Why Are We Who We Are…

Why Are We Who We Are…

Have you ever stopped to question Who You Are and Why You Are that Way? I know I have, as it’s been a constant thought since 1994, as I started working in corporate America and really dealing with life. It all changed including my thoughts about myself as before then, I was raised to be independent, free to come and go as I mainly pleased (of course living within my parents rules, schools rules, the laws, etc.), I was free to be me. But once I got out of school, it all changed as I got the advice of how I had to act, how I had to “be” at my new corporate job in the new world. My dad would always say “Don’t say that on those people’s phones…Call me when you get off” like it was Watergate or my phone was tapped. My friends who gave me my corporate America advice, told that when at work, I needed to “get in early and stay late like the white boys” to give the appearance that I was “playing the game”; to never discuss race, politics, and religion at work; to make sure that my title was correct for the job I was doing, and other things that I needed to know and didn’t, just so I wouldn’t be treated in a more negative way or maybe to be judged a little more equal. To their credit, they did the right thing for me as I didn’t know the Unwritten Black Rules to dealing with Corporate America. When it came to male-female relationships, I was told by women what was acceptable and what wasn’t, what “a man” should be doing to “properly court a woman”, what a man does “when he’s serious about a woman”, how I needed to define and the classic decide what my “timeframe” was so she wouldn’t be “wasting her time”. When my friends directly asked me for my opinion, I gave them a direct answer and I was called those bad words; you know them as Blount, Direct, Hard or the cursed “Black and White”; never truthful with they asked for. Again, it was about playing the game!!! To be honest, one of my lifelong problems is I’ve never been a game player and never really cared about my perception to a certain extent, because I felt it was all false anyway…I’m just not a good game player but that’s mainly because I never tried. I wasn’t overly concerned with haircut or beard always looking like I just left the barber because I was comfortable with who I was, how I looked, and if I had to put up a front to get you to like me or make you feel good, it wasn’t worth it. So many of us say we want the truth, but you really only want is others to agree with you, to do or say what makes you feel good, worthy and accepted. I never wanted to be fake…

How many of us right now, are “frontin” or Fake about who we are because we’re trying to impress people and really aren’t comfortable with ourselves? Is a title important to you to convey a status to others? Is telling people where you went to school (including Undergrad, Masters or PHD) important for your status? Is making people understand that you know what you’re talking about important to you (as you constantly repeat your background) as if it should be just as important to them? Are you telling people the value of projects you managed to let them know you aren’t a slouch and their small quantities are no match for you? How many of us are walking around, being FAKE about our expectations, our relationships, our desires, our dreams, not living the life GOD intended us to live. YOU are telling yourself that you cannot do something; YOU are the one not believing in yourself; YOU are the one that is holding on to the idea that everybody else or everything else is holding you back from your destiny, YOU are the one that doesn’t believe in you, not everybody else so stop blaming others and look in the mirror. I did…

As a man thinketh, so shall he be.