It occurred to me recently that my mother gave me something extraordinarily valuable that I hadn't realized before. She supplied me with emotional bootstraps: The ability to pull myself out of a rut, a funk or any other negative emotional holding pattern. Many times, I can give myself my own pep talk. I just have to remember who my mother told me I was: An intelligent child of God that can do anything she sets her mind to. The older I get, the more I realize that not every woman was given a mother like mine. It's with this thought, I’d like to share some of her pearls with you here:
"Keep your goals in front of you".
This is huge. Not only because of its simplicity, but because it’s the easiest one to forget. As you’re going about your life, you can easily become lost in the daily routine. You forget about why you are really getting up every morning – what you are really going after. Every single step you take should be toward your goal. Period. If it’s not toward what you want, then you’re just going backward.
"If someone else is successful, start doing what they’re doing, or go up to them and ask them what they are doing."
Seems pretty obvious, huh? According to my mother, it is a cardinal sin to sit around, shrug your shoulders and bemoan the fact that something is not working for you. Get up off your ass and find out what the successful people are doing and mimic that. If you can’t get a sense of what they are doing from afar, go up to them, open your mouth and ask them what they do. The woman is about action. She doesn’t believe you’re doing anything unless there’s action behind it. Anything less than earnest effort and you’re just full of crap.
"You want something from them, not the other way around."
She would usually say this to me whenever I would complain about a teacher. How horrible they were at teaching, unfair things were or how difficult the teacher was. Blah. Blah. Blah. Every single time, she would stop me and say “You want something from them. They don’t want nothin’ from you. They already have their career. You want your grade and to move on to the next class, so you need to stop telling me what they aren’t doing and tell me what you’re going to do.” That shut me right down.
"Act like you have home training!"
This was the line she used on my sister and I right before we went into a store, church or any other public place. My mother wasn’t going to be embarrassed. She had taught us right from wrong. She taught us proper manners. In public, you were expected to use her teachings. Be on your best behavior, or else!
"Keeping getting up!"
My mother got this from her mother, my Nana. You have to keep going. No matter what. It’s the perfect prescription from moving through tough times. Don’t dwell, don’t wallow, don't complain and just keep getting up. Eventually, you’ll get up one morning and the sun will be shining and all will be well again.
"You’re the prize!"
Sometimes, she'd make us repeat this back to her - especially when my sister and I started dealing with boys. She knew if we could remember this simple fact, we'd be less likely to put up with BS. I know she wanted us to remember that we were deserving of only respect, truth and love. Often, a prize is something that is earned - she didn't want us to give ourselves away too easily emotionally or otherwise. She wanted us to know that any guy dealing with us should take the utmost care and feel lucky that we would choose to spend our time with them.
Thankfully, my mother is still alive. She's done raising me. I'm married and have a family of my own, but I still hear her voice inside my head. I'm grateful for it. Sometimes it keeps me from doing stupid shit. If I've done half the job she has, it's a service I hope to provide to my own children in about 20 years from now.
