| Blogs > madderrose > my own journey |
|
being shy means... When I was a , I was shy, but really really shy. Silly me. At the time, I used to write letters to several pen pals, around the world. One of them was from China, and she was very polite and beautiful. I told her many things, and one of them was that I could not cope with rejections and so I was not trying hard with girls at the time. She said something that changed my life radically: "you are a handsome man, so you would be surprised to know how many girls would be happy to out with you. So stop thinking, and do it!" I wish I knew where that Chinese girl is now, because I'd like to thank her forever |
|||
|
I don't know about shy, but there are periods in our youth were we go through learning to develop our confidence. We have to learn to overcome the fears of failure, especially if we don't have a system we grow up in that truly understands how to enforce of confidence. We may grow up with love in our family, but they may not see the things we aspire to which require confidence building, but they do instill the basics of love and respect, appreciations. I grew up in the segregated South, but what I was taught, that no matter whom anyone is, or what color they are... they are not better than I am, nor am I better than them. We are people. I think my mother was very wise to insure we understood this in our youth. My mother was born in the 1930's when segregation was very dominant and discrimination was very strong and opportunity was extremely limited. She had us very young and she married instead of finishing high school. But she had the wisdom to teach us a sense of equality as person. This was a tremendous achievement on her part, especially living in a system that had discrimination and segregation as a society code which was oppressive against black people, I learned from my step father, who had even more limited educations, the nature of hard work and going to work, trying challenging things and learning to do them well, I can't recall him being off work except maybe one time for a day or so, I don't see him talking a lot, but he had principles and guidelines that were valuable in our growing years. She went back and got her Diploma equivalent a few years before i graduated high school. When I graduated and things were not shaping up for me to get in colleges from a financial standpoint, she arranged for me to move to California and my father was suppose to help with that options. but that did not happen, so eventually I went into the Military,but before that, when i went to CA. I was always a worker, so I found a job quickly. it was a lowly job but i was earning my own money, and I always got quickly advanced in any job that I've ever had. After Military, I went to school off and on for many many years, but no degree, but I learned a great deal and studied as well on my own a wide variety of things, I did not like that many subjects were skimmed over, and I was impatient for the degree chase process, when I was living on my own and supporting myself by full time work, so I found ways to learn what ever interest me to learn. I've always been promoted, as well in the military, I was placed in good roles when everyone else was sent to the operational lines, I was placed in administrative capacities, and eventually did work the lines and learned all the jobs that was part of the team. After Military... I worked various jobs, and eventually got stuck but settled for the being stuck in the airline industry, always with aspirations to do something else. then I began to accept being there and learned all the areas and jobs and moved to good positions there as well. I know that the methods of such things, instilled in me to be good at what I do, and then seek to excel in doing it. I met so much oppositions, because of envy as well as racial, but I did not stop being one who could innovate and advance operations and systems. I'm sure as with all, there were various areas of shyness, which is necessary to keep one from becoming arrogant and self absorbed. I find those were now good things that helped keep and develop a sense of compassion as well as not become complacent. I probably could have been more dominant in goal pursuits as to title and such, but I was more interested in advancements of system and operational efficiency. I learned not to measure myself by titles and such, nor to measure myself by the expanse of responsibility I had. People would always say, "you have lots of power".. my attitude was no, I have lots of responsibilities.. and these responsibilities being handled affords me a level of autonomy to make changes and push forth project re-modeling. As to women, I unfortunately learned early.. that women can't be blindly trusted to be these ideals that one grows up hoping for. they are fallible human beings as we all are. In early living, to deal with the hurts and pains of love gone bad, and making vows to be more careful, was both good and bad. It brought me not to want the standard messy relations, thus so brought years upon years of no relationships... But as I look back and see that much could have been better with a women who was mature enough to think in stability terms over some of the other ways women think... Life would be different. But as it is, I have very good interactions with women, and often very highly respected by the women I know, and they highly respect my openness and directness about many things both about relations and life things. These are things that develop the whole of person... We are not born being aware of anything that might be in us to know, we come to acknowledge and know these things through our living and these things build a good confidence through our char acer... which is far more stable, than having a flamboyant personality surface like confidence, because that type of confidence is far too shallow. I wanted to do many things over the years, like be a Writer, Attorney, Architecture, Business Developer and Musician and Inventor of things.... None of which came to be, except the continual appreciation of the rudimentary integrity of what these things is has remained to be something that inspires me to keep learning. all of which has brought in me the ability to be good at what I do. I know that in my view of God, the best we can be is to be ourselves and have a belief that God gives us his grace. We can be thankful for our over-all health, and be thankful for any afflictions we did not acquire in life. As so, we can be thankful that we are able to be a contributor in living. I've met people from the Entertainment Industry, had one long time friend whom I met years before he was appointed by Clinton, as Chief Justice of the Marianna Islands and intermittent communications with him while he served that capacity. Along with a hoard of various professional people in a wide range of fields. I shook hands with people from Muhammad Ali, Jesse Jackson, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Richard Pryor, Wilt Chamberlain, Farrah Fawcett, Jerry West , Donald Trump and various others. What I long ago realized, these are just people doing what they do. These were some o the benefits of working in the Airline Industry, I had a ongoing communication with the Airline CEO and President of the company I worked for over many years These experiences helped not to put these people on the wrong pedestals. I had a friend who connected me to audition at Bass playing for Count Basie, and Stanley Turntine, but I was not confident enough in my skill ability, and missed that opportunity due to a confidence matter. Later years, I had a member of the Commodores who use to come to my house and we'd make music. He was trained and skill and I was self taught, I admired his technical and functional skill ability, he admired my raw skill and creative abilities. It is our experiences which help make whom we become to be.
|
