Discouragement

    It's so easy to be discouraged. It always starts with something very small that starts in your head and then grows as it moves to your heart. A lot of time we don't notice as it grows until it's too late and we are sitting there feeling beat down and have lost all of our inspiration and motivation. They say that the mind is the most powerful weapon of them all. I would have to agree.

    I just finished working on my first solo album. Really it's been something that I have been working on a long time. I had always thought about doing it but then I would start to get discouraged and end up giving up. Well I was just listening to it and thinking about the things I needed to do in the editing process and the next thing I know all I can think about it how it's not good enough. How that I didn't record it right or that I don't sound good enough. Then I start to think about how everyone else sounds better than me and such and such. It's one of those moments where I have two choices. I can either let those thoughts keep going or stop them where they are.

    See the thing is that I have to believe in what and who I am. I have to tell myself. "You know what I did the best with what I could and I believe in the dream that God has given me". A lot of times we look at the world and the things that we wanted to accomplish in it and start blaming things for us not achieving them. We say "Well if I was born in a big city", or "If someone would of given me a chance". But the truth is that we allow ourselves to get discouraged and then we stop our selves. The biggest threat that we have to our dreams is our own mind and discouragement.

    So I just wanted to encourage everyone as well as myself to recognize those thoughts of discouragement and stop them in their tracks. We all have dreams and we all have gifts that God has given us. We have to believe that we have those dreams and gifts for a reason. There is something that you were meant to be great at in this life. There are things that only you can do. So don't let something like discouragement drag you down. You have to believe in yourself and believe in God. That and just keep walking forward. The more you ignore those thoughts and keep moving down the path to your dream the quieter those thoughts are going to be until you actually reach where you are going and they are gone forever.

Only Time Will Tell

    I have always known what I wanted to do. I have always known that I wanted to inspire and influence people to be able to have type of life that would make them feel more complete. There has been different ways that I thought I would accomplish this from preaching to doing hip hop music. I always knew that I would do something that would have an impact on our culture. I thought I knew how that was going to happen and I thought that I knew the people that would be involved with it. Lately it's seemed that the more that I thought I knew it really turns out that I knew nothing. I don't know what is going to happen right now. The fire is still there and I am still striving to make a contribution to this world. I am just not sure what the grand scheme is looking like.

    To be honest it's kind of a scary but at same time very freeing place to be. I have an album that is almost done but have no idea how I am going to pay for it or how to put it out. I have a book that I have written that is done but I have no idea how to publish it. I have so many things inside of me that I know people need to hear but I have no idea how to share them. I am a very driven person. At times I am probably too driven and I lose my sense of balance in the process. Right now I am not able to get things out of line. I have to wait and pray for the opportunities to show up to move forward in these dreams. I am learning that I can't just make it happen on my own or to expect anyone else to make it happen for it. It's only going to happen when the time is right and everything is in order. I am being forced to just wait on God and wait on other events to happen. It is a good thing though because it gives me time to work on my family and work on myself to make sure that everything is in order before things go nuts.

    I still believe that I will someday achieve my goals. Everything else that is associated with it though I have no idea how it is going to happen or when. All I can do is keep working on myself and my art. That way when the time happens I will be ready to hit the ground running. If anything that I have learned in this process is to not get discouraged. We might think we have everything under control and that we know how things are going to work out but the truth is we have no idea. There are always things that are outside of our control. Instead of getting frustrated or feeling hurt about it the best thing to do is keep our eyes looking upward and our feet moving forward. Eventually all will happen as it will. We just have to be prepared to walk through the door when it's open.