“Do you boo!”

I like to watch a ton of natural hair YouTube videos. It is ridiculous really, it annoys my husband but I find them really entertaining. So last week I discovered Shameless Maya, and I just liked everything about her channel. Her channel is about her life not just her hair and even though we are totally different people I just really enjoyed watching her. Her slogan is “Do you boo!” and it just resonates with me and I decided to share my thoughts with my readers.

I have always been different from the time that I was born, largely because I was a sickly child firstly I had really bad asthma that went away for some years and then when I was around ten morphed into some kind of epilepsy. I was really blessed that I was never bullied because of it, actually all the school mates that I have ever had were really nice about it. I could see that most of them had questions but never really said anything about it; I think I probably scared some of them. My family got used to it but it was the other adults that I met that were not so nice. It still surprises some of these people that I am still alive or I can drive, hold a job, be married or travel all the way from Zimbabwe to Bermuda by myself. Or when a relative told me the the programming languages I was doing at college were useless in real life because no one used them anymore. I can somewhat understand their point of view but I think they could have been more supportive.

Here are some of the things that I have learnt about being yourself and doing what makes you happy:

1. Know what your values are and stick with them. We live in a world where the lines are becoming blurry, do the right thing it does not matter what the world says. Just because someone else did it and was successful does not make it right.
2. Not everyone is going to support you and sometimes even the closest people to you. It is difficult for other people to see your vision or how you try to achieve it and when you share your ideas some people will laugh in your face or make your dream sound small. That hurts but it is important to give it a try.
3. Do the things that make you happy. Remember that money does not equal happiness.
4. It is OK to fail. You are going to fail at some things and make some huge mistakes even the most successful companies have failures, what is important is that you get up and fix what you can and keep on keeping on. It is like a child learning to crawl or walk, they will fall but what is important is that they get up try again.
5. There is no substitute for hard work. I live by my high school motto, “Hard Work Yields Good Results!”
6. Lastly but not least, do not compare yourself to someone else not even your spouse or siblings just DO YOU BOO!