Disclaimer: the following content may hurt your self-centered feelings. I acknowledge responsibility for any awareness or outpouring of gratitude that may arise from the latter.
Many people are blinded by the glorifying and egocentric idea to make it on their own and grant themselves the "self-made" title. However, I believe that there's a serious need to establish the truth regarding this concept: being self-made is a sweet lie.
How many of us are obsessed with the challenge to make it on our own? How many of us take a sense of pride, which in my opinion, is often misplaced, in doing things alone to the point that sometimes achieving a goal by ourselves becomes more important than achieving the goal itself?
Have you ever considered putting your ego aside for a minute and acknowledging even the smallest gesture of help that you receive every time you're trying to achieve something? Take it from me, if you start making the list and connecting the dots, you'll soon realize that for every door that was unlocked in your life, someone was there to hand you the key. Of course, these doors wouldn't have opened if you didn't put in the necessary amount of work and effort to achieve whatever goal you wanted to achieve, so don't worry, you can still be proud of yourself for having done that; but whether you like it or not, those same doors wouldn't have opened if someone didn't keep reading the stories you write, watching the videos you make, buying the products and services you sell, and ultimately propel you towards your goal. Had your a-ha moment yet?
Now that the tea has been spilled, let me share with you some lessons that I learned when I, too, was trying so hard to make it on my own.
It Doesn't Always Have To Be Hard
Most of us have, at least once in our lives, heard success stories that made struggling look sexy.
Well… It's not.
You can ask any successful person you know and I bet that they'll agree. Although they would probably confess to you that the struggle is what made their success, I'm 100% sure that the early mornings, the late nights, the empty fridges, the countless rejections, and all the adversity weren't a choice.
This might surprise you, but I find it important for you to realize that the paths to fulfill our deepest desires don't always have to be ambushed or lonely. Achieving a goal without it taking us through hardships doesn't make it less meaningful or deserving of a smaller reward. Rising from the ashes sure looks majestic; I get it. But why would you rather burn yourself when, in all sanity, it'd have been more clever to learn how to fly in the first place?
There's a saying that says "work smarter not harder". To me, working harder is placing all of your focus on your wings, trying to figure out how to make them work.
Working smarter is asking the right person to teach you how to fly so that you can focus on your destination.
Do you want to know what's really sexy? Sexy is acknowledging that you can do anything but not everything. Sexy is acknowledging that you need help in order to succeed and realize that you, too, are able to contribute to others' success.
Surround Yourself With The Right People
Walt Disney once said, "You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world, but it takes people to make the dream a reality." I couldn't agree more. But if I may, Mr. Disney, I'd say that it actually takes the right people.
When you start surrounding yourself with the right people, genuine connections are made. They will genuinely use their skills and knowledge to help you achieve success, and the only payback they will ever ask for is for you to help someone else in return.
When you make the decision to surround yourself with the right people, you eventually come to understand that being lit by someone else's light doesn't mean that yours will be dimmed; quite the contrary, it'll only shine brighter.
Most importantly, you realize that trying to make it on your own is a real waste of time. So, instead of using all your energy to be worthy of that "self-made" award, use it to find your mentors, the members of your team and build your community.
Be Grateful & Give Thanks, Always
This, my dear, isn't up for debate. I therefore invite you to go to the people who came to your mind while you were reading this to thank each of them personally.
And like Beyoncé said, I'm not just preaching, I'm taking my own advice.
This article is a tribute to every single person who's played a role, whether it was as a main character or as an extra, in the realization of the woman I've always dreamed of becoming. Especially to my mentor in writing and amazing xoNecole editor, Sheriden Chanel, whom I consider as the Beyoncé of my Blue Ivy.
"Thanks for the love every step of the way, with no support this wouldn't be as great. Thank you for making me stronger than most, for taking it beyond my coast. Thank you for raising your glass when I toast… All I gotta say is I thank you." – Kehlani
*Originally published on Savannah Was Here
xoNecole is always looking for new voices and empowering stories to add to our platform. If you have an interesting story or personal essay that you'd love to share, we'd love to hear from you. Contact us at submissions@xonecole.com.
Featured image by Shutterstock
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Today, that movement has turned into a wig uprising where Black women are able to experiment with colors, styles, and more without causing irreparable damage to our hair. It could even be said that we’ve arrived at a new level of acceptance: one that does not equate love of oneself to one’s willingness or lack thereof to wear her hair the way others deem acceptable. Not even other people who look like us.
However, as with Blackness itself, the issue of Black women’s hair is layered.
On the surface, it’s nothing more than a matter of personal preference. However, in a deeper dive, issues of texture, curl pattern, and of course, proximity to social acceptance, as well as other runoff streams from the waters of racism and patriarchy, rear their heads. The natural hair movement, though a wide-reaching and liberating community builder, also gave way to colorism and often upheld mainstream beauty standards.
Sometimes, favoring lighter-skinned influencers/creators with very specific hair textures, the white gaze leaked into our safe space and forced us to reckon with it. Accurate representations of natural hair in various states of being—undefined curls, kinks, and unlaid edges—are still absent from brand marketing. Protective styles, though intended to provide breaks from styling for our sensitive hair, have become a mask to help our hair be more palatable. A figurative straddle of the fence in order to appease the comfort of others in the face of our hair’s power.
And then there’s the issue of length.
Giphy
As a woman who has spent much of the last decade voluntarily wearing her hair in many variations of short hairstyles, from a pixie cut to a curly fro and a sleek bob, what I’ve gleaned throughout the years is that there is a glaring difference between how I am treated when wearing my hair short than when I opt for weaves, extensions or even grow it out slightly longer than my chin.
The differential treatment comes from women and men alike and spans professional and personal settings, including friends, coworkers, and industry peers.
What has become abundantly clear is that long hair is often conflated with beauty, softness, and any number of other words we relate to femininity in a way that short hair is not. That perceived marker of the essence of womanhood shows up in how I am received, communicated with, and complimented.
Even more so than texture, length has a way of deciding who among us is deserving of our attention, affection, and adoration. Whether naturally grown or proudly bought, the commentary around someone’s look or image greatly shifts when “inches” are present.
When it comes to long hair, we really, really do care.
In an effort to understand whether I had simply been misinterpreting the energy around my hair, I decided to take my findings to social media. I began with two side-by-side photos of myself. In both pictures, my hair is straightened; however, in one, I am wearing my signature pixie cut, and in the other, I am wearing extensions.
I posited that treatment based on hair length is a real thing, and what followed was confirmation that I was not alone in my feelings. “Long hair, like light skin, button noses, and being thin are all forms of social capital,” one user commented. “Some Black women enforce the status quo too, why wouldn’t we?”
Courtesy
This also brought to mind the many times celebrity women (like most recently Beyoncé's Cécred hair tutorial) have done big reveals of their own natural tresses in an attempt to silence any doubt that Black women are able to grow their hair beyond a certain length. Of course, we all know that to be true, so why do we still feel the need to prove it so?
The responses continued to pour in from women of all skin tones, who felt that hair length played a role in people’s treatment of them. “When I have short hair I always feel like people don’t treat me like a woman, they treat me like a kid,” another user commented. “When my hair is long I get a lot more respect for some reason.”
From revelations about feeling invisible to admitted shifts in their own perceived beauty, Black woman after Black woman poured out her experience as it relates to hair length. Though affirmed by their shared realities, knowing that reactions to something so trivial have become yet another hair battle for Black women to fight was disheartening. Though we continue to defy gravity and push the bounds of imagination and creativity by way of our strands, will it always be in response to the idea that we are, somehow, falling short?
Unlike more obvious instances of hair discrimination, the glorification of longer length is sneakier in its connection to Eurocentric beauty standards. Hair commercials, beauty ads, and even hip-hop music have long celebrated the idea of gloriously long tresses while holding onto the ignorant notion that it is inaccessible for Black women.
Even as we continue to fight to prove our hair professional, elegant, and worthy in its natural state to the world at large, we’ve also adopted harmful value markers of our own as a community. It’s evident in how we talk about who has the right to start a haircare line and which influencers we easily platform. It’s evident in the language we use to identify those with long hair versus short hair. And it’s painfully obvious in how we treat one another.
It makes me wonder if India.Arie’s brave rallying cry, almost two decades old in its existence, will ever actually hold true for us. Or will we just continue to invent new ways to uphold the harmful status quo?
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Feature image by Willie B. Thomas/ Getty Images
