Stop, Don't Do That!

I want you to think back for a moment and get a little nostalgic.  Maybe you can remember some of these things happening to you, or maybe to a child of your own.

Picture a 4 year old girl walking up to a stove as her mother is cooking dinner.   She smiles and reaches to the oven door to touch the whole chicken that's starting to turn golden brown.  Her natural curiosity urges her to touch the chicken because she can see it through the oven window.  Just as she is about to touch the stove, what do you think the mother will say or do?  Assuming that she is a caring mother, she will likely say STOP, DON'T DO THAT!  The mother will probably grab her daughter's hand and pull it away from the stove and explain that it's hot and why she can't touch it.  After that moment, the daughter may or may not understand what just happened, hasn't experienced pain, but she knows that for some reason heat and stove will likely be closely linked.  Rather she's a child that needs to get burned to understand, or one that learns from being told in the fashion previously mentioned isn't the point.  She now has been conditioned to stay away from the stove.  

Imagine an 8 year old boy now.  He's playing football around his house in a fairly safe neighborhood with a few of his friends on a sunny day.  One of his friends throws the ball a little too high and it goes over his head and rolls into a dry well landscaped ditch about four feet deep with nothing more than a handful of empty plastic bottles at the bottom.  He runs over as fast as he can to get the football and just as he gets to the edge of the ditch his father screams from his back door, "STOP, DON'T DO THAT boy, if you go in that ditch it'll be me and you!"  Surprised, he looks back to his father and stops, looking at the football that's laying right next to the empty plastic bottle he tossed in there a few days ago.  Again, what will the 8 year old boy think every time he goes near that ditch?  Don't go in there, even if it's not very deep and well maintained, just don't do it.  

I could give several other examples, but I will get to the point.  As a youth, teenager, and even as young adults still living at home, we hear what? Don't do this, don't do that, you can't do this, I wouldn't do that.  "Son, you're 16 now, stop this non sense and get your head out of the clouds." "Don't touch that!" or "Stay away from there!"  Think about it.... from infants all the way up to adulthood we are conditioned to negative connotations.  We learn to think about what can't be done, boundaries, and become negative without even knowing it.  We aren't even aware of it.  

Yes, as infants and toddlers we don't know that the stove will burn us, or that the outlet may electrocute us and our guardians are protecting us from our ignorance of these dangers.  I'm not saying that parents should let their children in harm's way, I'm simply pointing something out.  After a while, when a child is introduced to anything out of their knowledge base and realm of understanding what do you believe is the first thing they think?  

Visualize a kid looking down from the top of a slide in her back yard.  She's laughing because she's seen her older brother slide down it just moments ago and it looked so fun, but since she has never slid down a slide before what does she do?  She looks to her Dad and waits for his approval to make that slide.  She's smart enough to know that this is something that she's never experienced before but in most cases when her impulse is to indulge in something new a person says... STOP, DON'T DO THAT. So she looks to her father who's smiling from the bottom of the slide and can't wait to see his baby girl slide down the slide for the first time and he has to say "You can do it sweetie! Come on baby."  Then she slides.  Fear of heights didn't cause the hesitation because what are "heights" to her at this point in her life?  All she knows is when her natural curiosity and impulse pushes her to try something, a person stops the action.

When we go to junior high and high school and a teacher says "You can be anything you want to be."  A strong majority of the students sitting in that classroom will think first... can I?  "I've never done that before and have never experienced that, is it possible?"  The majority of those students have no idea why they think "Can I" first.  They have no control over that and are truly oblivious to the thought process they are experiencing.  I'm not saying that parents and or guardians are the cause of a child's lack of motivation or personal belief and confidence.  I simply would like to point something out. Can you see it?

When you are about to experience something new, reach for a goal or achieve a task, do your best to not think can't.  Remember that you may have been conditioned from childhood to think can't before even trying.  Wake up and take control of your optimism, remember that there was once a time when we all acted without fear of being told STOP, DON'T DO THAT.   

What will you do now?

Conditioned -Part 1-

I grew up around women all my life, so I have to have a post that's strictly for them, it's only right.  Every week or so I'll add a new addition to the "Conditioned" series.  I want you to read it and add your opinions and thoughts to it.  

I know this woman that was sitting down on her new Italian leather couch watching her plasma screen waiting for her boyfriend to come home.  He was supposed to be there around eight o’clock with some take out.  She gives him a call, “Babe, where are you, you were supposed to be off work by now.”  He response with a sigh, “Baby, you know you hear those hammers and shit in the background right,” as the foreman screams in the background, “I actually shouldn’t even be on the phone, but I wanted you to know where I was at, I gotta go sweetheart.”  She leans back on her new couch that she worked hard for and expected to be wrapped up with her man already on top of, “I know babe, you working hard for us, I just wish you didn’t work so much, I’ll see you soon.”  WORKING TOO MUCH

It’s Friday night, around nine thirty.  She’s been anticipating this day all week, because her Fiancé went out with the fellas the past two weekends.  She has never had any problems with that, as a matter of fact she invites it because too much time together can be a problem.  She just knows that this will be HER weekend.  She didn’t make plans with him, but she just heard it in his voice all week that something was going down.  Her cell phone buzzes on top of her Coach make up bag and she turns down her radio with her Sony remote and picks up the phone.  She smiles big and beautiful because it’s a familiar name that she has been anticipating to see and puts the phone on speaker and heads toward her walk in closet, “You sexy man you, just who I wanted to hear from.”  Laughing he turns his radio down in his car, “What are you doing girl, you crazy.”  She replies, “Waiting for you.”  He knows that he has been out the past two weekends with his boys and laughs again trying to lighten the blow, “Girl, you know that tonight was the night that Johnson was doing his music thing and you know me and the fellas gotta show him some support, he trying to make it big.”  She stops sorting through her hangers and heels, picks up the phone and takes it off speaker, “What?  You’ve been doing your thing for the past two weekends,” he cuts her off. “I know where you’re going with this, I told you about that three weeks ago, besides you always say separation makes the heart grow fonder and all that shit.”  She shakes her head, “You right babe, I don’t want to argue, have fun.”

PARTYING TOO MUCH

With her head under the dryer she looks at the television in her favorite beauty salon.  The girl that just did her nails and feet came from the other side of the salon and laughs at her, “Girl, you come in here every two weeks ritually, you one of my favorites.”  She gives a sly smile, “Yea, you hoes can’t get rid of me!”  All the ladies start laughing and another says, “Yea, you right, we can’t, so who do you get all sexy for?”  All the ladies respond at the same time, “Have you seen her man?” “Who you think paying for all that?” “Have you seen his car?” “Girl, you must not know!”, like they were harmonizing or something.  She moves from under the dryer and laughs, “Yep, and he only has room for one, so back up bitches.” Time passes, the ladies laugh some more and soon she walks out the door.  She gets home smelling good, looking better, and feeling like a million dollars, her husband greets her with a closed mouth smile.  After giving her husband his props and looking her best for him she slightly tilts her head to the side, “Well hello to you…”

NOT MAKING YOU FEEL WANTED 

Millions of women can relate to some of these scenarios, if not all of them.  And what’s sad is that they are conditioned to just except it and deal with it because it’s the norm.  They’ve never seen better, so they just settle.  This does not include all women, but a good majority.  It is what it is.  Much respect and admiration for those women, because they believe in a love so much that they will endure anything to have it.   A good example would be a lion that would rather live in the wild and fight to the death for a meal, in comparison to one that is in a captive place and is given the food.  True it is that he appreciates the meal when he gets it, and the battle makes him stronger, but after a while, he will look for a more sufficient and safe way to hunt.  If a wild lion was to have it easy, he wouldn’t know how to act or what to do, because he is conditioned to be wild and ferocious.  Just as most women now are conditioned to be treated a certain way because that’s all they know, and if they had a person that made things easy for them, they wouldn’t know how to act.  Frankly put, several women don’t want a person to make it easy for them, but when they get it hard, they complain. 

There is definitely no perfect man or woman, but if the average woman were to run into a guy that did the opposite of HALF of the scenarios I just mentioned, they wouldn’t know how to react.  They’d wonder, what’s the catch, is he too nice for me, is he too good to me, etc.  This is because they are conditioned to be battle scarred, wounded, and healing at all times.  Sometimes to the point that they justify the pain and strife.  They dream up in their head the perfect guy that does the perfect things that they like, but gets one that does three fourths of it and shies away.  Why do so many women want so high, but settle for so low? 

Isn’t it a shame that they are so conditioned to hard times that if they see a regular act of kindness, they take it as an advance or someone is trying to “holla at ‘em”?  Basic things such as asking how their day is, opening a door for them, treating them with respect, doing to them what is promised, calling on a regular basis but not too much, being proactive with things to do are considered “rare” now.  These are basic and common courtesy type things that should be the norm, not “he wants something”, “why is he so nice”, “when is he gonna change” and other countless examples.  These regular things are considered so rare that a person that does it on regular basis is considered “so special” and “so different from the norm”.  Why?  That should be like breathing.  It’s amazing to me how so many women are conditioned for hard times.  I understand the past making a person stronger, but to what end?  What are you getting stronger to do or accomplish?  To appreciate a good thing or to be stronger for when it happens again?

All the women that say, “I’m better than this”, “I deserve better”, “I’m a queen”, “I can do bad by myself”, “I can do so much better”.  Well do it, it’s as if you are thinking “You’re worth it, but you don’t except the worthy”. 

Like I tell my younger sister, know your worth and claim it.  And we wonder why chivalry is dying… if not dead?

SOUND OFF LADIES!!!