Sometimes when we are in a bind the first idea that comes to our mind is to scale back, cut corners and figure out how to save pennies because of course those pennies add up. We like to convince ourselves we do not need a new outfit and that day trip we were planning isnt so neccessary.
We start to pack our lunches instead of paying for that over priced diner with the sandwiches that are so good you justify the price with the astronomical amount of food you recieve for it. Most of us are all wired to survive when we should be making the best choices so we can live. Why does our mind think subtract when we clearly need to add? Is it the fear of the unknown or is it the reality of what is? The unknown is; logically we all can do more and produce more. However life may sometimes enable us to get lazy and comfortable with our existence and we begin to just roll with it. What if we started saying. I need some extra cash, let me DO MORE!? Instead we immediately consider what we can I do less of? Here is my logic, firstly many of us are spending too much money on regular life anyway! You may eat out a lot, you may smoke marijuana and drink. You may be the kind of person whom loves new clothes and sneakers, clubs. What if your a parent? God forbid you may be a person that juggles many of these things. Sometimes you pray for days you spend ABSOLUTELY NO MONEY FOR ANY REASON AT ALL. What if before we started taking away from ourselves we evaluated ourselves so that we are not being reactive rather proactive to financial pitfalls? What if we started to actually budget our money and plan how we were to spend our money prior to doing so ultimately creating a situation where we are ALREADY spending money on things of value. Instead of our mind thinking "oh I can just cut out starbucks" the mind will say "Damn I am already budging let me looking for passive income." Or maybe you are saying things like; "how can I maximize my finances so that I am making the best financial choices ALL OF THE TIME? The idea is let's not do less but do more. Why should we rob ourselves of things we desire or feel as though we deserve because we do not financially have it? Why isn't our first thought is to figure out how to maintain our lifestyle or what could we maximize in our life to provide? Some of us make 20$ an hour after taxes you make about 120$ a day give or take a few dollars. That is 580$ a week and maybe your saying I want to go on vacation. I cant go because vacation cost 2000 all inclusive and I cant save that kind of money. You consider all the things you can cut out, you'll stop getting your nails done you'll stop eating out and eventually u will have enough to go on vacation. The issue with that is we go on vacation and have fun then go back to our ways of spending prior to belt tightening to get to the vacation. We never considered hey I could just not get my nails done and I can just not eat out at all and my budget can get used to that money being a constant. We never say instead of taking away from myself why don't I turn my spare time into dollars? Why not work some extra hours to create the extras in my life? Maybe you invest in yourself by making your spare time profitable instead of wasting money. My mother always used to say you go out of the house for two reasons 1. To make money or 2 to spend money. Most of the time what we are doing in our spare time is the difference maker. We are wasting a lot more time than we like to admit or agree too. 24 hours in a day for most adults 8 hours are used working and approximate travel time is 2 hours u can get 8 hours of sleep and still have 6 hours of time that you can never get back. 6 hours in most cases is being used wasting money or time. What if we decided we were going to cut back on wasting time instead of saving minor amounts of money? Realistically speaking if you saved 5$ a day it would take u a month to make 100$. If you got a part time job it would take you only 15 hours or less depending on what the minimum wage is where you live. You could save all of your loose change or you can just recycle. You could shop less or you could use reward points cash back offer apps clip coupons and shop smarter. You could tell yourself; you are going to quit hanging out and shopping or you can give yourself a comfortable amount of money to use toward said activity. Here it is, what we want and what we require in most cases are not the same and most of the time we allow what others have tell us what it is we need and then we make unrealistic over challenging goals for ourselves to commit to when really we should be making promises to just be better humans no matter how much money we want. If we worked on being better humans we would be shocked at how much money we saved because we are going to walk into a season where what we require to be whole and fulfilled will me much less, directly equaling to us needing less to finance our happiness and desires. After a while of responsible living and responsible money spending we find those financial pitfalls are further in between. We discover we are able to feel comfortable when we swipe our cards and even better we get to a place that our money begins to work while we are asleep or working on other streams of income. Once we see these levels the days of cutting back on lunch to make ends meet are over.
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For a lot of us in the African American community suffer from the stigma attached to therapy and mental health. A lot of us believe we do not need it, we cannot benefit from it or we simply can pray our sadness into happiness and misery into effective living. Like many of my readers now, my break up with my ex fiance forced me to look for something else. I was with this woman for nearly four years just to learn that she was not who I thought she was. I love her greatly and that will never change however I had to realize I did not love myself. I latched onto her and wanted her to fill the void of emptiness that I felt within myself and when she dropped the ball on me and found her happiness by leaving me I was in a state of mental hell. I was drinking way too much alcohol smoking way too many cigarettes and smoking way too much marijuana to deal with the pain that I felt on the outside. I was going through mood swings and depression levels that I could no longer handle on my own, I was seriously hurting myself. I was on a budget because I was also in the process of finishing my degree in computer networking and technology. I was studying for several certification exams and just didn't have the time or money to take therapy seriously. One day I discovered online text therapy and my life changed instantly. I was given a life coach a therapist and began my sessions. I was introduced to spirituality, I was reintroduced to my religion and I got saved. Rededicating to the lord initially kept me at peace as I studied the bible and got deeper into therapy I started feeling a lot better. I started feeling better in the mornings, started using the tools that were given to me in my therapy sessions and making mental health apart of my everyday life.
This foundation is to aid and enable African Americans to begin to take active care of themselves mentally with the help of professional doctors that look just like us. For a lot of African Americans we struggle with the idea of therapy because we fear our therapist cannot relate to us or understand us so we tend to shy away from the idea and not take it seriously. Truth our children our dying of suicide, our parents are fighting alcoholism drugs and lack of education. Our men are being locked away in prisons leaving women to raise children alone. The whole idea of the African American family has been destroyed and Taraji's foundation is helping with that among other things. Today on the second day of mental health awareness month we want to send a shout out to Taraji for what she is doing for our community and we encourage all to visit her website and to seek help with a mental health evaluation. It is never too soon to break the cycles and make a promise to yourself to stride for a healthier lifestyle. |
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We gather information from several different Poets, Therapist, and Minorities from all sides of mental health and therapy. Archives
May 2019
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