Confidence

       Yesterday I was sitting on a bench enjoying the quick moment of peace I had prior to the concert of my favorite violinist. A skinny man in his early thirties with blond hair and a checkered blue shirt, sat down beside me and after a few moments, turns and begins to speak. He asked me who I was with and I mentioned my best friend. After a moment of conversation, he told me that I was beautiful. I thanked him and told him that I appreciated the compliment. Almost instantly the conversation turned awkward, with an energy that could be best described as “off.” As soon as I responded he told me, “Yeah you probably already know that.” I could tell by his body language and the scowl on his face that he didn’t approve of my “Thank you for the compliment.” In an attempt to lighten the conversation, I quickly responded with, “Yes I do, but it is still nice to hear that from someone.” As soon as I said that he quickly got up and walked away as if my comment mortally offended him. This isn’t the first time that this has happened to me.  In fact, I have noticed if I don’t belittle myself to the person complimenting me, then I seem to be perceived as arrogant.  I don’t think I’m conceited, I am just confident.  I believe in me.

          I wasn’t always confident. In fact, I used to hate the way that I looked and I used to hate every little thing about myself. I made a very conscious decision to change my self-perception.  When I decided that I no longer wanted to be broken and I wanted to have the self confidence that people I admired possessed, I spent years working on myself to create the confident woman that I am today.  Every day I thought of something that I felt I didn’t like about me, I thought about why I didn’t like it and then set out to change it.  Step by step, I became a person I really liked; and the process continues to this very day.

          I do find it interesting that we live in an age where self-confidence is said to be sexy but then when it’s displayed is considered arrogant. In order to properly take a socially acceptable compliment, I would have to say, “Thank you but…” and then say something negative about my appearance to receive yet another compliment reaffirming my physical appearance.  Only then I am seen as humble and down to earth and to have accepted the compliment gracefully.  The reality is that being humble and down to earth has nothing to do with self-confidence.  In this instance it is part of the unwritten mores of the modern social contract.  You can know your self-worth and still be humble.  I believe that all humans are equal. I am cognizant of my own value, am aware of my own self-worth and know that I am worth more than to be belittled by myself or by others.  This is why I have even left the ones that I have loved the most, no matter how much pain it caused in my own heart. I deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

          I am saddened that compliments are perceived as only flirtations.  People are more hesitant to say something nice, in fear that it will be taken the wrong way.  In a culture that is quick to criticize, we should be equally willing to point out the good in each other just to be kind. 

          Which brings me to another strange phenomenon. People assume that because of my physical appearance and self-confidence that I must have been lavished with compliments my entire life. Because of this assumption, I have had individuals go out of their way to insult me.  There was a time where I had to stop reading my social media because my in-box was full of unsolicited messages such as “You’re fat,” “You’re so ugly,” and “You’re stupid,” along with private messages that were paragraphs long on all of the reasons why I sucked as a human.  I had to learn to leave misery and negativity in its place and that it doesn’t have a place in my life.  As we learn to accept compliments with genuine grace, we must also learn not to accept gratuitous insults with the same poise.

           The first step in gaining this self-confidence was learning to take compliments. Next time you find yourself saying words, “Thank you but,” stop!  Simply take the compliment and accept it.  ”Thank you” suffices.  Don’t degrade yourself just to gain another compliment and don’t cheapen the compliment by denying it. Don’t rely on others to bring you up. Instead, bring yourself up. You are beautiful. Take that and walk with it, no if’s or but’s. 

           So now that I have spent years building my self-confidence, I will not respond with a degrading remark about myself and you shouldn’t either. Self-love means knowing your self-worth. It means taking compliments without degrading yourself. Self-confidence is not arrogance. It just means that you love yourself and you can only truly love someone else if you love yourself first. If someone calls you arrogant or insults you after complimenting you, just walk away and realize that the compliment wasn’t genuine and when someone tries to put you down, they are just reflecting how they feel about themselves.

 

Cops that no longer help

This morning I had an experience that made me so angry that I am still shaking with anger and frustration. At 5:00 in the morning I left my house and drove down the street to buy myself an egg and cheese wrap at the local Jack in the Box. When I returned, there was no street parking left so I parked in the Dollar Tree parking lot and ate my food. As soon as I finished my breakfast, I heard a male voice yelling in absolute anger. It was so loud and threateningly intense that I considered not even stepping out of my car and lying down on the seat and hiding.

The area that I currently live in used to be relatively safe but as of January of this year has become increasingly treacherous. A man was shot right outside of my home several months ago and the following week another man beaten in the same location. I didn’t witness these incidences but I did find out that both were gang related. Hearing gun shots now has become so common to me that around July I would play a game where I when a heard a loud “BOOM” I would guess if it was a gun or a firework. It has gotten so bad that I have been wanting to move for a while but finding a welcoming location for my beloved English Mastiff is difficult in Los Angeles. Luckily, I am moving next week.

                I decided to get out of my car to make a mad dash for the safety of my abode. As I was turning towards my house I saw a man on the sidewalk become physically violent to a quiet woman walking next to him. I was scared but quickly took out my phone and screamed out to him, “I’m calling the police.” I was shaking and afraid that he would go after me because he began to vociferously swear at me. Finally he continued to walk and yell at the frightened woman, so despite my fear of the man I once again yelled out “I am calling the police now!” and quickly pushed the number 911. A female operator answered the phone and I explained the situation to her repeating that I was afraid for the woman’s safety. She asked me what is his race and her race and both times asked me if they were black or Hispanic. I said “No, they were both white. Please hurry, I really think he is going to seriously hurt her. Things are escalating fast with him.” I told the dispatcher the intersection and I told her what direction the couple were heading. She informed me that a unit was on the way, so I thanked her and gave her my information. By this time, I was walking into my yard and let my dog out for a little relief. As I was doing this a police officer with his window pulled down slowly drove his cruiser by my house, heading in the opposite direction. As soon as I saw him, I waved my arms in the air while calling out, “Officer!” and caught his attention. He slowed down to a stop and looked at me. I rushed over to his car and when I was ten feet from his window he stepped on the gas and drove away, leaving me standing alone in the street.

                I couldn’t believe it. Allegedly, and as the authorities like to remind us at every opportunity, the job of a police officer is to, “serve and protect.”  The officer in the cruiser not only clearly saw me trying to grab his attention but blatantly drove away when I approached. What if I was that woman who was just assaulted? What if I was hurt and needed help? What if someone was robbing me or was harming my child and I needed police intervention? He didn’t know who I was. What he knew was that there was an escalating situation in the area where a woman’s safety was at risk. Who was being served and protected?  As I stood in shock in the street and watched the police cruiser vanish into the early dawn, I was left to assume that that information was not a high priority for a number of reasons.

First of all, I live in the ghetto.  I don’t think it is a revelation that the lives of people that don’t have a lot of money are treated with less importance than individuals that have money. I know this because I grew up in an upper middle class white family and grew up with the mindset that the police are here to help. My family used to bake the local PD cookies and we were always treated with attentive kindness and respect. When I moved away from my family, I didn’t have a lot of money. There is a visible difference in the way that I am treated by an officer of the law depending on the car that I drive or the area that I live in. The trashier the car, the ruder that I am treated. When I called the cops because I was literally watching my neighbors getting robbed while they were gone, the officers just drove by the house, walked half way up the stairs without actually reaching the house, then the simple turned and left. I began to realize more and more that my life and safety matter more on my perceived wealth than on just being a human needing help.

After enjoying the delightful and reassuring experience of having two intruders come into my house through a window, amongst several other situations where police did nothing to assist despite my phone calls, I finally realized three years ago that I could no longer rely on police for protection and began looking into getting a good guard dog. For a while I fostered Rottweilers but in the end I decided I would feel safer with a larger dog. So I adopted a seven-week-old English Mastiff and invested money in a dog trainer to ensure that he would be the guard dog that I needed. It was also during this time that I took self-defense classes, which I strongly recommend for all woman no matter where you live.

        I understand that the police need to have a description of the two individuals involved in this incident but I find it interesting that black and Hispanic were the only two races named off by the dispatcher, and when I said, “white,” the ending result was a white police officer treating this situation as if it was nothing to the extent of driving from me when I tried to grab his attention. I could have really needed help and there was a woman that did actually need assistance but the officer, a publicly-salaried government official designated to protect the public that pays him not only did not do his job but blatantly treated me like my life was not worth protecting. This realization of a lack of care is a gut-wrenching eye-opener to why so many individuals no longer trust the police. For every one video of a cop helping someone on our media feed, I see at least twenty videos of cops either assaulting another individual, disrespecting someone, or ignoring a situation when help is needed.  When the media trumpets some good deed done by a police officer, it is apparently newsworthy because it is the exception and not the rule.  Even if I am factually wrong in my assessment, the perception remains the reality of many and that perception is very dangerous for a civil society.

                I am not emphatically stating that all cops are bad or callous. Some really do want to help. There are many officers out there that are genuine sweethearts that truly do help others regardless of wealth or race and I have the utmost respect for them and the job that they do every day. However, in most cases I have found that is not the situation and the worth of a human life is often determined by the money in their pocket or color of their skin. Someone’s worth should never be based on how much money they make or their race. How can anyone feel safe when the people that were put in place to protect us don’t care enough to stop and do the job that they are paid to do? I could have really needed help but I was left staring at the tail lights of the police car wondering, why don’t I matter to you? Why doesn’t she matter? Things need to change.

Technological Bondage

              When I was a kid, I didn’t have a cell phone or an ipad. I didn’t have many friends either but I would play outside or take walks through the neighborhood. When I was indoors I would color or play piano. At night I would have dinner with my family without an interruption and if the landline home phone rang while we ate, we would wait until an answering machine picked it up and return the call later. When my father would travel to a different country, he made a point to call and would tell us how much he loved us, every night.

                Then new games like the Gameboy came out and little by little I would watch kids begin to play their games instead of with each other. After an immense amount of begging, I finally got a game of my  own and I would sit in my room for hours playing these games until my legs would fall asleep and the sides of my thumbs would hurt from pushing the same buttons down so frequently.

                The more technology grew, the more we as people hid behind whatever screen glowed the clearest until we finally got to the point where we are at now. We have replaced the need for internal growth and interaction with real people with the need for the artificial positive reinforcement of “likes” and “shares” on our latest selfie that we hide behind hoping for a sense of approval from complete strangers. Instead of finding comfort through a person face to face, we try to communicate text to text, which often times is misinterpreted and leads to unnecessary drama which can in turn create an emotional wound or increased distance between you and the one that you are speaking to. As this technology expanded, the quality of relationships shrank. We went from having conversations in person to having conversations of constantly new and changing customized emojis that leave the reader to guess what the sender meant to say as if decoding a simpler form of modern hieroglyphics. 

We are group animals that are increasingly becoming slaves to technology. It has become our addiction, much like a drug. We look at the people crying over lost Meth or Crack and laugh at them yet turn around and do the same thing if we lose our phone for even 24 hours. Our addiction is a mental addiction equal to that of a drug just without the physical side effects. Yet technology is the socially acceptable “drug” of choice. How many times have I sat in a restaurant and watched people at the other tables tune out a conversation or fail to be in the minute to check their small illuminated screens for virtual life experiences elsewhere? 

 Now when I try to go out with friends, I am surrounded by people SnapChatting, Instagraming, or Facebooking what they are currently doing instead of just enjoying it in the moment and the people around them. What is happening on their feed is often times more important than the experience of connecting and spending time with the person beside them and it amazes me how we as people would much rather watch a cat playing the piano for the hundredth time than talk with the friend beside them or experience the glory of the sunset in front of them.

We speak of the advancement of man, which I see, but I also see the digression of the one thing that makes us so beautiful, being human, living life to the fullest. Instead of watching someone give to the poor, how about you go out and give to the poor? Instead of seeing beautiful places on the planet, put down your phone and realize that the authentic beauty you see on that screen is right in front of you and guess what? A photo can never truly capture the experience. Set down your phone and experience life. Have a conversation face to face with someone you can touch. You will never truly live if you are in bondage to a small 3x4 inch screen. The world is a bigger more beautiful place that even blows Super HD away. Stop being your phone’s bitch and coming to it when it makes a tiny beep and start enjoying your independence and freedom.

Gangster Butterflies

The other day I went to the botanical garden with high hopes and expectations that I was going to get the best photos that I had ever taken. Before I went, I looked online and found that the botanical garden that I was visiting possessed 120 acres of specialized gardens. I planned my floral safari carefully.  My goal was to hit the Chinese garden through the Japanese garden, then end up at the Rose garden in search of beautiful and peaceful butterflies.

Let me make this very clear, I have the directional sense of a blind pigeon in a tornado.  Further, I abhor maps almost as much as I abhor giant cockroaches. I began my outing as planned, following the signs to the Chinese garden and somehow I ended up in the Shakespeare garden leaning over a fountain to get a close up of a Lilly pad. Realizing that I was in the wrong garden and not one butterfly was to be found, I decided to back track and make my way back through the Chinese garden. I was bound and determined to get my butterfly pictures.

Despite the fact that the sun made me feel like I had stepped into an oven, I trekked on like a good sport with a positive spirit. I am not sure how, but after two hours of searching for the rose garden, I found myself in the middle of nowhere sweating out of areas I didn’t know could sweat.

It was around 1:00 pm in the middle of blazing California heat with hardly any shade in sight. This is when I realized I was on the far end of the desert garden. How I ended up there remains a mystery to this day and I was feeling my positive spirit slowly wither and die with the rest of my body in the sweltering furnace of the afternoon sun.  This was the day that I learned exactly how big 120 acres really is and at one point I found myself dramatically collapsed in the dirt by a palm tree, trying in vain to lower my boiling body temperature by hiding in the tiny scrap of shade that it provided.

“I wonder if anyone has died out here?” I thought to myself as I fantasized about drinking water and sorely regretting that I hadn’t brought any.  I imagined how my funeral would be as people cried over my mummified body (still clutching my camera for effect). I knew that I was foolish not to look at a map in the first place.  Now that I was baking in the heat like a thanksgiving turkey with the very real temptation to baste myself with butter and sage, I saw exactly how deep my madness went.

Finally I found the strength to push myself off of the ground and keep walking until I ended up at the Japanese garden. After asking several people the same question, I finally stumbled upon the Rose garden and once again begin my search for the elusive butterfly. Although I didn’t find any there, I did find a nearby section in the herb garden seemed to swarm with the fluttering of their delicate wings. I pulled out my camera, ready to take photos of these beautiful creatures but quickly realized exactly how fast they can fly.  I had never really thought about it before but butterflies can move very quickly when you want them to remain still and elegantly posed. I don’t know if I just happened to stumble upon ADHD butterflies on crack but those suckers would not stay still. I found myself running from one end of the garden to the other, chasing them like a mad woman with my camera held high in the air.

In a moment when a few of them decided to stay still for a split second, probably to laugh at my sweating and swearing, I realized something very interesting.  Aside from being sadistic pranksters to photographers, butterflies are like vicious gangsters when it comes to their flowers. Every time one butterfly would land, another butterfly would swoop down and attack the butterfly trying to eat, and it wasn’t just butterflies assaulting each other, it was yellow jackets too.  I felt like I was walking into a mall full of women on Black Friday; you never know who will strike next. 

When I finally got in a few shots and gave up on my chase, I went home and began to do a little research trying to figure out if the apocalypse came early or if butterflies attacking each other was natural. As I was reading the studies done on butterfly behavior, I not only discovered that certain breeds of butterflies are territorial but that my favorite butterfly, the monarch, can become cannibalistic when there is a lack of food. HOLY GOD! I feel like a child who just found out that Santa isn’t real, yet I find it ironic that true butterfly reality is more akin to The Hills Have Eyes or Hannibal but we view them as peaceful symbols of hope and renewal. Oh reality! Why must you be so cruel?