Written By: Fanele Chester @ Fashion Et Al—I don't know if it's God working his magic, or the universe arranging itself, but life almost always comes full circle. This leads me to believe, or to be a little bit more convinced, that most of the things that happen to us, by choice/ consequence/ coincidence, have a reason and a meaning.I'd like to believe that everything I have been through up to this point will have some meaningful resonance in the future. As chance had it, I was born not into the fortunate lot. Not monetary wealth, mind you, but a wealth of family. I do not know if the person I eventually became was as a result of those circumstances, or its something innate, but for the past decade I have been trying to change and be a good person.
For the longest time I really did not like, let alone love, the person I was. As a result, I greedily sucked in whatever the world threw at me as "good" in a person. It's truly incredible how influential the people I saw on tv, read about, and met in class/ town/ a party were on me. I was thinking about this last week, and it hit me how unoriginal I really was. I remember in high school the way I walked changed often because of the inconsistency of my personality. I wanted to be accepted by / seen in so many different ways that in the end it was all a mess. All the time I was trying to emulate the people around me that I thought were good or better than me, and the person I truly was got buried so deep underneath it all. Stripping all those layers is taking as much time as acquiring them—which means I have a good 9 years before I can be this person that I am.
There is truth in God's mercies being renewed each day, in much the same way that Alicia Keys in Troubles says "If you're troubled, you just gotta let it go." The message is change: the beautiful thing about man is that we have the ability to transform irrespective of what we were before. Each dawn is a testament of the impermanence of our selves. So, if there is something you do not like (about yourself), change it! If you cannot, change your attitude (Maya Angelou). You can fall in one day, and rise in the next. In the end, this change gives us a power over our lives, our fates. By simply knowing that change is inevitable, permanent even, allows us to engineer that change in a certain way.
Thank God I have gone through the teenage years—those we're some rough times. I would say I regret everything that happened and want to take it all back or to be given a second chance. However, by rising up from everything that happened, that is the true beauty of life. Better said than done, huh?!
You can be a victim, or a conqueror. You can choose to be pitiful and resentful—forgiveness is a virtue—and live in the past. Alternatively, you can chose to fight for something better for the sake of the future. A war is made of battles—some won, some lost. So each day is another battle whose triumph is a point in life where you can say I've fought my battles, now it's time to enjoy the victory: the good life.
So when the going gets tough, when you make another mistake, it's not the end. It's not final. Tomorrow is another day, so recognize where you went wrong, and make a note not to fall into the same trap again. Have the spirit of a fighter! Life eventually comes full circle, and everything you go through to constantly improve yourself and your circumstance will definitely have results in the end.
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To read more of Fanele's musings, please visit her truly lovely blog: fanelelove.blogspot.com. We're fans of her versatile fashion blog that covers fashion, fashion, and more fashion, and also shares insights into the life of Fanele (who by the way is from Swaziland).
If you want to be a guest blogger for MIMI's Blog, email us at mimimagazineonline[at]gmail.com.
(Photo Credits: iStockPhoto / Dodz-Larysa) (Model Used Solely For Illustrative Purposes)
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