A Quote by Iyanla Vanzant
Had I not spent so much time doing something that made me so miserable, I would have never learned how to appreciate doing what brings me joy.
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But why do only unimportant things?" asked Milo, who suddenly remembered how much time he spent each day doing them. "Think of all the trouble it saves," the man explained, and his face looked as if he'd be grinning an evil grin--if he could grin at all. "If you only do the easy and useless jobs, you'll never have to worry about the important ones which are so difficult. You just won't have the time. For there's always something to do to keep you from what you really should be doing, and if it weren't for that dreadful magic staff, you'd never know how much time you were wasting.
You must be made miserable before you can know true Christian joy. Indeed the real trouble with the miserable Christian is that he has never been truly made miserable because of conviction of sin. He has by-passed the essential preliminary to joy, he has been assuming something that he has no right to assume.
If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, "So what." "My mother didn't love me." So what. "My husband won't ball me. So what. "I'm a success but I'm still alone." So what. I don't know how I made it through all the years before I learned how to do that trick. It took a long time for me to learn it, but once you do, you never forget.
I make a living doing what I love doing, and it's what brings me joy.
I often wonder what would have happened to me if I hadn't made that decision. I suppose I would have sunk. I suppose I would have found some kind of hole and tried to hide or pass. After all, we make ourselves according to the ideas we have of our possibilities. I would have hidden in my hole and been crippled by my sentimentality, doing what I was doing, and doing it well, but always looking for the wailing wall. And I would never have seen the world as the rich place that it is. You wouldn't have seen me here in Africa, doing what I do.
When I was in high school, my parents had this power over me - if I ever lied or got caught doing something that I shouldn't be doing, then I would no longer be able to go to LA and continue to pursue the acting thing. So that was this sort of looming thing they could had over me that just sort of really kept me in check throughout those formative years where you would typically be lying and doing bad stuff.
I think being a little older and a little more determined and being a little more evolved in my case and maturity in the kind of music I was doing and how I was doing it really helped to keep me grounded and with an audience that could appreciate what I was doing, who grew with me and evolved with me and kept me alive and around.
I was friends with Salvador Dalí until the day he died. Lucky me. I can't say why. I didn't live to be noticed, I lived to enjoy the excitement of doing right that day, and I knew I was doing it right when they would have me back. That was the thrill for me. I yearned to be validated because my mother was stern and I never did much right, that's how I perceived it.
I would never have been discovered without the X Factor. I was just doing the working men's clubs and I loved doing that. That was the life for me at that time. I never expected to be noticed doing that, that's why I went for X Factor by myself.
When I was very small, I had that first-time-you-see-a-play experience, which immediately made me want to act, because it seemed like this incredible outlet for something I was already doing fairly compulsively anyway, which was putting on hats and costumes and doing funny voices. It was a very natural compulsion for me.
No one in my family or my circle of friends had ever had to confront something like this. Jamie was seventeen, a child on the verge of womanhood, dying and still very much alive at the same time. I was afraid, more afraid than I'd ever been, not only for her, but for me as well. I lived in fear of doing something wrong, of doing something that would offend her. Was it okay to ever get angry in her presence? Was it okay to talk about the future anymore?
It's really cool to see how many awesome, badass ladies are out there now just doing their thing and putting their foot down, saying, "Nope. You're not going to tell me I'm doing something women shouldn't be doing." It's a scary time but also I think a really important time. I'm happy to see how much girls are responding to a lot of the other powerful big boys swimming out there right now.
I've been a freelancer my whole life. It's sort of been my ethos that wherever something takes me, it takes me, so, that was really the start of me trying my hand at whatever it was at the time. I've gone from doing sculpture to videos to being a set builder and working for a general contractor to jewelry maker to now, a rapper... I just love to create. I've had a stint doing pretty much everything! It sort of doesn't matter what it is, as long as I'm doing it. I love to see something from conception to final product. I love trying new things and seeing them through.
Winning is important to me, but what brings me real joy is the experience of being fully engaged in whatever I'm doing.
One of the things that Marjorie has done has given me the joy of family. It's a joy I never really knew. I spent a long time being lonely and hiding, and now, at Christmas, there's this huge family. That's something that's very new to me. And very special.
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