I am currently reading a book called, "Professional Troublemaker" and within the introducetion, I have highlighted so much before even getting to Chapter 1 of this book.. It's that good!
Luvvie Ajayi Jones stated, "One of the things I've learned in my journey is how much fear could have stopped me at any moment from doing the thing that changed my life."
And it got me thinking. How many times did I let fear stop me from trying? A LOT. I jokingly have told people that I had over 300 mental educational plans, let me explain. From 2009-2014, I was in community college. There were so many nights that I would lay in bed thinking about the direction that I should go in. I would think of my friends’ paths and what path I should go on. I would look up the degree paths and IMMEDIATELY get discouraged about what that path looked like.
I would be in tears because I just wanted MY route. I investigated being a teacher of dance and realized that I was not very good or consistent with dance. I looked at being a piano teacher… And well, I do not know how to play the piano. I looked at the medical field….
Fun fact, I have my associate degree in medical assisting and $50,000+ in student loans for a degree I never used after my internship… I looked AND wrote a paper on how I would be a physician assistant. But in true Danisha Fashion, I went to a trade school for a program that WAS NOT TRANSFERRABLE, even though I was reassured time and time again that my credits would transfer to a high-end med school. :insert shocked face here: It did not work, and I even had to start over with courses at a community college because the school was not accredited THAT way.
Let me explain something really quick…. “True Danisha Fashion” means that when I want something, but I do not want to take the time to prepare and go the direction that is a sure thing, I try to cut corners and HOPE for the best. I ignore my gut…. I’m the girl who will not tape the corners of the walls and take the face plate off the wall outlet because, “I got it…” and then I accidently hit the ceiling with paint….
And True Danisha Fashion is not always inherently bad, but it can land me redoing things again and again. Which is another reason it took me 8 years to get my bachelor’s degree done.
Psychology literally was the only route that worked out for me, but I was TERRIFIED. I could have dropped out but luckily, I had a professor who asked me a very important question.
He asked, “If you woke up in 10 years, would you be happy with the choices that you have made or upset wishing you had made different ones?”
And that was when I realized…. I would have to do things scared. I would have to make mistakes. I would have to learn from others and trust others. And I would either wake up in 10 years happy with my choices…. Or upset that I never made them.
Now.... Side note here: Read the question again. He did not ask, "Would you be happy with your life?" He asked, "Woudl you be happy with the CHOICES you made?"
Someone else put it this way, “you are going to wake up in a week, a month, or 5 years from now… Might as well try instead of wishing you tried…”
Truth is, I am a “pull yourself up by your bootstrap” girl. I firmly believe that I did not end up here on accident because, well… My whole life I watched as people ended up in places and said, “I do not know how I got here…. I just stopped trying...” And I realized, I had some power over what I put my energy and focus into. It may not always work out the way that I hoped it would, but in some cases, it was better than I ever imagined.
When I start to think about my past, I think through the moment that I was laying in my car in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. It was after 11pm, I know that because that was when Starbucks would turn off their WIFI, and I was working on my homework from my car. I was homeless, in community college, and I remember shutting my almost dying laptop and crying.
I started to pray over my future. My back was hurting, it was cold, and I was scared that someone would break into my car. I was alone. And I was below rock bottom. But I heard all the really cool stories of others who had pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and I had to believe… Nay, I had to DREAM that it would not always be like this.
But there were so many moments that I had no idea that I would make it out. I was lying in my car. Filled with so much fear that all that I was hoping for, would just not happen.
What if I was living in my car forever?
What if someone broke into my car and that was it for me?
What if this college thing did not work out for me?
What if I could not get a job?
What if… What if this is all not even worth it?
I fell asleep for a few hours until a cop knocked on my window and told me I could not park outside Starbucks and had to move along.
So, I drove to my parent’s house. I called and asked if I could come inside the house. My parent said no.
I asked for a blanket.
My parent said no again. They could not take from their children to give to me.
And that’s when I knew that I was even more alone and on my own.
One thing to notate here: I was not the problem. My parents consistently reminded me, as part of their abusive behavior, that they were always in control. They did not like that I was in school, my father believed that women should not be educated, as it was a sin to God. His belief was that women’s place was only ever in the home and having babies.
I grew up in poverty. And I mean poverty. We had inconsistencies with purchasing food, our lights would be shut off because we missed the bill. We had one income for a family of 13…. And my parents both stated that my mom needed to stay home instead of working.
Yet, we went without. So, from the age 11, I TOLD MY SISTER THAT I WOULD NEVER LET MY KIDS LIVE LIKE THIS. AND I saw how other people lived. With food. With electricity.
And I knew, the only way out was educating myself enough to get a better job and to not rely on one income.
In all transparency, one of my fears as a child was that abuse was caused by poverty because it stressed out the working parent. I thought that if we just had money, none of the abuse would have happened. However, I have come to learn that that is not always the case. Research shows that abuse is higher amongst people in poverty, but it is not the root cause of abuse.
SO, fear led to trying to find the right solution. But as time went on, fear of not having enough reduced and I started to find a love for psychology. I started to understand what I felt and why I felt it. I started to realize; I was completely normal for feeling what I did after going through what I went through.
Fear first kept me from trying new things, but it also pushed me into finding ways out of where I was. BUT one thing I want to say is this,
Fear cannot be the leading motivation for us. Why? Because when we stop being afraid, we lose our motivation. It would be the same as using our trauma as motivation to move forward or to “show” someone why they are wrong. One we don’t feel impacted by our trauma anymore or that person is no longer in our lives, we lose all motivation to keep moving.
We must find our motivation in that we want to be better. We want more opportunity. We want to try, even when we fall flat on our face. We will fail but what is our motivation to get back up when we are faced with fear and hardship?
So, What am I trying to say? Fear can help us move forward for so long. At some point, we have to recognize that fear will be part of the journey, and we have to find the motivation to move in the direction we want to go in. Even when we fall flat on our face.
Afterall,
As Luvvie Ajayi Jones stated, "One of the things I've learned in my journey is how much fear could have stopped me at any moment from doing the thing that changed my life."
Also, the question my professor asked, “If you woke up in 10 years, would you be happy with the choices that you have made or upset wishing you had made different ones?”
He asked the class this question in 2009. IN 2019, I woke up and I was happy with my choices that I made. I was working 80 hour work weeks, raising my siblings, in my 2nd year of my PhD program, married, and COMPLETELY exhausted. But I knew that I had made choices that I was proud of.
2024 Danisha is very proud of 2009 Danisha for making the choices that she did to get us here.
Comments