Am I really a quitter?

Last year, I went on my first professional roller coaster. I’m not speaking of the rides that populate amusement parks, but rather of my first experience in a negative work situation.

The situation was similar to many. Poorly structured organization, a rashly constructed job description, a demanding boss and lack of official support. That’s the censored version. As these factors and others mounted, I made a choice to leave. Yes. I quit. Against everything that I had been taught to be righteous and true, I gave up on a situation in order to preserve myself.

Though I have beaten myself up about quitting, I learned quickly that preserving yourself is essential. Seeing something through isn’t always worth it.

Drama aside, the job asked me to compromise parts of myself that I had never intended to. And though most compromise is necessary to learn and grow, I did not value the benefits of this compromise.

Not that I didn’t make mistakes. I was inexperienced and didn’t play the professional game well. But, then again, I was chosen for the position partly because of this inexperience. Most of the time, however, my mistakes were the result of my confidence being attacked or a lack of proper communication from the powers that be.

When I considered leaving, the words of one of my friends resonated, “Professional mistakes should have professional consequences. The minute they begin to affect your personal life, they have gone too far.”

A statement that is beyond comprehension for someone who feels that her work is an integral part of her being. I felt that my job was a reflection of my passions and abilities, and I was willing to dedicate my entire self to it-- whatever it was. My job was supposed to give me a sense of purpose and opportunities to learn and create.

Instead, my first professional roller coaster ride taught me more. I learned that a job is not worth my confidence. I learned that interpersonal relationships-- personal and professional-- should be nurtured and valued. And I learned that professional relationships can be just as toxic as personal ones.

Sometimes you have to leave.

Racketeer of Love

Okay, so I went to a retreat for my job today and much of it was pretty routine..."I" statements, ownership over your own feelings and the like. But the last topic of the day hit me like a ton of bricks!...Rackets- defined by the facilitator,  Herma as a response to a threat, a Racket is the propensity toward filtering our behaviors and attitude toward a situation or person because of a perceived slight. It manifests itself in a number of unproductive ways that stagnate progress.

On the train ride home, it dawned on me that I've been running a racket on every man that I meet and perhaps even myself. I am overwhelmingly apprehensive about relationships and recently took myself off of an 8-month hiatus from dating but i'm gun shy about getting back on the horse:

The Racket
Threat: opening up
Cause: I have expressed the need for stability in relationships with a host of different men and came up   empty in each case (all names have been disguised to protect the innocent and guilty as you may see it ;-)!*)

Xavier* a friend for several years during college expressed a strong attraction to me and we began seeing each other casually and did so intermittently for about a year...I got to a point where I wanted more, he let me know in no uncertain terms that such a thing would NEVER happen! As a result, I don't put myself out there.

Daniel* the only man I ever loved- promised if I gave him my heart he would never hurt me...that went out the window at the sight of the first woman to stick her tongue in his ear and hand down his pants...I shut down

Kilpatrick*  said he wanted to get serious but didn't know that meant actually actively engaging in conversation and interaction...I got tired and gave up!

Result: When guys ask me out I automatically lie and say i'm taken or I live a happy fulfilled single existence or I'm off men....I get cussed out by frustrated men that have asked me out by every single angle and I go home lonely.

WTH is a happy fulfilled single life after basically 2yrs of intense career focus and businesses that are starting to succeed? I'll tell you its bullshit...its long hours being held by worries about work and waking up at 3am to check your damn email because there is no one there to remind you that you are more than work.

This Racket i've been running has me in a mess....met a dude that I honestly wanted to pursue and I've been telling myself I can't because I'm happy dating my work but work doesn't give massages, kiss you and tell you everything is going to be okay...

Confessing and Conquering Fear..

Not quite ready to do it...coming soon!

In Living Clutter!!!! (PART 1)

Friends,

I'm embarking on a new move in my life--a transition, a new or renewed me. I've been feeling the gradual pull away from what was in my life to what is and what is to come. A new me, I feel, is here even as the old me is slow to shed its skin. I am choosing not to tell you the full details of the "new move" but it is only a piece of the overall transformation that is slowly building in my life. I say all of this to share the importance of clearing the clutter of life.

Last weekend, I sorted through clothes, shoes, papers, books, magazines and old journals in an effort to donate or throw out those things that were no longer of use to me. I was overwhelmed by the amount of STUFF I've accumulated since high school and college, which were either stored in boxes in my basement or scattered in my room. "How did I acquire this much stuff?," I kept asking myself as a few papers turned into a multitude. At one point, standing in the middle of a pile of clothes and stacks of paper, I just wanted to throw everything in the trash. The sheer idea of sorting through all my STUFF became more and more frustrating as the weekend ensued. I realized that it would take more than a weekend to clear the clutter from my place.

Clutter. I did a google search on its definition and here's the first three meaning to pop up:

• a confused multitude of things
• fill a space in a disorderly way
• unwanted echoes that interfere with the observation of signals on a radar screen

My takeaway from these definitions are that clutter is a result of our accumulation of too much or a "multitude" of things, which I call STUFF. These things can be both physical, like clothing, shoes or papers, and emotional, like our unresolved feelings or interpretations toward events in our lives. The main characteristic of clutter is that it fills space (too much space, in my case) to the point of confusion, disorder, and unwanted interference in our lives. At times our lives can be so packed with clutter that the idea of digging out and clearing it causes immediate exhaustion and frustration. So what do we do...let the clutter pile up until we have enough energy to deal with it. I know I am guilty of that philosophy. I put off sorting through and organizing my STUFF for so long I didn't even realize how much STUFF I had.

But I realize now that clutter is potentially dangerous for our physical, emotional and spiritual health and vitality, especially as creative people. Think about a time you visited friend's house and when you got to their bedroom it looked like a hurricane came through it--clothes strewn across the floor, bed unmade, and STUFF everywhere. Maybe you didn't even make it to the bedroom before you conclude the house was a wreck or a bio-hazard. How did you feel? Or, better yet, what did you smell? LOL, seriously, clutter can make you feel closed in, uncomfortable, disgusted, and overwhelmed. I'm sure we've all been on the other side of this situation as well (of course, to varying degrees) where a few days (or weeks) went by and your laundry piled up in your room and important papers or mail never got filed (or even opened). I can admit to that. Maybe you kept buying or had enough new clothes that you did not do your laundry until it fit into your busy schedule.

The same can be said in the emotional and spiritual aspects of our lives when we fail to deal with unresolved feelings towards the people and situations in our life. Has there ever been a time when someone did or said something hurtful to you but you choose not to talk about it in order to avoid confrontation? How did holding back your emotions make you feel? I know I've bottled up my emotions in order to keep the peace in a relationship but my heart, or emotional space, could only hold onto so much unresolved feelings before I blew up on the someone. Therefore, in either aspect, physical or emotional, when clutter is not addressed or controlled, it builds.

To close on PART 1 of this message, why is it important to clear clutter? Here are my thoughts:

1. To give our minds, bodies and spirit clarity
2. To restore order and balance in our lives
3. To shift our focus and concentration away from our STUFF and put it on what is truly essential in life--GOD and the love of one another

I am tired of living my life in clutter! Clutter is blocking the creative flow I need for my writing and art. Clutter is making me lose focus and time on what is really important because I've allowed it to pile up so much, without clearing it or processing it, that it overwhelms me. In Part 2, I will talk about how we (you and me) can get the clutter of our lives under control.

My Declaration: I WILL ZAP THE CLUTTER OF MY LIFE THIS YEAR AND FEEL RENEWED!

With Love,

Malaika

Standby...

I pushed pause on life a few months ago.

For a woman who is used to being occupied at every moment of the day, pushing pause isn’t an easy thing. A productive member of society is not defined singularly, yet I cannot to claim to be a productive member of society by any definition.

This moment of my life is my first standby frame.

I grew up playing musical instruments, participating in sports, and academically inclined. I loved trying new activities and through this made community service a staple in my life. I always had a bright social life. Remaining active throughout college, I decided that I couldn’t move back home after graduating deciding instead to move across the world to South Africa.

But moving back home came eventually.

I returned to Chicago from South Africa about six months ago, after having lived in Johannesburg for over two years. Every moment there was a new adventure because it had to be-- living on my own, finding my own way, constantly finding and confronting new opportunities to learn. And though life away from home was not an unrestricted utopia, I feel a deep connection with my life abroad.

And every cliche comes to and end.

Like many of my peers, I have learned that returning to the familiar can be just as difficult as discovering the unfamiliar. Since I made the decision to move back to my childhood home in order to be closer to family, I didn’t have a job lined up for me before I moved. I decided that this time off would be a good time to focus on other aspects of life besides professional development. I would put in some applications to graduate school while being supportive and present for family members.

Instead, I found myself starting over.

Most of my time feels like I am waiting. Waiting for something to happen, for my path to take me somewhere, for family to support me, for life. Everyday I wait, I feel my person fading. Yet, despite my restlessness, I cannot seem to pull myself out of my rut.

I’ve finished the law school applications, joined groups to meet new people and made concerted efforts to spend time with family. I am writing a business plan for an organization that I would like begin building during my time in graduate school. I have set goals and am taking a small step toward them everyday.

And still...

Avalanche

So its been particularly snowy in my part of the world lately, New York, D.C. and the vast majority of the North East of the United States has been hit really hard with a series of mini to monstrous blizzards but no this post is not about the weather....

It is however, about how my love life has seemingly imitated the weather...."its snowing men!" I recently decided to ease myself off of an approximately 8 month hiatus from dating. I swear the day after I made that resolution I began to be inundated by exes- they are like cockroaches they don't die! And much like Diane Carroll as Whitley's mother  on "A Different World" in the wedding episode when Dwayne Wayne interrupted her daughters impending marriage to Byron What's His Name I want to exclaim "DIE! JUST DIE! But they won't- its like they had a friggin' convention and decided that it was just time for them all to "Check on Me." Every dude  too- the  5 second boo,5 minute boo, 5 day boo, 5 week boo, 5 month boo, and 5 year vexation to the spirit!

"OOOOOOOh I haven't heard from you in a minute I'm just checking in!" My first thought - What the hell for? I ain't been checking in or up on you...'cause I can't allow your triflin ass to block my blessings anymore! But have I said that NO. and I see them moving me further and further away from my Byron What's His Name....What is a girl to do?!

  

To Renunciate

I was on the subway the other day and I was sitting between two women who were both reading books. I looked to my left and saw the chapter title of the woman’s book: “Yoga Freedom through Renunciation.” I looked to my right and saw the chapter title of the other woman’s book: “Renunciation and Rebirth.” I looked up the word renunciation when I got home to see why this would be such a hot topic on the train. Here are a few definitions:


1. An act or instance of relinquishing, abandoning, repudiating, or sacrificing something, as a right, title, person, or ambition.
2. The act or an instance of renouncing: the renunciation of all earthly pleasures.
3. A declaration in which something is renounced.

So both these women were learning how to eliminate something from their lives to reach some higher understanding. I like the idea of trying to rid yourself of whatever prevents you from happiness, but why are people so eager to renounce things? Can’t we reach enlightenment by embracing our faults and focusing on our goals? Instead of putting so much energy toward getting rid of a negative attribute, people should work hard to attaining whatever positive goals their trying to reach, and the thing they were trying to get rid of will fall by the wayside as a result.
For example, I had a bad habit of cracking my wrists all the time. I would crack them so often that it got to the point where it hurt not to crack them, but then it would also hurt to crack them. I would wear a rubber band on my wrist and snap my hand every time I thought about cracking my wrist, or tell a friend to slap my hand or do some other ridiculous techniques to stop the habit. But after a while I just stopped and I don’t remember when I stopped. At some point in time, my wrist popping wasn’t a priority anymore and so it was no longer a problem. I must have just shifted my focus to something else and my habit subsided because I had more important things to think about.
I’m not saying that loosing ourselves from our vices is just as easy as focusing on something else, but there’s no need to throw our troubles out the window and call it “renounced.” I think the best way to deal with our faults is to recognize them, embrace them, not be so hard on ourselves for having them (we’re human), and then move onto something else. As long as we’re aware that we have these problems, it’s easier to curb them whenever they surface.

Beep Beep and Vroom Vroom

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the best driver. Sure I don’t always put on the turning signals, yes I didn’t know that you had to put on the lights when it’s raining, and I just learned the use of 1^st and 2^nd drive but there has to be some outlying reason why I seem to get into vehicle incidents/accidents so frequently, for real. I would understand if I were driving while impaired/under the influence or whatnot, but these occur on the most basic runs. There is no reason why a trip to the gas station should end in the ER or a trip to Best Buy to end in a hit and run. Better yet having an MTA bus smash off my side view mirror while waiting at a red light.

But, this past Thursday was out of control! On my way to the train station I got into a fender bender with a livery cab driver. Not only did he hit me from the back (no pun intended,lol) but he then tried to spin it to say that it was my fault, of course at this point I lost my temper . But moving along, I find a parking spot and make my way to my “job” and class afterwards. There was a mixer at 8 but I was not in the mood so I left for home after class. I get off the train and make my way to the spot I parked and the god-forsaken car had been towed (rage ensued). $263 later I’m riding in the passenger seat and am debating whether or not the red devil and I have come to the end of our relationship, it just might be time for an upgrade.

I have been receiving such positive feedback about the mamltdart FACES Blog! and T-shirt sales are on the rise! I am so excited that people are identifying with the brand!

New FACE of mAmLtDart

Greetings FACE followers,

Simply would like to introduce myself as I am a new voice and face on this blog. Keeping in line with the question, "Who do you aspire to be?", here goes my intro:

My name is Malaika Carpenter and I aspire to be a woman of excellence by honoring God with my gift of writing and creativity, through my love of others, and in my strength of character.

Second, I would like to add a line about what I intend on contributing to the blog:
1. A word of encouragement
2. A glimpse into my life
3. A good word on a good book I read, play I saw, art I experienced
4. "Take It To the People" moment - reader's feedback on a frustration, questions, comment and/or opinion

Talk soon (or blog soon!),

Malaika