My Palace of the Present

I know that it seems lately like I go on these long runs of inactivity.  However, I decided that I would not write unless I really had something to say that I think is worth sharing.  But today as I spent my meditation time with God and me, I felt something on my heart that I wanted to share.

Now I was born and raised on the south side of Chicago.  South Shore to be exact. My mother and I lived in a few different apartments.   And I have to say that my mother made our apartments very lovely, clean, warm, and stylish places for us to live.  My mother was a young mother so she still had that young woman's swagger.  We had funky new contemporary furniture, a couple of color televisions, and a stereo, with plenty of the latest music on hand.  I went to a Catholic school that pushed us to scholastic excellence.  I appeared in many newspapers for art and community projects that I had been involved in due to my attendance at Holy Angels.  There were plenty of presents under the tree at Christmas time.  I was also taken to many nice restaurants where I was taught which forks to eat what course with.  And for special occasions I was taken to see such classic live shows as "The Wiz", "Dreamgirls", "The Nutcracker", and "Peter Pan".  And not only was my life like this. Most of my friends in my neighborhood could say many of these same things.  Many of my class mates in grammar school's life was like my life.  All of my family's homes looked similar to my home.

So all in all... life was good for me and for those I knew.  Life was comfortable.  When I began to hear the word "Middle Class" on TV and I began to get the definition of what "middle class" was...................I just KNEW that I was middle class.  Well when I got a littler older and began to venture outside of the comfort of my neighborhood and my world.  I began to meet kids who lived in Evanston, and who lived in Park Ridge, and I began to see that THEIR understanding of my little world was "working class" to put it gently, or "lower class".  As they understood it.  But see by the time that I had heard that I was much farther down the class system than I thought, I had already been trained to think of myself as a star.  I had already been made to think that I could do anything and be anybody.  So it was impossible for me in later teen years to accept this "lower station" that I was supposed to fit into.

As I became a young woman, I was shocked to find out that there are many people of color who had bought into the the class system.  They accepted that "lower class" was who they were, how they should, act, and how far they could think. 

As I was working on one of my many projects I was speaking with someone on my team.  I was saying to them that just because my business is still in my home I didn't expect any less professionalism from them.  I did not expect tardiness.  I did not expect you to come to work intoxicated.  I did not expect you to be absent excessively.  And I didn't expect you to be insubordinate to me.  I was speaking of their attitude towards what we are working to achieve.  This person began to speak negatively to me.  This person told me that if I wanted for them to be professional, then I was going to have a professional office or make what I already had more professional.  But what this person did not understand is.................my company philosiphy. 

In order to achieve to next level...........you have to successfully complete THIS level.  No one ever starts a business by purchasing an expensive suite offices with only one client.  You charm the hell out of that first client and then acquire two more clients and so on and so on.......... until you grow yourself out of your present office.  THEN YOU MOVE UP.  But the business owner has to already be treating their business like a fortune 500 business for it to grow.  If you treat your business like you're working out of a garage.............. that is where you will always stay.  If you treat your business like you don't know that you are small against the other companys then you will grow.  But if you treat your business like its a hole in the wall everyone will treat it the same way. 

I didn't treat my home and environment with disrespect because someone else said my upbringing as "low class". 

This experience with the person working for me solidified the principle that "Your attitude determines your   altitude."

See I treat my business right not like it is already a multi million dollar conglomerate with beautiful executive offices.  YES!  I am aware that my business is still "in the hood".  But that is only where my business is geographically. But where my business is spiritually determines the true nature of where my business will be geographically.  Yes I do understand that my offices are in the lower level of my home.  BUT.............I have to start somewhere.  And I have to treat my somewhere like its a PALACE NOW.  I have to repsect my steelo NOW. The bible says "Be faithful over a few things and I will make you ruler over many."  So what does that mean?  It means that I have to have love and respect over my one room business now so that the Lord will see that I will treat my next level with respect because I have shown him that I know how to respect whatever He/She allows. 

If your child leaves their bike outside laying in the grass, don't put air in the tires, crash into things and leave all kind of dents and chipped paint on the bike..........YOU WILL NOT LET THEM DRIVE YOUR CAR.  But when a child treats their room and clothes with respect, bike with respect, computer with respect, then you will begin to trust them with more responsibility.........and they grown into mature healthy adults.  ONLY A FOOL defacates on what he has and where he lives.  And no FOOL is going to defacate on what I have and laught at me me because THEY are the FOOL.

But its also in the way that I was raised.  My mother treated our third floor apartments like palatial homes.  And I respected our homes like they were palaces.  It was only until I got out into the world did I realize that other people did not have the same respect for my apartments, or my neighborhood, or my zip code as I did.  But their negative outlook on my life cannot break the power of respect I have for the environment that bred me................!!!!

I know that I have a long way to go before my business will look out over the Chicago lakefront from a downtown high rise.  But I am not going to wait until I get into the highrise to respect my office suite.  I am going to respect it now while its still in my lower level.  So that by the time we make it to the downtown high rises all that has to happen is we move locations.  I know by that time I will be able to afford a bigger and better house.  But I refuse to treat this house like a trash can because its not my dream home.  And of course you know that I won't let anyone else do it either.

So I live in my palace now and I can see it for what it will become in the future.  Treating my life now the way I want it to be in the future enriches what I have now.   My palace of the present opens the gateway to my palace of the future.  And its all because of my belief and respect for what I possess now.  I refuse to let anyone call what I have useless or "lower class".   Please don't you do it either!