lessons from my father

he always told me

"the first law of nature is self preservation"

meaning you can't possibly remotely utterly EVER think about taking care of anyone else until you FIRST take care of yourself...

that means:

mentally
spiritually
emotionally
physically
financially

loving and taking care of you ALL of YOU before you can even think about doing so for someone else

and until you get you right you can't be right for nobody else...don't get me wrong again we always are growing and learning but you can't build with anyone else if your foundation is sand, you gotta build your foundation on a solid platform FIRST before you can even THINK about building something with someone else or taking care of someone else

he also taught me that no matter what you do, how much you care, how much you give, people are going to ALWAYS have something to say about you, they will disagree with you because YOU said it before they did...they will argue with you just because they can and get under your skin because they have nothing better to do but here is the key:
its not about you...its that person and whatever is going on inside of them...

i remember once when i was little and a kid in school made fun of me because i was light (yes light skinned folks got teased too) and my dad said to me

"you go back and tell them you didn't ask to come here this color that if you could have you would have come here green the color of money the only color that really matters"

he taught me to believe none of what i hear and half of what i see because people fake the funk...

he taught me that the ONLY person in this life i can control is ME and that the only person that would determine if i make it or NOT is ME...

all these lessons from my father really are starting to hit home with me...they have always been there in the back of head but now more than ever i hear you Daddy...