I am the art.....not the artist

I have been told in the past that i have an inflated sense of self worth ( i still don't see how that is a bad thing) but little do they know that that which can sometimes be a facade is from years of masking self doubt. It reminds me of a meme i shared with a girlfriend who has an equally inflated sense of self and in it one girl tells  another ' excuse me , you're blocking my view, to which the one that was told replies' i am the view'.

Growing up i was often told i couldn't do one thing or another for different reasons. At age 11 i was told i could not own a bike because i was a girl(insert emoji of widened eyes). I was so distraught cos i thought that girls that ride were the coolest ever.( my perverted mind just drifted abit, but i am back). I shared this with my younger brother, my baby, and he told me not to worry, he would teach me using his.Today i proudly wear a scar on my upper right leg from my first lesson and i am the only one of my sisters that can ride. can you smell my pride from over there?

Fast forward to my first year of employment. It was in a bank. The thought of strutting in pencil tight skirts and sky high heels excited me more at the time than the actual position i was given to fill and best believe the skirts were tight, dresses customized to fit and heels sky high.
This one day, a lady walks up to my till and recognizes my name from my signature( very cool signature i must add. let me insert for dramatic effect)

PS i text and write exactly as i speak so you can visualize and audiolize( is that even a word) as you read.
where ws i? so yes, this lady reads my name off of my signature and asks if i share a name with my dad to which i respond in the affirmative. He happened to be one of the heads of the institution for which she worked. She looked at me goggle eyed and asked me why i bother to work because i clearly do not need to ( her insinuation was that i was a trust fund baby that had absolutely no reason to be toiling away). I smiled and wished her the best for the rest of her day. This just like the bicycle incident it ignited a hunger in me so strong that i decided to defy all odds. I was going to be the best i could at everything i did and climb that career ladder in the shortest time possible and i did just that....sadly i got derailed years later but i am proven my point to myself at least. I will not allow myself to be confined to the limits set by others for me.

Fast forward again, at 23 i started my first business. Anyone that knows me knows that i love to shop and i will find any excuse to justify the habit. Either retail therapy or 'just because it's tuesday'. It used to be so bad that i would have one item in 4 different colors. I am older...and broker now so i cant afford to...or can i?( naughty side eye). In the bank we always had ladies coming through to deliver online orders( yes it started way back kids). This was a bank with an 80:20 female to male ratio so we were quite a number and those were daily transactions. It got me thinking. I love to shop, i know what looks good on different types and i can get paid for this.....Eureka! and so, Bhuti was born. A retail clothing business. It was mobile hence Bhuti because it was in the boot of my car. I convinced my clients who comprised of the female bank staff and later customers that i was selling not just clothes but an experience. I laugh at how far back my marketing skills were horned. It worked with an insane ROI. I had turned my passion into profit. To think that years later i am being taught this in class that i executed in my earlier life.

This one day, i get to talking to an uncle of mine. I was intrigued by the bouncing castle business. it was new to the Ugandan Market and there was such a fad around it. Every party had to have a bouncing castle and not only did he not think the business was profitable, he didn't think that i was cut out for it. It was alot of work , needed one to be fully invested and on the ground. Light bulb moment. Challenge had been accepted. At 25 i used all my savings and borrowed some and ordered for not 1 but 3 bouncing castles from the UK. That was a true definition of faith. i tracked them online till they arrived and were delivered to my dads house where i lived at the time. Baby Amor was born. I worked in the bank Monday to Saturday afternoon as a branch operations manager and custodian of the vault keys which meant i was always the last one to live then delivered , setup and manned the bouncing castles on the weekends. We got to a point of being booked weekends on end. I was constantly exhausted but i loved it, the money was good and i was defying the odds. They said she couldn't so she did.

I was young and fired up. For those that see some passion and hunger left in me, that was the genesis. I say some because it's not what it used to be but this mind is at work. You will hear about me.

Adios mis amores

Enigma.... or conflict of Paradigms

The point i am at in my life i never leave anything to chance and neither do i believe in coincidences. Today in particular i have been drawn to specific videos and podcasts all with the same thing in common. Discovering/ in my case rediscovering my identity. The one that stood out the most for me was of ( i forget his name) who decided against going to college and later chasing a job on wall street to joining a monastery where he lived a live of selflessness, service and detachment from the world as we know it. He came to this decision when he interacted with a monk that spoke with such grace and exuded a certain peace that the young man could not understand. The monks lifestyle peaked his curiosity. He visited a monastery and found 500 other men that had the same believe and outlook on life as the monk he had met. He was sold and joined.

He said at the point of joining he was constantly seeking his parents approval, had been trouble at school, was indulging in drugs and everything else a delinquent would be. He then felt a hunger to discover his purpose. From his experience at the monastery he discovered that we find purpose by serving others above yourself. We are held captive to the expectations of others or what we think are their expectations of us. A quote from Charles Cooley stood out for him.

This resonated with me. For years on end i have believed myself to be lost in translation, some have called m an enigma because twy expect me to be one way from their drawn up conclusions and have found me to be another( this often swings whichever way) and i have often found myself compromising to make others more comfortable, more secure or more confident by me dumbing down, holding my tongue and subduing my strong personality. This has always left me feeling lost, searching for more and even compromising my core values and beliefs.

It got me thinking, is it that i am an enigma or am i merely caught between the 4 personal paradigms: Integrity, achievement, Duty and fear. This provided me with more clarity than i have had in years. It reminded me of the quote.... She remembered who she was and the game changed.

Dear Lord, teach me to be unapologetically me and help me fulfill the purpose for which i am on this earth.