Candidly Speaking | Renee Jennings Our EIC kicked off your perusal of the new digital issue of Belle-Noir Magazine with a letter that talked about growing up. As I debated what to write for my newly acquired column, I started to think about my own personal growth and that of the people around me. Have you ever noticed that if you leave a town or city and move somewhere else, you can always come home to find certain people doing some of the same unproductive things they were doing five, ten, twenty and even thirty years ago? Perhaps, you have witnessed this in the neighborhood in which you currently live. Yes, some people never grow up. They hang on to the notion that if they “look” the part, that will cut it in life without backing the look with hard work as their foundation. Yet if we dig deeper, they’re credit scores are shameful and that guy or girl that he or she should have gotten rid of three years ago is still making late night appearances for temporary satisfaction. If we look around in our circle of friends and even associates, they too suffer from some of the same issues leaving them still trying to find a way to feel FULL. My grandmother used to say, “You are the company you keep.” If you want to tap into personal Belle-Noir Magazine | 52
growth, you may have to eliminate those who are actually stifling you subconsciously. Oh baby, I know she has been your friend for ten years but how many of those years did she spend laughing at you and not with you? We are conditioned to want to hold on to relationships because of the duration in which we have been in them. Yet, what good is the duration if the relationship does not allow both parties to grow? If you are not growing, you are dead! You contribute NOTHING to your current circumstance and that is not good for you or the other person. Gandhi once said so eloquently, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Truer words have never been spoken and sometimes we can’t BE that person if we are still associating with people who aren’t aspiring to be anything at all. Sometimes you have to love folks from a distance. It doesn’t mean you love them any less it simply means that in order for you to progress you can’t hold on to relationships going no where fast. Example: If you tell your friend you want to be a barber and he laughs at your dreams, how can you honestly be in this damaging friendship? It’s a difference between weighing pros and cons verses being critical and cruel. Life is not a picture perfect journey. It has blemishes, red eyes and uncomfortable moments that are a direct reflection of us. Yet, if we can take the time to see the bigger picture, rearrange the setting and focus, we create the perfect image inward, which is a bigger reflection outward! Renee D. Jennings is the founder of R. Media Group, a boutique PR firm in Brooklyn, NY. Check her out on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/reneejennings or email her at Reneejennings@rmediagroup.com.