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Love: The Three Keys
So I found myself sitting here, thinking about that four letter word that always seems to come across my mind at the most random and inopportune times: Love.
Though I’ve written on the subject before, I feel like I wasn’t being true and authentic about it. Many of those previous posts, which have long since been removed, were merely a hurt and scared young boy crying out for attention and validation rather than digging deep into any real emotion.
But a lot has changed since then. I’ve changed since then.
So I figured, while I had some time and it was on my mind, I might share some of my new thoughts with you all. Now, as someone who has never been “In Love” before, I must preface that my thoughts are one-sided and therefore up for individualized interpretation.
So with that, let’s begin.
One of my favorite romantic films is the 2013 Spike Jonze directed, Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams, and Rooney Mara. If you haven’t seen it, the story revolves around a lonely, recently divorced writer named Theodore (Phoenix) who begins to fall in love with his digital operating system, Samantha (Johansson).
I love this movie for many reasons, but above all else I think what makes it so special is how effortless and organic the friendship turned relationship develops between Theodore and Samantha. And after rewatching the film, I got to thinking about what it is that I truly valued when seeking out new potential relationships.
One of the biggest hurtles that these characters faced in the film is probably the most obvious that people would anticipate: One is human and has a body, while the other does not.
Being an OS, Samantha is essentially a floating consciousness that seeks to learn what it means to be human and understand and express her own feelings and emotions. Throughout the film Samantha is constantly learning through her time with Theodore what it means to Love. Simultaneously, however, she discovers how difficult it can be to balance one's personal journey to self-discovery and intellectual/ emotional intelligence while being in a committed relationship.
Let’s pause for a second.
While this may be a pretty extreme version of this particular circumstance, I feel like the core of the issue remains the same for all relationships: How do you Love someone freely and completely, without stifling each other’s personal growth journey?
A lot of times, young people (early to mid-20s) can find themselves caught up in what they believe to be a “Loving Relationship”. They talk on the phone for hours, send those good morning/good night texts like clockwork, and parade each other on social media, so everyone in their circles will know they’re “claimed” or “spoken for”. All the while, no one knows just how physically and emotionally drained they are trying to balance their professional or educational ambitions with the pursuit of social clout/acceptance.
*Note that NOT ALL relationships are like this, obviously, but I’m speaking from things I have personally witnessed*
So what am I getting at?
Well, I think there’s a point where we have to realize that while we’re young and reckless and want desperately to be loved and understood by another, there comes a point where you have to ask yourself the following:
“Why am I here?
“Is being in this relationship helping or hurting my personal growth?
“Is there still room for us to disagree with one another without causing conflict?”
“Do I still have the freedom to be myself and pursue MY goals and dreams?
“Or am I dimming my own Light to let the other person shine?
“Are we motivating each other?
“Are we pushing each other everyday to be better than we were yesterday?”
It’s these sorts of questions that, when really analyzed, can make or break a relationship. However, it’s not all doom and gloom. If you and your partner are HONEST with each other about where you stand and what you hope to accomplish, personally as well as together, you can overcome these hurdles and come out on the other side stronger and more unified than ever before. Only this time, it won’t be because you were pretending or putting on a brave face for the other person, but because you were truthful and wanted to learn how to grow together rather than wait to wither apart.
With that being said, I believe the first key to a genuinely Loving relationship that I personally would want to be a part of, is Honesty. Honesty of dreams, ambitions, and intentions. Once you know the end goal, you can work together to come up with a plan.
The second key to Love, at least in my book, is Laughter.
Surprising? I hope not.
In the film, when Theodore is out and about with his earpiece and camera showing Samantha the world around them, there isn’t a single scene where they’re not laughing together. Laughter, at least in my mind, is one of the easiest ways to the Heart.
When you’re laughing with the person you Love most, I can only imagine how blissful and serene that must feel. You’re not worried about anything else. You’re just living in the moment and making memories together. And in those rough times (cause it can’t be sunshine and rainbows all the time) knowing how to make your partner laugh can only ease the tension and help repair the damage.
Therefore, go find someone who you can have genuine conversation with. Make weird, outlandish, rude, hilarious observations with them. Show them how you view the world, and be entranced by how they view it. Have hearty laughs until you cry, gasping for air. Call them up at 3 a.m. and tell them every detail of the crazy dream you had about the neighbor’s cat. Meet them for lunch and make funny scenarios for the other couples in the restaurant. Go get drinks and sing horrible karaoke at the bar. Whatever you do, just LAUGH! It’ll keep you both young, happy, and energized. And you’ll be surprised at how quickly you fall in love with them all over again.
And the third key to Love, in my not-so-humble opinion, is Consistency.
Towards the end of the film, Samantha begins to widen the scope of her relationships to people beyond Theodore. Now, she doesn’t mean any harm by this per se, she’s merely evolving and expanding beyond the limits of what she and the other OS’s believed they were capable of. Theodore however, is frantic that he’s about to lose Samantha forever and he’s devastated to learn that she’s not only talking with over 8,000 other people while she’s with him, but she also claims to have fallen in love with over 600 of them. Once again, we have a Hollywood dramatization of a very real fear that plagues almost all of us living in the age of social media and ever-evolving technology.
Theodore’s fear came from a combination of Samantha’s dishonesty and her inconsistency. She went from being readily available to more distant and while Theodore’s affections remained mostly the same.
Consistency is one of the many things that I personally struggle with and am in the process of learning how to overcome. I used to blame it on my mutable Gemini personality, but the truth is it was usually just me either being too lazy to respond accordingly or convincing myself that things wouldn’t work out for some arbitrary reason and giving up prematurely. It took many failed attempts at happiness and long conversations with my close friends to realize how often I was self-sabotaging, all because I couldn’t remain consistent with my feelings.
Whether it’s a brand new relationship or one you’ve grown and cultivated for some time, you owe it to yourself and your partner to remain as consistent in your actions as you possibly can. No one wants, or deserves, to live in constant fear that even after they invest their time and energy into you, you’ll just wake up one day and feel completely different.
Although that can happen, depending on the circumstances that lead up to it, I believe that just because you can’t see the finish line right away, that shouldn’t mean you throw in the towel and give up the race. You owe it to yourself to see where the relationship can go, first. And then, once you feel like you’ve done everything you could, and if the effort still isn’t being reciprocated to your satisfaction, then by all means, let it go.
But, don’t deprive yourself of a potentially good thing too soon. As Amy Adams says in the film, after having broken off her marriage with her controlling husband, “We are only here briefly. And while I’m here, I want to allow myself…Joy.”
So, I hope I’m not rambling tonight, but I thought I should share those keys with you guys and hopefully it puts you on the right path toward finding that perfect person who will love and cherish you the way God always intended. And you’ll recognize it when it happens because:
A.) They’ll be honest with you about EVERYTHING
B.) They’ll always know how to make you Laugh, &
C.) They’ll be consistent in how they interact with you.
And if they’re not, don’t be afraid to throw the whole thing away and start over till you find it, because YOU deserve it!
Sending you nothing but Love,
The Noble Negro
A Millennial Mindset: Knowing Your Worth in the Post-Grad Slump
Good afternoon kids! I hope you all are doing well and enjoyed my last post. I’m going to try to start a regular schedule so you guys know when to expect new content from me and can stay in the loop!
So, my last post dealt primarily with the topic of Financial Fear and breaking through those feelings to free your Mind. I received some great positive feedback so that made me super excited. If anything I write ever speaks to you on a personal level, feel free to comment or message me! I want to hear from YOU!
Alright, so let’s get into it…
In my travels, I once met an older, beautiful, intelligent, and supremely attractive Sagittarius girl who I knew was WAY out of my league at the time. But, for whatever reason, we grew close and developed a friendship. So, as a man, I’m thinking “OMG Yes! This can work!”, as men do ;-)
But, after a few more conversations, she dropped a bomb on my ego. She told me that while she enjoyed my company, she didn’t date men younger than her. Bruised but not beaten, I asked her why?
She told me that she couldn’t bring herself to do it because, “that first year out of college, when you’re looking for a job and trying to figure things out, that’s a very humbling period for a person. You learn a lot about yourself. So, having gone through it already, I can’t willfully fall for a guy who hasn’t developed that mindset set. Perhaps after that, but not before.”
Now, having not graduated from Undergrad just yet, this was definitely the finishing blow towards my hopes of a relationship at that time. But, I had to respect her for knowing what she wanted and sticking to those values. And eventually we parted ways amicably as friends.
Fast forward to present day, and I can’t tell you how spot on she actually was. The Post-Grad Slump is REAL, y’all. Just ask any recent graduate you know, or any Young Professional who’s just staring their career and they’ll tell you the exact same thing. We all hear the jokes that “a Bachelor’s is basically a GED” and such, and sadly, for many people that can be the case.
Depending on the field you choose, Graduate School may not be a voluntary endeavor but the only logical next step on your path to a career you love.
Or, if Grad School just isn’t an option financially, you may find yourself in a blue BEST BUY polo selling discount tv’s, wondering why in the HELL you’re 70K in debt with a Psychology degree you can’t use?? (Not to hate on Best Buy, just facing facts lol)
*EDITORS NOTE* There is NOTHING wrong with only having a Bachelor's Degree. As of now, I only have a Bachelor's lol so I'm NOT HATING!
My point is, Post-Grad life is something you aspire to so much while in school that no one ever actually tells you how tiresome and terrifying it can actually be. And as a result, you may find yourself working dead-end jobs just to keep up the rent, or selling everything short of your body and soul to a corporation trying to climb that corporate ladder.
Let me pause here.
Let’s talk about the concept of “Paying Your Dues.”
We’ve all heard it. We all know it. We all fear it.
You get in at your dream job/company working as an Executive Assistant to the Executive Assistant of the Supervisor of the Executive Assistant to the CEO. Or some combination thereof, right? So you come in bright-eyed, and bushy-tailed, ready to tackle the day’s work and do whatever you can to stand out and be noticed. And your Supervisor Brian is just SO GREAT and tells you as often as he can, without being creepy, what an AMAZING job you’re doing and how AWESOME your work ethic is. So you think, “YES! They love me! Keep this up and in 6 months I’ll be running this joint!”
~ 6 Months Later ~
Brian left the company and was replaced with Becca (Not REbecca, just BECCA) and your hate is mutual, the other interns/assistants have either quit, relocated, or actually moved up, and you’re still fetching coffee, writing expense reports, and answering questions about the latest episodes of Insecure and Power…
If you’re triggered, I apologize.
But this is just a taste of a worst case scenario that I and many of my friends/colleagues have either witnessed or experienced firsthand. So, what’s a Young Black Professional to do??
Well, first thing is to Pray. I believe in the power of prayer, as I’m sure many of you do, but the trick is to be SPECIFIC in what you pray for, as a friend once taught me. Therefore, if you want to be recognized more at work, pray for an opportunity to show your skills. If you want a new job all together, then pray for a new position elsewhere or in another branch of the company. If you want Becca to get hit by a bus on her way to work…well, go for it I guess? Just know, God don’t like ugly, and you may find yourself in a worse predicament than when you started, just fyi.
My point is, ASK and you shall RECEIVE. More specifically, ASK for it, then move in expectation that you’ve ALREADY received it, and it will manifest.
The second thing, is to remind yourself of your own worth. A lot of times we get so wrapped up in our work and other people’s perceptions of us, that we lose sight of who we are, and WHO’s we are. So, if you know that you have a full workload and you want to make sure that those tasks get done to the best of your ability, don’t be afraid to say NO or “Can you ask someone else, Becca already has me on a full plate, and I wouldn’t want to do a poor job on such an important assignment.” I promise you, your Supervisor will respect you a lot more for knowing your limits rather than taking on more than you can handle and allowing your work to suffer for it. That’s called Emotional Intelligence, which is a quality much more highly valued in corporate America than who can get the most done in the least amount of time.
The same goes when applying to positions. Don’t just take the first thing that pops up in your inbox if you know you A.) Won’t be even a LITTLE happy there, or B.) Won’t be valued for the work you do well. Believe me, I KNOW it can be daunting to be picky when it comes to jobs and if you’re not in a position to be that way, then don’t. But, if you can, try to find a place where you can do your life’s best work, or at least learn something valuable that will help you on your journey.
And the third thing is to reward yourself! If you know you just killed that last-minute presentation or you solved a problem that no one else even noticed, don’t be discouraged if no one noticed you. GOD NOTICED YOU!! He saw your effort and in time, he’ll repay it back 10x over!
So, in the meantime, take that check and go get some ice cream from your favorite spot after work, go see that movie you’ve been dying to catch, host a girls/guys night at your crib, splurge on the bag you’ve been eyeing on your walk home. DO SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF!
You deserve all the happiness and joy that life has to offer you, and I’ll be damned if I let you think you don’t have the time, money, or energy to reward yourself!
Alright…
So now that you know how to survive the Post-Grad Slump, I hope you’ll go into the rest of your week rejuvenated and ready to take on whatever comes your way!
Also, any recent grads that are willing to share their story of how they overcame the PGS, PLEASE comment or DM ME, so we all can be encouraged!
Too blessed to be stressed,
A Noble Negro
The Noble Negro Returns
You know what sucks? Forgetting how Free you really are…
For me, money is always a point of anxiety for me cause I’ve never been the best at saving. Because of that, I find myself in a pretty serious financial predicament at the moment which I’ve lost a lot of sleep over recently.
But I had to remind myself that God didn’t spend time making and molding me in His image to be held down and crippled by nothing other than Financial Fear.
As I’m sure you all know by now, FEAR ain’t nothing but FALSE EVIDENCE APPEARING REAL. So the false evidence this time would be that because I don’t have as much money as I “THINK” I need, I’m somehow less than or will lose everything I’ve worked so hard and prayed for.
LET ME TELL YOU THAT AIN’T NOTHING BUT THE DEVIL MOVING! YOU HEAR ME!!!
Financial Fear is probably one of the most crippling forms of anxiety a person can encounter. Why? Because it’s being perpetuated by YOUR own mind! You’re constantly worrying that you won’t have enough or be able to provide for yourself or others and after awhile that becomes all you think about. But what I’ve been learning through my own reading and research and meditation is that your POWER stems from the Mind. Your Mind, which is constantly running all the internal processes of your body without you even being conscious of it. If you THINK something hard enough, whether it be positive or negative, your Subconscious Mind will carry that thing out until its made manifest in your reality.
That’s why you always hear the most successful people talk about the importance of the MINDSET. It’s literally the key to everything!
So, back to the money.
If I’m sitting here consistently agonizing and theorizing to myself how and why I’ve failed myself and how I’m going to lose everything, my Subconscious will inadvertently make those thoughts a reality, which is the exact OPPOSITE of what I want!
So what am I getting at?
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, fam.
Financial FEAR is nothing but a tool of the Enemy, designed to cripple your Mind, Body, and Spirit until the very thing you dreaded happening, happens.
This FALSE EVIDENCE has been plaguing me for the past few weeks, so much so that some nights you’re driven to tears, crying out for Him to hear you.
But you want to know the Good News? God hears every little thing you say, and sees every little thing you do. You do not, I repeat DO NOT, have to succumb to fear because the price has already been paid!
YOU ARE FREE! I AM FREE! WE. ARE. FREE!
Don’t ever let a job, a bill, a TEMPORARY circumstance make you forget how free you actually are!
Long ago, when I was much younger, I was asked to give a sermon at my home church. The topic of my sermon was simple, “If you’re going to worry, don’t pray… If you’re going to pray, don’t worry.” I might have been 12 or so at the time, and that experience was definitely one of the most terrifying and nerve-wracking things I’ve ever done.
But who would’ve guess that 11 years later, I would have to take my own advice??
God has worked in mysterious ways all my life. I see no evidence of why He would stop now.
So instead of worrying about things beyond my understanding or control, I’m going to:
1.) PRAY for continued health, wealth, and peace
2.) Not worry about a thing.
3.) Remind myself everyday how Free I actually am.
I hope that any of you who may be experiencing something similar out there will join me in doing so.
Also, just want to do a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who’s lent me their support these past few years and recently encouraging me to get back to blogging. A LOT has happened since I last left you all, but I’ve got a good feeling that I’m here to stay this time.
So Welcome Back ; - )
Your Friend,
The Noble Negro