I was standing on the landscaping timbers in my jean jacket with Micheal Jackson and New Kids on the Block running repetitively through my six year old mind. I loved that song with the lyrics ‘I’m bad. I’m bad. You know. Who’s Bad?!” My mom worked at the school and was running the after school detention program for the high school. I had been imagining I was one bad mama-jama shooting an MTV music video in my to cool for school stone washed jean jacket! What else was I supposed to do? This was my routine while mom was responsible for the high school’s degenerate student corrections program. On this particular afternoon, a future degenerate that would be spending much time in corrections of some sort interrupted my music video to make some suggestions.
This guy was the biggest dude in our class, and he had the sweetest rat tail. I think he was jealous of my jean jacket, but I was jealous of his pump Jordan’s. I tried to get mom to by some of those shoes with the light up heels, but she wouldn’t go for it. To be honest, the jean jacket was all I had as a one up, so I wore it every day. On this particular day, giant becoming criminal second grader with the pump-up kicks told me to throw a rock through one of the administrative building’s pane glass windows. Why in the world would I want to do that?
My mom only worked at the school for a year. The window incident may have had something to do with that. Looking back now, I know my thought process. It was something like this
“Man I’m cool… except when compared to this guy. I wish I was cool like him… Sure I’ll chunk this rock through that window. I want to be cool like you. Breaking things is cool, right?”
Nothing has changed in our society. Every day someone does something stupid because someone or something they think is cooler than they are suggested to do so, and they do that said thing to be like said something. The link below is an article about a model who struggled with anorexia during her young career on to latter become a plus size model icon. She then made a change in her life, wrote a book, and is now at a healthy BMI. The change was made after years of working in an industry that told her she had to deal with an eating disorder or deal with being overweight as a plus size model. She makes these two statements in the article that caught my attention:
“I felt comfortable with my body…”
“I have found a place of stability when it comes to how to view my figure.”
She told her industry, a very lucrative one, to take a proverbial ‘flying leap’, and became who she wanted to be, not what others told her to be.
Rather it be shattered windows or shattered dreams, living for others cost much. Living into what and who we were designed to be gives much. We are influenced by someone or something everyday. Be honest with your current reality, determine you desired outcome, listen to positive influence, and you won’t hear the critics. Go after your God-designed purpose by finding the dream within yourself.
http://shine.yahoo.com/beauty/former-plus-sized-model-crystal-renn-shadow-her-211700341.html
splanchna (σπλάγχνα) 