4,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Grace Amazin
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
Mistakes are a necessary part of life. While some fail to learn and continue their oblivious trek through life, others take a moment to reflect, figure out what went wrong, and adjust so as never to make that mistake again.
Don’t Make Girl Mistakes: The Do's & Don’ts in Life is more than a mere book. It is a code for girls and women to adhere to in order to grow their lives and become better tomorrow. Compiled from the experiences of a woman who has lived through numerous scenarios and situations, worked with very powerful people, and stepped through all walks of life in her journey, it is the evolution of knowledge and filled with a variety of topics every woman knows. From dating the wrong men, having those frenemies, finding your career, and going after your dreams, Don’t Make Girl Mistakes shows the positive effects of making conscious decisions.
Don’t Make Girl Mistakes is the perfect resource for every woman AND the men associated with them! We are all bound to make mistakes. It’s how we deal with them that determines who we are and who we will be.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
Ähnliche
Copyright © 2020 Grace Amazin
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the author and the publisher, except for the inclusion of a brief quotation in a review.
Introduction
I was sitting in the VIP section of a club in a small town. I had traveled 400 miles from my home in Washington D.C. with a girlfriend of mine to meet up with another guy friend who happened to be good friends with a well-known musician. We were having a great night! After a couple hours, my girlfriend looked over at me and said, “Let’s go take some pictures in the bathroom since we’re killin’ it tonight!”
“Ok cool, let me grab my clutch,” I said, following my girlfriend out of the VIP section.
Just then, I heard my guy friend yelling over the music, “Where ya’ll goin?!”
We turned and looked at him like “What?!” Sucking my teeth and rolling my eyes, I said, “None of ya business!”
“Alright!” he said firmly. “Be gone too long and both ya’ll asses gone get left! We’re about to roll out of here in five minutes.”
My friend and I looked at each other and laughed!
“Haha! He’s tripping,” she said while we continued walking toward the bathroom. “Why he acting like that? Like we can’t go to the bathroom or whateva.”
“Who knows, girl? You know how dudes be, trying to regulate or control the situation.”
In the bathroom, we started to touch up our makeup, fix our hair, and started taking a few selfies.
Suddenly, a man yelled at the entrance of the bathroom, “Yooo!!!” We were caught up in our own world taking pictures. We ignored the call. “Yooooo, we bout to leave! Ya’ll need to come on!” he yelled again.
“Wait is that who I think it is?” I asked my girlfriend.
My friend replied, “Ty?”
“We’re about to come out now. Chill!” I yelled back.
“Yeah alright! Ya’ll keep playing doll house in the bathroom, and we all about to bounce like now! Come on!”
We ignored him yet again and resumed our photoshoot.
“Ooh, let’s go here to this corner. The tiles look pretty,” my friend said. “Take some pictures of me right here.” We took turns trading places with each other and switching poses and positions.
“Yesss girl, this is the one!” my friend said about one of her pictures. “I’m about to post it now before it’s too late!”
“You know, it’s Saturday night and most people aren’t on social media now,” I explained.
“Yeah, you’re right, but my lil boo is out and about, and I need him to see me come through on his timeline lookin’ all damn fine!” She snapped her finger and did a twirl.
“Ok, baddie, I see you!” I said, cheering her on.
Fifteen minutes after my friend had yelled into the women’s bathroom at us, we headed back to the VIP section. When we got to the section, we looked at each other and both of our jaws dropped. The section, once filled with countless bottles of expensive champagne, liquor, and a few good fellas, was empty!
“What the hell? Girl, I don’t believe what I’m seeing,” I said.
My friend shook her head. “Where’d everyone and everything go?!”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I answered. “I KNOW they didn’t leave us behind! Maybe they moved tables to the other side of the room or something?”
“Your boys would leave us?” she asked. “That’s crazy!”
“Nah, I doubt they left us. I’m sure they’re somewhere nearby.” I didn’t want to believe that my boy or the entourage would just roll out on us like that despite what we heard in the bathroom.
“I mean, what? All we did was go to the bathroom, right?” she asked. “It ain’t like we did anything wrong, did we?”
I had to think back at the evening and play the night quickly in my mind, wondering if there was something she or I did that may have called for us to get left. I couldn’t think of anything!
“That’s crazy! I can’t believe these dudes left us!” I concluded, shaking my head.
There we were, just me and my friend. We had no access to a vehicle and were over 400 miles away from home in the country. I called and texted my boy a few times.
Damn, that’s fucked up. So you’re really just gonna leave us at the party though?
We not even from here, that’s crazy!
Hello, I KNOW you SEE my text messages!
SMDH
This is some bullshit!!!!
My friend didn’t respond to any of my text messages. So I started calling him, and he didn’t answer any of my calls.
Oh, so you’re just gonna ignore my calls too?
WOW.
Finally, after an unnerving amount of time, my friend replied via text.
I told ya’ll lets go several times. Ya’ll wanted to be hard headed and not listen. That’s the problem with you girls! Always thinkin’ cuz ya’ll are females that ya’ll can get away with everything!
But we didn’t do anything! All we did was go to the bathroom. Damn. What? We can’t go pee? I never knew it was a crime to use the bathroom. :-/ Smh.
Nah, ya’ll were doing more than peeing. Ya’ll were in the way.
What? In the way? We weren’t bothering no one. We didn’t cause any fights or drama. How were we in the way???
Look, you know we were here out of town as someone’s entourage. Tonight is not about ya’ll, nor is it about me. We are on someone else’s schedule, time, and money! That means we have to follow their lead. If they say it’s time to go, and they get up to go, then we go with them. I warned ya’ll that we were leaving in five minutes. After ten minutes go by, I came to the bathroom twice yelling for ya’ll to come out because we were all leaving the party! But ya’ll didn’t listen. Now I don’t know what to tell ya’ll cuz we are far from the place.
Wow! That’s crazy! I can’t believe you’d leave us in some random town. How are we supposed to get back to our hotel?
Ya’ll big girls. I’m sure you’ll figure it out! Next time, don’t make girl mistakes!
That was the end of our string of text messages that night. And just like that, my friend and I had to put on our big girl panties and deal with the situation we caused! The whole time we were figuring out how to get back to our hotel, I kept thinking about my friend’s words: girl mistakes. Girl mistakes? What are girl mistakes?
While the situation didn’t end our friendship, it taught me a couple of valuable lessons. Lessons number one and two were to be mindful of other people’s time, especially when I’m on their time instead of the other way around, and of friends who can influence you and lead you astray by being selfish or consumed by their own agenda. It took me some years to fully understand, but eventually I knew what he meant.
He meant that women have some habits, behaviors, and perspectives that get in the way of their own goals and successes. Just like my friend and I decided that an impromptu photoshoot in a club bathroom was more important than respecting the time and agenda of the musician who invited us out that night, many women make decisions that work against their plans, goals, dreams, and successes. That is what he called “girl mistakes.”
This book is about not making girl mistakes. It’s about how to navigate life intentionally and gracefully. Note that I did not say perfectly because you will make mistakes. We all do. Boy or girl. Man or woman. The key is being mindful of yourself, your surroundings, and the company you keep to avoid making unnecessary mistakes.
Though the intended audience of this book is young women, the ideas within this book might also resonate with or be beneficial to young men. It’s a resource to help you avoid the mistakes—the girl mistakes—that can make the path to womanhood unnecessarily bumpy, stressful, and unfulfilling across multiple facets of your life. It is my hope that becoming aware of some of the girl mistakes will light the path toward a life of purpose that is smoother, more purposeful, and more fulfilling. Knowing the girl mistakes to avoid will help girls and women thrive both personally and professionally in a world that still overlooks, underestimates, underpays, and neglects women, especially women of color. It will also help teach men who are raising girls and women how to steer their princesses and queens toward the prosperous lives they all deserve. This is a book about being a woman in a world designed to work to the advantage of men.
So let me start by telling you a little bit about me. For starters, I don’t always play by the rules. If I want to accomplish something, I don’t let anything stop me. I don’t let rules, expectations, traditions, perspectives, beliefs, inexperience, or anything stop me. I especially don’t let men stop me. I am a woman, creator, and entrepreneur, and I am doing it all my own way.
Ever since I was a little girl, I refused to accept that I lived in a man’s world. Yes, I know men have historically held more positions of power, been given advantages women haven’t, and have made higher salaries than women for similar work and, in many cases, the same work. Gender inequality is a reality throughout the world, even in the twenty-first century, but that doesn’t make it a man’s world! My life is proof that this isn’t a man’s world. It’s a world where making the right decisions can help women and girls thrive no matter how much power men have in any situation.
Growing up in the projects as an underprivileged girl in the 1990s, life was tough. My parents didn’t have much to offer—whether we’re talking about financial support, emotional support, or the kind of consistent stability every child needs and deserves. And as a middle child, I felt neglected. When you grow up in that kind of environment, you start to feel powerless, but I was never the kind of girl who held her tongue. I’ve always thought of myself as a goddess like Ma’at, the Egyptian goddess of balance, justice, law, morality, truth, and order.
Through the years, whenever I felt confused or the need to go astray, I would have pep talks with myself and say, “Grace, come on now! You’re a goddess, never forget!” You’d be surprised at how the mind and body work hand in hand.
My parents stopped giving me money for clothes, snacks, candy—you name it—when I was 12. My teenage years were turbulent. Often, I had peanut butter and bread (not even jelly) sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but I wanted more. More out of myself and more out of life. I learned quickly that if I wanted more for my life that I was going to have to learn to do things for myself. You should also want more for yourself. Life’s too short to accept the mediocre!
