Difficult Day

I feel so hyped up.  You know that kind of hyped that knows you need to take your tired butt to bed but you're just up and fidgety.  So here I am typing a blog. 

Today was a tough day.  It started yesterday and I haven't been able to shake the dry, discouraged feeling.  I was so temperamental today until my pork and beans and cole slaw made my bread soggy and I began to cry.  You would have thought somebody had beat me, I was crying so hard.  In a word?  Fatigue!

Surprisingly, I think that having my TV on for the noise has helped.  Somehow over these few hours, different successful icons have talked about dark times, trying times or times when they were turned down.  It's easy to forget that Michael Jordan got cut from his high school basketball team.  It's easy to forget that Michael Baisden had to self publish his books.  It's easy to forget that Jennifer Hudson was voted off American Idol.  It's easy to forget that Oprah was criticized for her name, her hair, her nose, her name and was ultimately demoted. 

This reminds me that regardless to how BIG your dream is or how certain you are of your Purpose, there will be days when you ask what-the-hum.  The fight can become so intense that you start to question yourself.  "Did I make a mistake," you ask.  You wonder if you have what it takes, if you're going in the right direction or if you're waaaaaaay off base.  You get tired and frustrated with your current state.  Things are getting dire.  Some things happen that you just can't figure out.

Jay-Z talks about learning more from failure than success on an encore of Oprah's Master Class.  He also talks about difficulty building character.  That actually helped me to hear that.  All great successes are riddled with failure, missteps, see-nothing days, or underwhelming responses.  Everybody talks about those dark times, those hard times, those times of uncertainty, those times when you couldn't pay the Universe to cut you a break. 

Nevertheless, what I see that's common among all these successes is consistency.  They didn't let one bad situation or misstep discount the validity of what was in their heart.  I'm sure there were nights where tears were shed and sobs were muffled in a pillow.  Nights where they just stared up at the ceiling wondering how they were going to do this or that.  Yet somehow they found a way to show up.  I don't think they could help themselves.  Might have looked a hot mess and felt even worse than they looked, but they showed up.  They reported to work.

Show up, my friend.  I know that Life can throw some hard blows or put up a steel wall that can't be scaled.  Still, show up.  After you have your temper tantrum, pick yourself up and keep moving in the direction of what you know deep down.  Cry if you have to, but show up.  Crawl if you have to, but show up. 

I'm tired.  Trust me when I tell you that.  The fatigue is as thick as my natural hair.  I'm getting tired of being tired.  I'm getting tired of feeling hopeful one minute and panicky the next.  All I know is I gotta keep moving.  I can't help it.  In frustration, I tell myself I'm going to close my laptop and I ain't doing another God-blessed thing but then I find myself opening it back up.