Monday Musings: Turning the Corner

Taking a break from my writing schedule to well, write this blog post and keep up with my 2015 goal of contributing more to my own creative endeavors. This week has already begun with good news and I had an impromptu lunch with Mikey, so I'd say I'm off to a wonderful start. 

Do you ever feel like you are five steps ahead of people and just waiting for others to catch up? In some cases, I am guilty of instant gratification. If I need to know the answer to something, I want to know right now. But, usually that's not how the universe works. It's not just going to lay out your life before you, so you can cherry pick the good parts. 

I've felt for some time that I have been waiting and waiting (and waiting!) to see what's around the corner, and I feel now like I'm finally rounding the curve, which makes me think of this quote by Martin Luther King, Jr:

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." 

This is so, so true and can apply to almost any situation. Speaking of MLK, for those of you who haven't seen "Selma," I recommend doing so. Despite certain critics who want to focus on the inaccuracies of what is a fictionalized version of this significant time in history, it is still an important film to watch, if for nothing else then to get the conversation going. Inequality and issues surrounding civil rights are still very much a point of contention in 2015. They deserve to be discussed.

Recently, I was waiting for a screening of a different movie to start when I heard a man behind me say he did not want to see "Selma" because he was tired of white people telling the story of black history. He went on to say that no black person was associated with that film and he had no interest in seeing it. 

I wanted to whip around and ask if he caught the most recent Golden Globes when they discussed the fact that the movie's director, Ava DuVernay, was the first black female to be nominated in the category of Best Director. Never mind the support and affiliations with several other celebrities and musical artists who took part in the creation of the film. I also wanted to tell him to shush. But I kept the comments to myself. It was a discussion I chose to skip.

Close-minded attitudes are not my thing. 

Maybe too many times we avoid discussions because it's the fight we don't want to have or the point we don't feel we need to prove. Sometimes we just don't want to fight period, but instead appreciate the opportunity to learn from others, understand how we do and do not want to live our lives, and create the kind of life that makes us happy. 

We just have to instill the kind of confidence and passion within ourselves, so that when we find those things worth fighting for, we won't back down.