I hope these days are embalmed with purpose, love, faith and the doing of good things.
I hope you look back and see it all stamped with bright colors and not drowned in moods of gray.
Cause today, you are in it and sometimes because we are in it we can't see it in its entirety.
Its beauty, opportunities and potentials.
Sometimes it's the complaints that seems to be so evident.
But friend, today is more than the pain.
Today is more than the lover who left or the job you never got.
Today is a training ground.
A classroom of sorts while on motion.
You can learn or you can criticize.
That today is beautiful is a given.
You need no scientist to prove that to you
You can start no matter the past
You can paint no matter the pain
You can laugh when it hurt so much you want to cry
Or you can laugh and cry
Cause today was made not by some cosmic coincident and you were placed in it not just randomly woke up in it.
As random as a day might seem, it was designed.
You can escape today by daydreaming of the future, but the wings you need to get you there are here.
Today is a gift, use it, don't ignore it.
I hope you don't look back from the light and wish for the darkness once more.
I hope not.
Cause those who have been given little candles and placed in a dark place know their purpose.
If today is bleak and far from its definition, you my friend have been placed in it to redefine it.
I hope you use the gift of today.
I'm also praying you don't bury it.
"Today is the oldest you have been and the youngest you are ever going to be"
P.S. - I love and chose the picture in that what sometimes freezes us in the day is the complex decisions we have to make. 'Complex' in that just like the ORANGE, GREEN and RED traffic light colors we are accustomed to, we are given more options than the simple YES and NO. [See picture above].
Real answers to real life questions are more than two [YES and NO] options and for us that's a great opportunity.
What do you think? I would love to hear from you @ayostephens
Sometimes when our plans seem to be falling apart, God is orchestrating it all in the direction of our dreams.
You hold your life plan in one hands and say "God, this is what I want!"
Remember, you dreamed a dream long before you knew how to write or ever knew what pens and papers were used for.
Now you want your whole life to be directed ( I actually mean 'caged' ) by a document on paper or MS Word?
The hustler was once a carefree little boy. And the independent lady was once a wide eyed girl.
Right then a dream was set in your heart.
When it's all falling apart, God is unearthing the dream.
The dream covered up by the disappointments, limitations, stereotypes and impossibilities we have set for ourselves all in the name of growing up.
We are not growing up if we have silenced the voice of the inner child.
Dear hustler, You're still that boy, you're still that girl. Your life is more than making money and you have a calling and a purpose.
This is not a call to abandon your day job and go to the mountain and cry out "GOD! Where is my calling"
This is a call to swim the tide of life. To know that every heartbreak, "We don't need your services anymore", contract loss, disappointments and deal loss has a great potential to pull you closer to the heart of God.
And in finding his heart, hustler you are finding yours.
Before money existed you lived happily somewhere you can't remember now. After money is destroyed, you will live on in a place.
This place determines that place. Use money don't let it use you. You're still that boy.
You're still that girl.
Say amen and embrace the hustle.
P.S. - "Before money existed you lived happily somewhere you can't remember now. After money is destroyed, you will live on in a place." Money is important, very important. But have you ever thought of a world were money isn't needed? What would it be like?
I would like to hear from you. Bounce your thoughts off me on Twitter @ayostephens.
Some looked the same but were not actually the same.
As we sat in the big experimental lab, white coats on, various bottles and colors, liquids and crystals, the new teacher spoke up for the first time after staring at the back wall for 5 minutes.
"Some can never mix" he said to me breaking my gaze from the bottle of Ether.
Somehow those words got the attention of the whole class.
Were they looking at the bottle or me? I wondered
The teacher strode to the front of the room like a giant, not one about to fall but one who just won a battle.
Bouncing with a smile on his face, he said
"Some would never mix no matter what you do
Some need some extra external force to begin the reaction
Some would cause an explosion if they mix
And some are perfect for each other
They happen before they meet"
I put up my hand and asked the chemistry teacher amidst the smile forming on my face. 'do you believe in chemistry?'
'You mean do I believe in love?' He answered and smiled back
'If love is a reaction' he began taking the pose of a fourth grader reciting Yeats or Shakespeare ' who knows the right constituents?'
Camilla and James exchanged quick smiles and locked hands beneath the lab table.
'If love is a reaction" he continued "who knows what would explode if mixed '
If love is a reaction who knows each individual's 'chemical' properties.
Who knows?
Camila and James exchanged frowns, quickly unlocked hands beneath the table and looked looked away.
The bell rang
The class was dismissed.
A bottle broke as one student tried scrambling to the door not to miss her next class.
That day they didn't hold hands into the hall as usual.
I sat like a stone at my desk pondering these questions.
She walked into the waiting area five minutes after I arrived and we all turned but I was staring long after others turned back their heads.
Something happened in that moment cause somehow I disappeared right next to pretty doll. And I gulped and said 'your hair. . .' . I gulped again and said 'your face. . .'. I gulped again and said 'your. . .' But then came the rain and we all scampered.
But she made no effort to leave the rain. The shades were full and for the first time I saw a streak of heartbreak on her face.
Is this the first day of the rest of your life?
Are trying to start over again?
She stood right there as it poured down
It poured. It poured.
The water from her face seemed a bit colored.
It poured. It poured.
The face I saw some minutes ago was coming off.
It poured. It poured.
I looked at her again but she tried to hide.
It poured. It poured.
It was then I asked myself, can you truly love without the presence of the rain?
Cause you see my friend, you don't know anyone if you haven't been in the rain with them.
We can choose to look pretty anywhere but there's an undoing that comes with the rain.
So when you're stuck at a bus station with your best dress on. New shoes and your life seems almost perfect and the rain comes down on you.
Hold on and be still. Let the rain wash away your makeup and in that moment embrace the real you be it ugly or beautiful.
Let the rain remind you of who you really are. Let it humble you.
And don't forget to give a sheepish smile to the guy who's been checking you out all along cause if he can still love you right in the rain without make up, chase you and come for you after the rain stops, he's something like the real deal.
P.S. - I once saw a lady get angry the other day cause a guy said make-up was unnecessary. What do you think? Was her anger justifiable? Was the guy rather rash in his reasoning? Are there people you really think can't live everyday life without make-up because of very valid reasons?
One more question if you are a lady reading this, Has your make up ever come off in public before? Did you feel humbled?
My twitter handle is @ayostephens I'd like to hear from you.
