When life gives you lemons, you turn them into? For years I thought of myself as a failure after I became a teen mom, until I realized that my failure is actually what fueled my drive to succeed. Years later, after making a whole bunch of bad choices, I did some soul searching. I needed to feel good about myself for once, and I knew that giving usually makes people feel good about themselves. But what was I going to give? I didn't have money, and I could barely take care of myself. Then I remembered that service was also a part of giving.
I have always wanted to give back to the Women's Centre of Jamaica, because they helped me when I was a teen mother, but they were far away. So I decided to focus on helping kids through foster care. I managed to get involved in an abusive relationship which kept me focused on my past pain, so I began writing about it. The more I wrote, the better I felt. I was actually healing because I was forced to face my pain and identify what caused them. Some were my fault, and some were things that just happened that I had no control over.
I eventually put all my writings and thoughts together and created my first book; In Search of Self. I figured I could use it as an inspirational guide for teen moms. Even though I was writing about my experiences as a teen mother and other aspects of my childhood, I didn't think of myself as a professional writer, I just thought that I could reach others by telling my story. I never imagined that my book would touch so many women's lives, and surprisingly I had men writing me to tell me about their own experiences as a teen father. I was able to reach out to the Women's Centre in a way that I have always wanted to. Books were donated to adolescent moms, and I was able to donate money from the sales of the book. I even started a diaper, baby food, and clothes drive for the centre.
I didn't know it at the time, but failing my family, failing to live up to the standards of the Christian community I grew up in, failing society, and failing myself, was actually giving me an opportunity to succeed. Now I know that no matter what comes my way in the form of failure, I can actually use it as an opportunity.
Becoming a teen mother was obviously not a planned action. I would not recommend it to anyone and young girls should be encouraged to avoid it. I went through suffering and hardships because of it. But those experiences along with my desire to be my best, inspired me to go back to school to get a better education. I ended up with a bachelors and a masters degree.
Recently I wanted to purchase a house, and there were all kinds of things blocking me from it, some of which came from bad financial choices I made. I was really disappointed at first, and then I reminded myself that there is an opportunity in almost every situation that may not be suitable to me at the moment. I used the opportunity to save and invest more money in order to be able to send my son to college.
Failure is a natural part of life. It is our failures that teaches us our lessons and help us realize our strengths. Failure sometimes removes us from situations that were never good for us in the first place. Take a for example a failed marriage that was toxic. The marriage failed because it was toxic; this should be seen as an opportunity to work on yourself and take all the lessons that came with the failure, so that you don't repeat the mistakes. When all is said and done, we should be able to look back at our failures and smile.
So yes, when life gives you lemons, you turn them into lemonade. Enjoy what you can and then sell the rest at a profit to help yourself and others.
Your journey has been an inspiration to many including myself. Your courage to open up yourself in such a way has given strenght to those who once thought they were weak. Yes! Failure is a natural part of live and if we all except that motion, it becomes easier to turn those failures in to lessons of life. Hats of to you. Stay blessed.