“Tell me, whats your November? Is it a person?
Mine was the Summer ’06, I remember”-Tyler the Creator, November

You ever wanted to grow out your short style or fill in your struggle beard? If so, you know that growth is a slow and steady process… slower even when you watch it because you are inspecting yourself for changes at every moment. Wait… can I tuck it behind my ear? Ohhh shit , I think it’s long enough to put it in a ponytail! Wait a minute, that goatee and that sideburn had a meeting!!!

Well, that’s how most growth feels that you need. Slow and steady!

….

“…like that lil engine, I could!” -Meek Mill, Dreams & Nightmares

We live in the age of instant gratification. I want it all, and I want it now. And you can basically get all that shit on Amazon by 9pm with a Prime membership. All of it. But while you can probably find a book with everything in it from the the explanation behind the Big Bang to why Solange beat Jay-Z’s ass in the elevator… you can’t buy the key to personal growth, wisdom.

Wisdom is the use of knowledge to free oneself from the confines of ignorance to seek the truth. The key to personal growth is in the thinking and not the feeling. We often let our emotions take over, instead of being in control of our reactions and allowing ourselves both rational thought and appropriate emotionality. A wise person takes responsibility for your actions and reactions in the face of fear or the unknown.

“Seen my dreams unfold, nightmares come true“

The particulars of an experience are not important (to anyone but us), but it’s the typical dichotomy of good v not so good that prepares our space to grow.

fabulous woman/ dumb dude

great guy/foolish girl

security /jealousy

intelligent and overlooked/ stupid and privileged

I’ll give you the sun, the rain, the moon, the stars, and the mountains/oops I’m inconsistent

she’s like a sister or he’s like a brother /oops IT’S A GIRL 👶🏽

supportive friend/hater

It’s fucked up going through it and even more fucked up in the aftermath. The truth is that we intrinsically know we need to evolve and set ourselves up for that experience. So instead of pure emotion, we should be prepping ourselves. People show you who they are long before they hit you in the head with it. It is our baggage, that unhealed foolishness lingering around like a weight, that lets us believe we can change or manipulate or worse deserve someone no good for us. Similarly we enter experiences that scream:

I knew last November, that I was making a grave mistake. I mean I jumped into that sucka feet first plunging into the cold rough waters, and a negro CANNOT swim! I hadn’t unpacked and discarded the baggage I had from the last encounter with this demon… so I easily let him in when he knocked. But it was the typical rain, moon, stars shit when all that nigga had was a PlayStation 3 and a collection of Polo shirts. Once I knew that, I applied that knowledge and got the fuck outta Dodge. Trust yourself… was the lesson I learned. I unpacked that lesson, and then threw the whole suitcase away…there was nothing else in that experience worth salvaging. I was able to handle it, unlike how I handled most matters such as these, by keeping my emotions in check but not caged, and using common sense (those red horns) to ascertain that he was still a demon. They show you who they are…

“It was time to marry the game and I said…Yeah, I do“

You see, it’s that shit you leave hanging, the rotten fruit that hasn’t fallen from the tree yet, that’s baggage. And it’s untrue that baggage comes with the journey. You don’t start the journey until you unpack that shit, figure out what it is, if it still fits you, if you still have a place for it, putting it up, and pulling out the next item.

Why am I fabulous but dealing with a dumb ass? He can’t give you shit that doesn’t belong to him…Why did I bother? Why did I lower my standards, ignore my own needs, and dim my light for anyone, let alone a dimwit?

You sit and stew in that. Then figure out what about yourself you need to fix to pull yourself out and never do that shit again. That’s growth!

…oh shit, I got inches.

“If you want it you gotta see it with a clear-eyed view“

Once you grow your hair out or that full beard, then you have to style it, trim it, keep it neat and healthy. That’s the aftermath. The same is true for personal growth. On the other side of growth is redemption. So no more fuckboys, just good grown consistent, supportive, and men. No more silly broads, get you a grown woman. Don’t let any haters steal your joy, and be aware of when it’s time to move on and time to stay and fight. Mastery of the knowledge you have acquired will lead to wisdom, the rainbow. Wisdom comes from healing… sun. And that healing is made possible by pain… the rain.

One full rotation around the sun, after a summer full of rain, and it’s November again…

“Hold up wait a minute, y’all thought I was finished?”