All articles filed in L Train

An ancient proverb. I heard it first from my fourth grade teacher, Sharon Hill. “Life is 10% of what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.” She pulled me aside after I’d gotten angry over something trivial. My guess, it had something to do with my nemesis at the time, Cosimo. An Italian boy who worked all my nerves daily. He’d do idiotic things, like waste a whole pen to mark up his forearms, pronouncing them chicken pox. Diverting the attention of the entire class with nonsense, making it apparent why he’d been left back twice. I absorbed her message, but didn’t apply it until I entered the school of hard knocks.

A perfectionist, who’d gladly bite off more than she can chew, to guarantee everything is done properly, that’s me. If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready. A control freak method that worked, until I stepped out of high schools structural realm. I was so type A, that minute things going wrong would send me into a fury.

From little stuff, like leaving my house an hour early to be fifteen minutes late, to a job, or class, that was only thirty minutes away, because shit happens between where you are and where you’re going. Even adding an additional thirty minutes to ensure timeliness, didn’t stop me from getting stuck on the L train, with the announcer broadcasting that the train was no longer heading into Manhattan. Let me get a cab. Except all 120 people, who were just in platform purgatory have the same idea (this was before Uber). To big things, like starting a business from scratch, using educational resources, researching every nook and cranny myself. I did such a good job I landed an investor and brokered a deal based on my business plan. Putting in more than my fair share of sweat equity didn’t deter me, eye on the prize. Everything was going well, until the investor went haywire. Last minute right before our launch, despite the extensive and elaborate contract he’d signed. Using the website we’d hired him to build as leverage, in an attempt to bully us into his vision. No way were two black girls, with a minimum of thirty years less life, going to tell him what to do. We had to start from scratch, weary of seeking outside help to speed us up. Plus the financial game is discriminatory, it is insanely difficult to get a loan as a black person. Double whammy we’re women.

Confirming what Sharon Hill taught me; that life is going to do what it wants, the only thing you can control is how you adapt to it. Anything can happen on this spinning rock, orbiting circles in infinity. Everything is probability, there are factors in your life that increase, or decrease the likelihood of what does and does not happen to you. Mere mortals, delirious in believing we have more power than we actually do in the cosmic universe. Yes we’ve ‘conquered’ nature, with our slabs of concrete and metal shapes. But nature can take us out in one breath, with some destructive force. As the Queen Of Dead-Ends, I’ve learned that faith is essential. Having so many horrible things happen that were beyond my control, taught me there’s a higher power you must yield to. It will force you in directions you didn’t know existed, it will do everything for your highest good. Sometimes your highest good is to reap what you sow, to teach you there are consequences, or rewards to your actions. To make you a better person. Keep the faith, with as many setbacks, I’ve experienced as many miracles. This virus is a lesson to humble yourself homo-sapiens. Surrender to the powers that be, for you are smaller than an ant in the bigger picture. Via: Arts Genetic