My adult life has been a bumpy one. I’ve been laid off a few times, had some sucky jobs, great jobs that didn’t pay and at one point just no job at all. Since graduating from college my dose of the real world has been one financial and/or emotional rollercoaster after another. I’ve had my moments where I feel like nothing is ever going to change and nothing is ever going to work in my favor. I remember after getting laid off from my first job after college and not having found work nearly a year later, I sat on my bedroom floor and had a complete breakdown because my daddy’s birthday was coming and I couldn’t by him, the man who worked two jobs for me, a birthday gift. I felt like a complete failure.

Fast forward a few years and while I’m still on this rollercoaster called life, things are much better. No, I’m not a millionaire and balling out of control, but I’ve found a steady career path I love and make a semi-comfy living with, furthered my education and have learned enough lessons from my past issues that I do what I can everyday to try and keep them from repeating. None of this came easy. I’ve worked two and sometimes three jobs at a time just to make sure I have a savings to fall back on (being unemployed for over a year after college gave me a SERIOUS fear of being completely broke…SERIOUS), worked for free, not even on an internship level, to get certain skills up, lived on ridiculous budgets to save for what ever goal I had at the moment, I’m talking living on $100 a month, washing my hair in the sink and stretching 2 days worth of meals into 5 days worth sometimes just to make sure I had a nice birthday. If a job I had wasn’t taking me where I wanted to be, I saved every penny I could and quit so that I could go out there and temp or do whatever I could to get where I needed to go. I use my writing skills on the side to supplement my income because hey let’s face it sometimes the 9-5 paycheck is smaller than your goals and dreams. Have I taken some risks, yup, but sometimes without risk there is no success. Have I always done EVERYTHING I could’ve to achieve certain things, no, and I’m accepting and honest about those shortcomings, but I’ve done and continue to do at least some of what it takes for me to live my life in a way that is comfortable for me. No matter what my situation, the one thing I have never done, is throw salt someone else’s way.

Even when I felt at my lowest I made sure to be happy for and proud of the achievements and successes of others around me. Just because my life wasn’t where I felt it should be, just because I couldn’t go where they went or spend what they spent, didn’t mean that I needed to hate or throw shade of any kind their way. I looked at their lives as motivation for me to do what I needed to do. No one around me is from money, anything they have big or small was worked for, so if I want the same I have to work hard too. I have to take risks and make choices that will propel me forward, not keep me stagnant or move me backwards. Complaining about situations or hating on others isn’t going to change my life so what was the point. However, not everyone has acquired this mentality.

Lately I feel like I’ve been walking in a hail of salt. Salt from people who hate where they are and want to knock me down because their misery is jealous and wants some company. People who don’t want to take risks or do things they might not want to in order to get where they want to go. People who must be clinically insane because they keep doing the same things over and over again expecting different results, who complain excessively about all the things they hate in their lives or want to do and can’t, but other than the minimum, they aren’t doing much of anything to move forward. People who made poor choices and put themselves in certain holes that will take time to climb out of, people who want to blame everyone else for their plight instead of the person looking back at them in the mirror. People who expect God to hand things to them because they are “good people”, but failed to read the line in the bible that says God helps babies and fools and while they may act like it…they are neither, so they need to learn to help themselves first. People that if they were on my level (not saying I’m better than anyone, just saying that if they were as comfy in their life as me) or higher would be doing everything I’m doing (and trying to do) or more, but since they can’t, want to tell me I’m doing too much.

Pause.

Pardon my “God in Me” MaryMary moment, but I have what I have because I work damn hard for it and I do what I do because I deserve it. I have friends that to this day don’t know that I’ve worked two and three jobs; they don’t know how hard some of my struggles have really been. They don’t know how many of my family members pray for me every day, how many candles I’ve burned and prayers I’ve read asking God to just guide me and keep me focused. Sure, you’ve been looking for a better job forever and here I come and get laid off and hired all within a month. I’m sure it looks oh so easy for me and you think I’m lucky, but outside of prayer, it’s the $30k loan I took out to further my education that helps make it “easy”, it’s the fact that I still have business cards from 2003 and email those people every couple of months so that they keep me in mind for openings they have or hear of that makes me “lucky.” It’s the type of friends I keep around me that have been in my shoes so they have advice that I willingly or stubbornly take, friends that work their asses off and push me to work mine off that help me achieve what I have.

The salt these people want to throw at me is heavy. They want it to hurt and they want it to sting. They want the salt to make me back down to their level or downplay the blessed and favored life I’m living because they aren’t living it too and don’t want to hear about it. Sorry, but if that’s the case, you picked the wrong one. It will never happen. I’m not letting the salty negativity get to me today or any day. How dare you try to break me down or tell me I do too much!! Do too much?? No my dears, I do what you can’t do and it’s killing you!!! I live in the cute apartment you wish you had, have the decent paycheck you wish you were getting, take and have the ability to at least plan the FABULOUS vacations you wish you could afford, the kind of man in my life you wish wanted you for something more than just a mattress run and the kind of friend and family support you only hear about when you call my phone. If your life sucks, that’s sad and I will definitely pray for you because I’m a strong believer in that fact that when you block blessings for others, you block blessings for yourself. In the meantime you can keep your salt and keep it WAY over there. I don’t even want your light “I’m only saying this because I’m having a bad day” Mrs. Dash type salt. I’m on a strict no salt diet!

I’m living my life like it’s more than golden. I’m living it like it is God blessed and divinely favored. I’ve done and continue to try my best to do my part so that I lead the life destined for me and anyone that can’t be happy for me and insists on injecting negativity is more than welcome to hit the door. If you’re throwing handfuls of salt now, prepare to throw buckets because the sunshine in my life has only just begun, God is at work here so step aside you’re blocking his blessing and please….hold the salt. Thanks.

*Steps of soapbox*