Defining My Purpose In My Life

"Existence Vs. Living Concept: "I'm not Existing for no one else but myself, I'm Living for what I can offer to the next generation!" - Felicia Hart

***Heyy, I’m Back***

I am very late with keeping you all up to date with my weekly blog posts. If I haven’t stated before my plan is to upload a new blog post each week by Sunday evening. That’s the commitment that I’m making to all of my subscribers.

But anyways…

Wow! What can I say, it has been a LONG TIME since I wrote my last blog post! I have done so much within the last month! From trying to keep up with final exams and completing my field placement/internship to writing these final papers, studying for final examinations, finishing up these last minute assignments, registering for classes next semester, traveling back and forth for the thanksgiving holiday, maintaining my mental health etc. IT IS A LOT!! Thank god I can finally say that I can take a break from all of it since I can start relaxing while I’m on winter break.

Surprisingly, I can actually say that I have learned so much about myself within the last couple of weeks. Even though I’m always consistently putting myself first, I realized that I gain fulfillment from being a GIVER, I believe that is my true calling to the world. I have offered so much wisdom and resources to others, so that I can be able to advocate for them in the best way possible, especially for the youth. On Friday, November 19 was my last day at my internship for the semester which was bittersweet. Throughout the semester I was completing my internship at a private foster care agency called Bethany Christian Services. The agency primarily serves refugee Hispanic immigrant minors who are placed into different foster care homes until their biological family members who are here in the U.S. can care for them. Now let me tell you all, I really enjoyed working with the Hispanic children and the staff members. Even though there were some language barriers along the way with some other difficulties that I was faced with, It was such a great experience and definitely taught me the importance of diversity and cultural differences. I’m not going to dive into too much detail of my overall experience at the agency, I’ll get into the details of it in another blog post at a later time. But just to give a brief overall of my experience it was absolutely wonderful! Therefore, on my last day, I decided to bring in some cupcakes and a thank you card for the children and the staff members which they all really appreciated. They even surprised me before I left with a Thank you card which made me believe that I had a rewarding impact on them.

On November 22, I was given the opportunity to go back to my old high school New Town High School that’s located in Owings Mills, Maryland to give a motivational speech to the 12 grade students who are in their college prep program called AVID. I was able to offer useful advice, tools, and resources to the students. I been wanting to find different ways to connect with the youth particularly with adolescents to offer them guidance and wisdom to help get their college careers started, so I figured why not start at the high school that I graduated from. How did it go? Whew… It was AMAZING!! Just to see the old hallways and walk pass the lockers, classrooms, offices, etc. just literally had me speechless! They even changed some of the classrooms around, it was such a astonishing feeling in the moment! It ultimately brought back so many nostalgia moments. You know It’s crazy how quickly 5 years will pass! So many changes of how the adolescent me used to be. I would of never in a million years thought I would want to work with teenagers since I despised being a teenager at that time. I can admit that I was very gullible, confused, and misled in so many ways during my high school years and I didn’t even realize it at the time! Stay tuned in the next upcoming post where I’ll be discussing my adolescent experience and how it led me to becoming the strong woman that I am today. It was like a being caught up in the matrix! While I was speaking to the students, I was kind of nervous at first since I am not used to speaking in front of people, especially kids! But towards the end once the students were able to ask me personal questions and comments, I opened up a lot more. It turned out pretty well and made me realize that I wouldn’t mind going to other high schools in the DMV area to be involved in motivational speaking engagements with the students.

Last Thursday, me and my boyfriend just happened to be laying in bed, just chatting about all the stress I’m was under from writing those final papers and studying for those final exams… The typical college B.S. but ten times more intense since I’m in Graduate school. Then from literally out of no where y’all.. before I knew it I heard this voice come into my head that said “Felicia, How can you make an impact on someone’s life right now?” then I remembered how I always wanted to cook homemade food to bring to the soup kitchen to serve the homeless for Thanksgiving or Christmas. But, I didn’t want to wait until Christmas! I wanted to do an act of service for a group of people right then and there to help me ease off the stress of all this exhausting school work.. Then I instantly blurted out “Babe, lets go to target and buy some baby items to offer to parents who may want them as a nice gesture since Christmas is coming up!” At first my boyfriend was like “huh?” then I told him the plan again and he was down to do it! So, we literally drove to the target around the corner and bought pack of diapers, baby bottles, passer fires, baby formula/food, baby wipes, gift bags, candy canes, etc. The whole weekend we wrapped up the gifts and posted about it on our social media platforms to see if anyone wanted any of the items for their children. We got a lot of responses from people wanting some of the items. We had a whole bunch of other people thanking and blessing us for our nice gesture! However, some people initially thought we were making a pregnancy announcement but that was far from the case! On Friday, we delivered some items to people, Saturday we handed out some of the items to people at our local mall, and on Sunday we made more deliveries and planned to drop off some of the last of the items on Tuesday. What an awesome feeling and impact it was!

What an awesome three weeks it has been for me and the others I have been able to help. With the help of my life coach and some of my other supporters I’ve realized that I am a true hero! I have so much to offer to the world with all of my hidden treasures. Over the summer I was asked by a wise man, “If you could be anything in the world what would it be?” initially I did not know how to answer since I never been approached with an unusual question like that. My boyfriend was with me at the time since we were on vacation and he answered the question by saying “uhh.. I would be an NFL player with a lot of money.” In my mind I was thinking of wanting to be something that had money and influence attached to it as well. Since the world that we live in, most people tend to believe that success and every range of fulfillment is attached to “the amount of wealth and notoriety you have will determine your overall status!” But after my boyfriend responded the wise man went on to say, “But what if money wasn’t a factor?” which made me think (I already knew he wasn’t asking the question from a wealth perspective) so I really DID NOT KNOW. Usually when people confront me with those deep indulging type of questions, I know how to respond but this time I was stuck. So while I sat there and thought about it, my boyfriend and the man continued to talk about the question.. I then blurted out “I would be a superhero!” They both turned and looked at me with a fascinating face expression. The wise man response was, “What kind of superhero would you want to be?” I stated, “I would want to save the world by helping those in need and guide them to a better way of living that will leave an impact on their wellbeing and the rest of society.” A big smile ran across my face. This feeling of enlightenment came over me within that very moment.

I believe that the world has a system set in place that has a lot of people believing that “Good people don’t exist in this world without a cost”. You ever heard of the saying “Nothing in this world is free?" I’ve heard it too many times! And I fell victim to believe in it all the time. Now don’t get me wrong, there are some people who are wolves in sheep clothing. Some people will smile in your face and be your biggest enemy behind closed doors. Hate and Jealously is the devil’s best friend! That I have been faced with on multiple occasions, but that’s for another blog post at a later date. However, there are people in this world who love to love and lend a genuine helping hand that will give the shirt off their back to anyone in need. Believe it or not most of those type of people who are just like me have their own demons that they are fighting everyday just like the next person. When me and my boyfriend went to the mall on Saturday some of the people that we approached to see if they wanted any of the items that we offered them declined in a disrespectful way. Some people even ignored us and looked at us like we insulted them with our nice gesture. But I did not let that stop us, the parents that we were able to give items to made up for the distasteful ones. It bothered me at first when some people declined and almost made me question if we were insulting them by asking them if they wanted any of the items we were offering for their children. But, I just had to remind myself of the affirmations that I created for myself which were “I am a positive role model who loves to advocate for the people that I am serving.” The ones who may be to prideful or who can’t get out of that way of only seeing things as “Nothing in this world is free” are not the ones who I am supposed to give acts of service to.

One of the people who inspires me to engage in advocacy and acts of service is a lady named Shirley Raines. She’s known on Instagram by @beauty2thestreetz. She is always providing food to the homeless population of people in Skidrow, California on a weekly basis. Even though she has openly talked about the tragic death of her son and some of the other traumatic events she has been through in her life those events had inspired her to become a positive role model and advocate for her community. Another person who inspires me as well is Coach Ken Carter who is best known in the classic film Coach Carter who was played by the great Samuel L. Jackson. Y’all believe it or not that movie was based on a true story and the real coach carter is truly an inspiring leader. Me and my boyfriend are currently reading his audiobook that’s available on amazon titled, “Yes Ma’am, No Sir: The 12 Essential Steps for Success in Life”. Let me tell y’all this book is truly amazing!! He has developed so many life concepts in setting and achieving your goals and overcoming any obstacles that you have been faced with in your life. Please check it out, I’ll list the link for the book at the bottom. There are other people who inspire me as well like the school psychologist and black advocate Dr. Umar Johnson who I had a chance to meet about 2 weeks ago. Along with some other conscious podcasters like a lady named lovelyti and troycetv are just to name a few who are some of the people that I absolutely love listening too, since they offer a wide range of wisdom and authenticity that a lot of people may not want to hear. The world is used to the looking at things in “black and white” but I believe that I was placed on this earth to alter that way of viewing things. I’m always telling people, “I don’t want to die trying to experience heaven, when I can create my own heaven here on earth.”

Coach Carter's, Yes Ma'am, No Sir: The 12 Essential Steps for Success in Life Audiobook: https://www.amazon.com/Yes-Maam-No-Sir-Essential/dp/B007BTZZZI