, we can still learn from kids or even our childhood and implement some of those things into our current life.
FLY, BLACK BOY 