Rejection

Good morning. Brand New Week. Brand New Attitude. The past is the past. The future is unlimited. My name is Fred Wesley. This my first story for my new blog. I had wanted to create a blog for a long time as I was the subject of someone's blog ( Security Guards Get It by Charlie Judy ) and wanted for the longest to start my own. I had only asked one person though as she had no idea on how to do this. So I went to a familiar friend and he helped me realize that doing a blog was useless. You can be the same person, keep the status quo weekly, and keep that attitude of not caring about nothing but yourself and what you want and all will be well. This friend has been in my corner since I was in my early teens. He has never given good advice nor has been in my corner when things went astray. But I listened anyway. But now I am taking a class that encourages the use of social media to get your messages across and the blog was one of the ways to get the message out. So in doing so I had to say goodbye to one my longest friends. He is probably looking to enter into one of your lives. His name is rejection. And if you do not watch out he will be a part of your life forever. In the NBA there is a catergory called Blocked Shots. For the regular season that just ended the leader was a player for the Oklahoma Thunder named Serge Ibaka. When I was growing up playing basketball on the playgrounds on the Southside of Chicago ( no I was not a basketball legend though I had some game ) when someone blocked your shot is was called a rejection. When the rejection happened it created something that was two-fold. There was a cause and effect. If they person who caused the rejection was able to keep the ball in bounds and his team was able to not only get the ball and score they the rejection caused the score to change and that one rejection can effect the momentum of the game or may be part of the winning margin. Many times in my life there have been rejections in my life that caused and effected parts of my life. In this article I will share some of my rejections and attempt to educate you on how to recognize not only the cause and effects of rejections but how to embrace them in  your life. The were 7 areas in my life that rejection seemed to surface. I will address them in this article. The first area was education. Rejection surfaced in the area of education when I was in grammar school and decided I wanted to be with the cool crowd. This crowd thought that being smart was square or as they would say now being lame. One of my classmates was Michael Baisden, who host a national syndicated radio show and being with him and the other cool members of my 8th grade class was very important to me so what I did was dumb myself down, meaning I attempted to not do good in my classes even though I was an all E student ( E was the very best grade we could get in grammar school ). So I did what they did. I walked how they walked. I was accepted and started drinking and smoking drugs and cutting up in class. I was able to eventually make it out of grammar school but when I made it to high school I struggled and rejection came as I did not graduate with my class. Rejection came into another area as I started to move away from my religion and not trust in the teachings I was raised on. I questioned God and asked him about certain things away and then put the blame for my problems on him. Rejection came in the form of arts & entertainment as my nice singing voice that I once had that could hit many ranges now went away due to the cigarettes smoking that I picked up and the other things I was doing. Rejection came in the form of media as I submitted stories to my school newspaper but none of them ever where printed. Rejection came in the area of government as I looked at the government as a hindrance because I had been arrested a couple of times for marijuana use. Rejection in the business world as I struggled to find work. Rejection in the family area as my values changed from theirs and I became a loner. Rejections cause and effect. Even as a adult I still have rejection issues in some if not all of the areas. But we can turn rejection around and turn it into a positive. I  can hear you asking yourself how can I make rejection into a positive thing?  Is he looking for me to buy some book for me to do this? Is he crazy?  Rejection is not a positive word so what does he mean he can turn it into a positive? No I am not selling a book about this. The crazy part I really cannot answer that because some people say that I am crazy. But any word can be turned into a positive cause and effect. The word rejection is a noun. It means the art or process of rejecting, the state of being rejected or something that is rejected. When I mentioned Serge Ibaka as being the leader in rejections I failed to mention how many he had. The NBA seson was shortened due to a labor dispute so instead of the normal 82 games the season was now 66 games. In those games Serge blocked 3.65 blocks per game. His closet competition was Javele McGee of Denver who blocked 2.15 per game. Serge was 1.5% better than Javele was. Rejections of shots is not as glamerous as scoring the ball or making the sweet pass. But the Oklahoma Thunder would not be contending for the title in the playoffs and Serge is being courted by many teams who see his value as a rejection leader and his next contract is going to be large for just doing his work or getting it in as the youth say now. I can see Serge friends telling him you are never going to get paid for doing the dirty work. I see them patting him on the shoulder to tell him to take more shots as that will make you more money and give you more fame. I can see them just shaking their head as he says he is content. In life you can be a rejection leader and not have the glory because when you do that you have a positive cause and effect. Rejection of putting off that homework to watch videos or watching that TV show that degrades women/men or the values you were raised with. Rejection of music that uses foul language or talks about the love of money, drugs or sex. Rejection of media outlets that carry negative messages about everything. Rejection of how people say your business will  work when they have not even heard you business plan or have not tried to open up their own business. Rejection of those who attempt to undermine President Obama. Rejections of the time that we spend talking to our youth but not listening to hear what they are going through. Rejection of alcohol abuse. Rejection of drug abuse. Rejection of deceit. Rejection of negative thoughts. Rejcetion of pornography. Rejection of gambling. Rejection of sleeping around for money or just to be doing it. Rejection of letting the youth think we do not believe in them. Rejection of letting our seniors just waste away without getting knowledge for them or at least visiting them in one of the senior homes. Rejections of being jealous of others who may have more than us. This is how you turn the cause and effect of rejection into a positive. Now when you do this things, rejections, you are not going to be popular as society thinks that those things I just mentioned as being cool or getting it in. You may be called a square or a lame as you try to be a rejection leader. You may be considered a rejection by those who want to continue to be negative. In Philipians 4:13 it says I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. So that means you are not alone. You have some one to help you make it through. You have some one who can help you beat your rejections and have some one who will help you in the rejections of stuff. This is Fred Wesley. Brand new week. Brand new attitude. The past is the past. The future is unlimited. I can be heard on blogtalk radio every Monday @ a 9am starting on the 21st of this month, You can follow me on twitter @brandnewfwes. You can friend mo on facebook by sending a request to Frederick Wesley. I also write for thegeekchicmag.com. See you next week.