What Will the Next Ten Years Look Like For You?

There's so much more I want to say and dive into politically and socially but I will leave that for another blog post. For now, I'm back to blogging because there so much I want to say. Everything seems so connected and disjointed at the same time. To clarify, a few months ago I decided to truly dive back into the fiction genre. I started by buying several series by Octavia Butler. Octavia Butler is a Black Woman scifi writer who won many awards and is a major mainstay in the scifi genre. The first book I started with was Parable of the Sower and that book could not be anymore scary for its prophesying. I implore you as a reader to buy her novel and start reading. Everything that is happening now has been alluded in her book, which is categorized as fiction. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and sometimes fiction tells the real truth, while reality is just a glamorized lie. Because of her book, I started to amp up my prepper stash which I am glad I did. Stores in my area started to close early, limit purchase amounts, and many online small companies started having a surge in customers. I made sure to purchase what I considered very necessary items such a large water filter, small deep freezer, gardening seeds, potting soil, and first aid kit supplies.

So now, to come back full circle on this new blog post, and how it connects with Octavia Butler. This wonderful women gave the world and myself two profound gifts. The first one was her large work of marvelous science fiction series. The second was her belief in writing her world into existence. On the latter, Octavia Butler literally wrote her wishes and dreams and how she wanted them idealized into tangible goals. Ms. Butler literally wrote her life into existence. The picture posted above is from one of the pages of her notebooks and is her written manifestations. This has reignited my thinking into planning a road map for my life story.

I want to write on how I plan to make use of the next ten years. The next ten years will be a crucial time period in my life as that will a few years before transitioning into my mid thirties. My last published blog post focused on being consistent with my goals and having daily and weekly challenges to encourage long term habits. Well, some goals were definitely met and exceeded and others are still in progress. My most major goals such as owning my own car, having a savings fund of $1,000, and having a stable full time job that I could live on have not only been met, but have been exceeded! Since I last blogged, I accepted a new position in a new department at work and moved across the country! I saved ten times the amount I needed for my emergency savings, which I am so grateful I was able to do so in light of  the current events now. All of the things I achieved were goals I had written down in my journal, two summers ago. They were very easily tangible goals but very important to me in my young adult years. So in the next upcoming blog posts I will be talking about life roadmaps, goal planning, and strategies. I will also list my main goals for the next ten years.

Consistency Makes All the Difference

Consistency makes all the difference in establishing effective habits and accomplishing one's goals. So this year I am establishing daily positive habits and routines that will push me into accomplishing this years goals and furthering my self development.

Fluency in Spanish

I am aiming towards reaching the intermediate level in Spanish. At the moment I can comprehend, and communicate beginners Spanish adequately. However, I need to push my comprehension skills further and absorb the Spanish language at a more accelerated pace. So I will be giving myself a curriculum with flashcards, Spanish textbook, Memrise app, and the Spanish media. A daily study of two hours a day is my daily language goal. Currently at my part time job I am surrounded by Spanish speakers, so immersing myself in the language several hours a day at work will definitely be beneficial for me.

$1000 Emergency Savings Fund

Having an emergency savings for a rainy day is so crucial and fundamental to being an independent adult. Many financial advisers and books I've come across seem to agree having at minimum a $1000 emergency savings is a good starting point. So for this year I will be following a build a $1000 emergency saving challenge that takes 44 weeks. Although this is one year long financial goal, I have several financial habits I want to establish routinely. One habit I am implementing rigorously is staying on budget. Whatever the established rules are I must follow and that includes having to focus on my needs versus my wants. In another blog post I will cover needs versus wants in budgeting. Staying on task with proper budgeting to me means being less of a mindless consumer. There is always going to be new things I want but sometimes you must delay instant gratification for long term satisfaction.

Thriving Blog

My very first published blog post was in January 2014. That was four years ago to be exact! I had so many topics, areas, and ideas I wanted to cover and write about. I still have a plethora of topics I want and will publish in the near future. However I want to see this blog go forward with a specific vision and thrive this year. So going forward I will establish weekly habits to research my blog topics, write, doodle, and plan them, and then publish on a weekly basis. Considering my usual posting style on this blog was not on a consistent basis, this year I am pushing my limits to do much better.

Clear Radiant Skin

Clear radiant skin has always appeared elusive to me due to my acne scarring and hyper pigmentation. This year I am adamant about changing my skin for the better. I've always had a decent skincare routine consisting of cleansing, moisturizing, and the occasional face mask. I love the idea of using both traditional skincare methods such as clay, rosewater, diy natural facial masks, and modern skincare such as advanced sunscreen, chemical peels, and vitamin extracted serums. Nonetheless, this year I am in the process of implementing a strict morning and night routine complete with double cleansing, moisturizing, vitamin c serums, peels, daily masks, and upping my water intake.

Reading Goals

I have a moderate sized and eccentric book collection that surprisingly fits in my closet shelf next to my purse collection. In my collection there are titles on the history of bohemians, art of seduction, hostessing for the modern woman, gardening, herbs A-Z, baking in America, history of spices, African American history, and novels of all sorts. However a good portion of these books are unread and sadly untouched. I unfortunately have that tragic habit of buying an intriguing book based on its subject or synopsis but never making the plans to actually read the book in it's entirety. This year I intend on correcting that tragic habit by reading all the books already in my collection and the necessary books on my pinterest list. The books I deem necessary on my pinterest list are to further my self improvement goals and become further well read. For every month I will have a streamlined book reading list that subjects will cover strategy, relationships, self-improvement, and biographies.

What's On my Bookshelf

Lately these past few months my head has been swirling with the concepts and topics of: mobility, class, manipulation, and power tactics. Below is a few books that have grabbed my attention and provided good reading material and learning lessons. A fictional book about a character named Eileen who marries Ed Leary and hopes to claim a stake in the American Dream. The book really delves into the daily aspects of marriage, education, social mobility, on one's values, and growing old. I identified with the lead character Eileen on her staunch values, hopes and aspirations of moving up from working class, and her conviction on staying married. 
There were so many good tidbits in the book with such passionate writing that I will mention here:

• She wore neat shoes, but they covered a sprawling account of an overtaxed life, and there was no hiding the truth when she took them off.
• Money was not a guarantor of dignity.
• In that regard he was more prepared for the loneliness of senescence than she was, He'd been a stranger in the world for most of his life.
• Every move he made had the imprimatur of purposefulness.
• This was his final gift to her: to silence her regrets about the paths she hadn't taken.
• "There's a reason he can't accept nice things" he said. "His family's been in this country a hundred years, they never owned a house. That's a sin. If you're not in a house by the time I'm dead, I'll haunt you from my grave."
• She resented the way Connell walked around oblivious of how carefree his existence was, how little responsibility he had.

Everyone has an agenda and everything is fair game. That is something to always keep in mind and remember when reading this book. Accepting that everyone has different personalities and different pulls of attraction is a good start in understanding the rules of attraction. This book does not center on being attractive to all but rather details the tactics to become seductive and use that to your advantage. One of the key points I've noticed this book mention is to always have good timing, and to always work on mastering your skills and seductive traits. It's about being a beacon of seductive and pulling energy. Being seductive requires thinking before you talk, feeling the other person's energy and feeding their ego, being less self absorbed, and possessing a charismatic personality.

• Seduction is all about focusing on the other person, good seducers pay great attention to detail, the other persons facial expressions, gestures, etc.
• Seduction should not be rushed at all, because all great seduction takes time.
• There is no better word than a rightly timed pause.
• Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without having had asked a clear question.
• Noticing a persons weakness and playing it to your advantage, by making a person more reliant on you. 

Money, religion, and politics are three topics that are touchy sensitive areas at the dinner table among peers. It would be a lie to say class does not exist here in the United States, an even bigger lie to say class differences one day will cease to exists.. Classes are apart of all human societies but the traits, characteristics, values, and commonalities differ across cultures. This book is as witty as it is informative. The author's detailed observations are extremely on point and accurate even 30 years later after this was published. It's very interesting how even values are different across class lines in America. For example having a housewife in considered respectable in the middle class but with the lower and upper classes working women are the praised norm. I find myself rereading this book with new sentences to highlight every year since I've bought it.

• The rewards...in this life are esteem and admiration of others - the punishment are neglect and contempt.
• Because he is essentially a salesman, the middle class man develops a salesman style. Hence his optimism and his belief in the likelihood of self improvement if you'll just hurl yourself into it.
• The degree to which your work is overseen by a supervisor suggests your real class more accurately than the amount you take home from it.
• the upper class'es inattention to ideas is why Arnold call them Barbarian, and he imputes their serenity specifically to they're "never having had any ideas to trouble them."
• Another way to estimate a city's undesirability is to measure the degree to which religious fundamentalism is identifies with it. 
• Because 62% of Americans are overweight, a cheap way to achieve a sort of distinction is to be thin.

10 Questions

 
1. If you could only own 10 items, what would you choose?
1. smartphone
2. a Moleskin notebook
3. my Grandmother's pearl earrings
4. my childhood photo album
5. my laptop
6. my first copy of the first Harry Potter book given to me by my third grade teacher
7. my Mother's ring
8. my childhood stuffed lion - Simba
9. Lancome foundation
10. a large bottle of coconut oil

2. Would you rather be rich, famous or influential?

I would rather be influential. Being influential allows me to a better people person and work diplomacy quite well. Being influential allows me to network fluidly and build from there. Plus influential people generally have their name ......

3. If you were only allowed to eat five foods and drinks from here on out, what would they be?
1. Fried plantains
2. Boiled flour dumplings
3. Water
4. Mangoes
5. Vanilla ice cream

4. If you won $1 million, what would you do with it?
I think about this question a lot. I think the best way to answer this is divide this into three parts. One is what my own self interests and selfish wants would be: start a small business, buy a few investment wardrobe pieces, buy a few stocks, and put money towards my travel plans. My second part would go to my family especially my Dad since he invests so much in me. Hopefully buy my Mother a house with a paid off mortgage. The third par would go towards a charity or organization I'm keen on. I seriously want to further write about this because while a $1 million dollars is a lot more than I have, how far could I spread it!

5. Could you live life without technology?

No I most certainly could not. In fact one the first ten items I listed above is my smartphone and laptop! Technology is here to stay.

6. Where is the ultimate place you’d like to travel to? Since high school I've had my list made. In choosing just one country is hard, so I will pick one country per continent. 
Africa: Nigeria,
Asia: China,
Europe: Sweden, 
South America: Argentina, 
Caribbean: Jamaica. 
I care nothing for Antartica or Australia.



7. Choose five people from today or in history that you would invite over to have an intimate conversation with.

1. Tina Dickow
2. Harriet Tubman
3. Thomas Sankara
4. Magatte Wade
5. Machiavelli

8. If you could be any animal, what would you be and why?

I want to say a cute bunny rabbit but they are so far down on the food chain. Perhaps a gazelle as they are lovely creatures but like rabbits so vulnerable as prey. So I would just say a hefty smart elephant.

9. What would you do if you had the power to turn invisible?

My goodness the possibilities are endless.

10. If your house caught fire, what would you attempt to grab?

Outside of my phone and my private papers, my jewelry while everything else is replaceable.

To my readers: The questions you answer can be fun, somewhat serious or thought-provoking. Try to think up your own answers down below.

What's on My Bookshelf?

My thoughts lately have been centered on food; growing and cultivating it, consuming it, the history of it, and the politics surrounding it. My thoughts have also been a bit all over the place with relationships, from friendships to romantic ones, all types really.

 
  The modern era way of cooking and eating has ignited a desire in me to cultivate some of my own food and go back to the basics. It also helps that my grandmother has her own full fledged garden, that I used to tend to when I was a little girl. Why my little green thumb faded, I don't no how or why, but its welcoming back color now :)  So the herbs book I picked up at the local bookstore while browsing the gardening section really caught my attention, The book is perfect in the way the information is sectioned and designed. Speaks on gardening a particular herb, harvesting and storing, the medicinal use, and the art of cooking that particular herb. Herbs , I am looking forward to cultivating are basil, dandelion, chamomile, and in particular lavender. Imagine a bedroom smelling of lavender :)  Tastes of Paradise was a required reading book from my 10th grade AP world history class. Well the thing is...we never got around to reading the darn book that semester. Well this summer I set about reading the book and surely did so. Short read of only 200+ pages about how various stimulants, spices, and intoxicants became a social class cue, affected politics, feminism, and history. Like when chocolate was introduced to the European palette it became the drink of royals as a status symbol and only royal men of the court specifically. Then chocolate changed classes and became sweets and gifts for women and children, while simultaneously loosing its status symbol.

Rumi is a name I stumble across quite often on Tumblr posts but never really paid much attention. Now I notice his quotes everywhere. Its by random chance I stumbled across this book, because the front cover captivated me. Intriguing design, don't you think so? A translated book of poetry by a Persian poet and scholar, that comments on spiritual connections and mystical themes. One line that has really touched me: "Love is the soul's light, the taste of morning, no me, no we, no claim of being. These words are the smoke the fire gives off as it absolves its defects, as eyes in silence, tears, face. Love cannot be said." - Rumi, the Glance. Years ago I when I was a Netflix junkie, I binge watched random documentaries. Food Inc. was one in particular that was a strikingly good, honest, and eye opening film. That same year, I found the film's standout book for one dollar at my university Campus book sale :)  Its the rapid industrialization of food farming and production and its even more rapidly negative outcomes that genuinely alarmed me. Food Inc. is a book about the various sides to see modern American food production, the history and future of it and what everyday citizens are capable of when informed.

These last two books are bit controversial. But what's a blog without a bit of controversy, eh? No marriage is not just for white people but that's not entirely what this book is about. Its about the ever declining marriage rate for all Americans but especially for Blacks Americans. It's also about Back women's dating and marriage options reality based and those perceived. If one's pool of dating options is quite crowded or too shallow, then its best to come over to a bigger and better pool to fish and swim around in :)

Lolita is one of those books I was quite surprised to hear being raved about by various people. I have heard about this book for a long time and did not even consider buying it until I came across it for one dollar at my campus book sale. The book as the name suggests is very controversial and was banned at one point I believe. As of now Lolita is an iconic book and heralded as a literary work of writing.

EXTRA:

I am a magazine lover...but not just any kind. I treasure quality print publications with engaging articles, relevant subjects, excellent writers, humor, and awesome design. I believe I have found it all in this new magazine, WOMANKIND. The front cover of Frida Khalo grabbed my attention and the actually amazing content kept my attention. Womankind is a philosophy magazine with a geared focus on women. One article is o the history of bee keeping, why bees are disappearing, and why we should do our part and cultivate flowers to keep bees pollinating. Another article tells of a close knit community of women in a small town in central Mexico fighting against the uninvited logging community and winning. Womankind magazine is officially a new magazine staple.


Did any of these books grab your attention? Feel free to comment and say so :) By the way, what's on your bookshelf at the moment?

Daily Habit of Journaling

"An unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates

Recording your life on paper eternalizes your essence. You are saying to the world and to yourself that you matter. Though your body now decayed, your thoughts live on forever. With that being said journaling also directly forces you to examine your life. By journaling you are having an inner dialogue with yourself that you can reflect on every time you open your journal. 

I will be journaling early in the morning before the sun rises. This will help me to clear my conscious and evaluate my life more effectively. I can not possibly think of a better way to start the day than to have a warm cup of tea, soothing music or just silence, and a pen to eternalize my thoughts to paper. Since I have a few books to spare I will use 3 noteboks. One book for a free hand thoughts, one book for weekly reflections and improvements, and another journal for quotes/affirmations/gratitude thoughts that resonate with me.

Positive effects of journaling:

• becoming more self aware
• helping to understand your own point of view 
• help recover from emotional turmoil
• record daily happenings
• your creativity 
• writing becomes more effortless 
• improve mental clarity and self-esteem

Different Types of Journals:

• personal growth (self-love )
• dream records
• gratitude book
• free hand 
• travel journal