This year has been so crazy! Even this past week has been interesting. Still recovering from what I ate on Thanksgiving dinner 🙂 , God granting me favor in my career, learning everyday new things about what it means to be a single father, and for the first time I’m enjoying the holiday season with my son.
Today I really felt the need to write this blog. I believe there needs to be a real discussion on how modern society has made people delusional about certain truths of real life. Which is why so many try to create their own version of truths… and so many people are living life side-by-side, wanting the same things, yet still cannot live in agreement with each other.
Our thoughts and opinions are often very subjective (or influenced by our life experiences), but truth is never subjective.
My father was definitely not my best friend, nor did he support me in many ways. Some people would say he was a horrible dad. But, to me he was always there for me, and despite our fights and disagreements the truth is I loved him for who he was… not for what he did or did not do. And, he sure did teach me a few important truths which have shaped my perspective.
Like for example, I’m a country boy. Certain homes in our town did not have running water. Even my father told me stories of him getting well water from the ground to drink and use. It taught me to appreciate things people take for granted. Like having filtered drinking water and not having to go outside to get well water.
Or, that enjoying a steak wasn’t as simple as it seemed. It meant that someone had to kill and butcher a cow. So a life was taken for me to live and eat. And, if I wasn’t willing to kill and butcher a cow, I shouldn’t eat steak.
A recent video was released regarding how a social influencer or relationship coach gave relationship advice to a black woman who called into his show (click to view). This video has gone viral within the black community.
What I find remarkable is that so many people were offended by his statements on the video. Though he did speak to her very bluntly, I might add, he essentially told her his honest opinion. And, by her own admission of being “average“, that she would never find the type of man she was looking for due to her expectations being too high.
I believe it hurt so many professional black women to see and hear his words. Especially since so many black women consider themselves “Queens” and disdain the thought of feeling average. After watching the video, I honestly didn’t find anything he said offensive, nor did I feel the woman on the video took offense by his statements. However, when reading some of my friend’s discussion threads on social media regarding the video, it made me realize how many people have a difficult time handling the truth… or they want to create their own truth, which causes them to live in a false reality.
Yesterday afternoon, I watched a sermon by Pastor Michael Todd of Transformation Church in Tulsa, OK. He’s currently preaching a series called “FU – Forgiveness University”. The sermon I watched was called “Father’s Unaware“. The sermon focused on the role of a father and the importance of having a father figure in your life.
Yet what stood out to me was something he said regarding perspective. He basically said that, “…oftentimes in life we define things by association, because we all were not given the same perspective.”
That’s deep… While listening to the sermon I received a revelation from that statement which allowed me to see the importance of choosing good relationships.
As my relationships (or what I give my attention to) will influence how I set my expectations and measure success. Even something which is seemingly universal as love has different meanings to different people, because of how it was shown.
Relationship compatibility is more than these four aspects… which by the way is how I generally delineate interest in women. Physical – how attractive or how sexy they are, Financial – how financially secure they are, Spiritual – where they place their faith, and Intellectual – how educated they are and how they manage their life. Those things are very important!! Nevertheless, I also have to understand and learn what it looks like to have a partner who I’m emotionally and culturally compatible with. Which is something I’ve never seen. That’s real talk.
I feel everyone should always have faith, hope, love with a positive attitude. It takes faith to believe in things that you can’t see. It takes hope to continually pursue something that is outside of your grasp. And, it takes love to treat others with respect and consider their feelings as we all are going through this journey called life.