Perseverance Prepared Me For My Purpose

My journey back to creating

I was seventeen and around everyone I shouldn’t be around. The perception was that I had it all figured out because of my confidence. Whenever I was in doubt, I went back to what I knew. Although I was ageing, I stopped advancing intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally. I put all of that growth aside and I filled it with validation from things and people that didn’t matter.

I took the easy way out and got a job because it was admirable. I didn’t even try and go for the best job or the highest paying job. I went with what was guaranteed because I was afraid of failure. I should have gone back to school and challenged myself to reach my full potential, but instead, I added limitations by focusing more on what was guaranteed instead of the possibilities.

At the time, the fastest legal way I knew how to make money was through sales. My days were long and full of rebuttals. I loved what large sums of money could do for my small family and me. Even though we didn’t have a lot, you couldn’t tell by the clothes we wore. With the clothes I could afford and retail work, I learned how to look wealthy without being wealthy. I developed a passion for fashion. I took pride in styling the women I dated and the compliments they got. Then I met my future wife, who saw my potential and pushed me to go to school. Even with our second child on the way, she was committed to supporting me while I went back to school by holding down all the bills.

During my last year of college, I decided to apply everything that I learned in college and my retail experience to turn it into a blog. I didn’t want to forget what I was learning. I was doing photoshoots and working with influencers to increase traffic on my site. Local publications were writing about me. The validation I was getting from outside sources felt good, but it wasn’t making any money. I decided to hire different bloggers. I compensated them with clothes and gave them a platform to showcase their talents and opinions. Then an opportunity to work on a tv show as a wardrobe stylist came, and I took it. I couldn’t balance managing my team, working full-time and doing the tv show.

I thanked the team for their support but explained that I couldn’t keep up with my workload and disbanded the group. The blog eventually was left to just social media. The posts got fewer, and the fights with the girlfriend increased. Feeling burnout, I decided to give up blogging and content creation for wardrobe tv styling and an office job.

I thought I was making the right decision, but then the office job restructured, and I was out of work again. I noticed a pattern with the jobs I took. They didn’t fulfill me. Before I ran out of severance, an opportunity to work at a glass plant came up. On paper, this job was great, and it had all the bells and whistles. It provided union protection, competitive wages, pension and benefits, but I was just going to be making someone else richer at the end of the day. I was trading my time, my dignity and my fear of failure for the comfort of what this job had to offer.

In my first month, I lost a close friend, who died in a motorcycle accident. His death hit hard. I was still on probation. I couldn’t take time off to grieve. I went to the funeral during the day and worked the same night. It was one of the most challenging days I had that year. Then my grandfather died. Overwhelmed by my emotions and responsibilities, I decided to give up writing and creating altogether. I didn’t realize I was losing an outlet to express myself, and that grief I couldn’t process would eventually turn into despair. I felt all I could do was work; there was no room for anything else. I was still a father of three, a boyfriend and co-parenting with an ex where boundaries still needed to be established. I felt like I only existed to provide for my kids and appease their mothers.

I didn’t have anything that was making me happy. I was trying to find joy in my responsibilities, but they were causing me stress. Then the noise of what other people thought started to bother me. It started getting louder. I’ve never thought of myself as a victim, but I felt the need to tell my side of the story. I began writing reenactments of my experiences but with lessons at the end of them, and they later turned into scripts. My whole purpose of writing them down was to help process what I was feeling. When I realized how much of it was my fault and could have avoided it, I developed a purpose for breaking this repeated cycle that I saw in my community.

My friends and family would always reach out to me for counsel when fighting with their partners. In between counselling them at work or over the phone, I started publishing the advice that I would give to them, and I would use social media to maximize the awareness. I felt Black men had a bad reputation. I thought to myself, “If I could share how much influence women have and how they contribute to the cycle, maybe I could make a change.” It’s always hurt people hurting people.

The articles were a success, but I didn’t want to limit my experiences to a few hundred words on a page. I wanted to create a body of work that could be a manual for men who lack relationship intelligence and have low self-esteem. I decided that I wanted to write a book, but I didn’t know the first thing about writing a book so, I hit up my old friend, turn mentor, Pauleanna Reid, for guidance. Then everything started falling into place. I started getting the support that I needed to reach my purpose. Now with my resignation from the plant, I now have the time to focus entirely on being a writer, content producer and mental health advocate and no longer will I allow the fear of failure to get in the way of my potential. I look at all obstacles as a learning experience and preparation for my next big blessing.