Greatness…

GREAT NESS /noun/ 1.  the state, quality, or condition of being great.  2.  larger than others of the same kind. 

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team his sophomore year.  BUT, he went on to become the GREATEST basketball player our world has ever witnessed. 

Tim Allen spent two years in prison for cocaine dealing before turning his life around and becoming an actor.

Jennifer Hudson was voted off of American Idol and became an Academy Award winning actress and vocal powerhouse.

Steve Carell was a mailman and now delivers laughter in every project he’s apart of.

Whether their talent was or is respected, their greatness was inevitable.  Regardless of the odd jobs, the path that may have seemed like a dead end, there was always a greater DESTINY waiting around the corner! 

I will never allow any misfortune, any obstacle, any opinion breathe toxic fumes into my dreams.  If these people could become who they are and even effect our lives through their evolution, then I’m certain that my journey is not at its end. I will continue to persevere.

Kendra Jordan began making cakes December of 2009 to cope through a broken heart.  After surgery on her birthday, enduring bouts of depression, almost giving up on her God-given talents…she apprehensively, applied to an upcoming cake show at the suggestion of a friend.  With no hope in being selected, they loved her, and she was chosen. 

And then the story takes an intermission…Kendra Jordan was ”Box Truck”ed…carried off to some cake wasteland….but she finds a footing through cake batter and cracked fondant.  Ascends to the ground, brushes off her chef coat, and keeps going.  She’s coming back like Jordan, wearing his #23 Chicago Bulls jersey.  Like Hudson, walking to the podium to receive her Oscar.  Like Carell, turning in his 2 weeks notice at his mailroom for Hollywood.  Like Allen, getting a second chance at living life the right way.

Life, it’s what you make it.   No matter what, you have to leave this world.  So before you go, you might as well live your life with no regrets.  Live with passion and strive for GREATNESS.

Kendra.

The yellow brick road…

Sometimes I feel like Dorothy, off to see the wizard…the wonderful wizard of Oz Hollywood.  I am scared.  I’m alone…I’m clueless.    And even though Dorothy skipped along happily, hand-in-hand with her co-dependent trio, we know that the journey was not always joyful.  If only a good witch of the South would lend her magical wand, tap some pink, sparkly Christian Louboutin’s onto my feet, this trip wouldn’t seem so lions, tigers, and bears…oh my!

As I walk down a path that it seems a GPS can’t even detect, I’m forced to rely on antiquated senses, like faith……hope…and love.  I’m forever interrupted by my own disruptions…a scarecrow (my mind), a tinman (self-love), and a lion (fearlessness).  While it feels like baggage trying to continue to walk with these things pulling at my strength to go forward, I must endure the growing pains in order to fulfill the desires of my heart.  I guess it’s true when they say, only the strong survive.  The last I checked…my back was strong.  I’m brown, a female, a mother, gifted, blessed, and determined.  But honestly, sometimes I have no idea what I’m doing and I even have a more difficult time explaining how I got here.  Whether it be God, the Universe, Destiny, Fate, or dumb-luck…I know that it’s certainly on purpose. 

I’ll ease on down the road, whether it be trudging, hastily, apprehensively, or certainly…lions, tigers, and bears can never be avoided.  But I have to remind myself of the goal, believing that what I seek is only a yellow brick road away.  And I must stay grounded in the roots of where I’m from.  Dorothy never lost sight of the fact that she wanted to be home and that’s where her heart would always be.  She didn’t get caught up in the world of mysticism, magic, and make-believe that surrounded her.  She could have easily opened her eyes to how grand things were in this new world and said to hell with Kansas.  But she didn’t.  And even though she ended up going back home, she went back with a livelier spirit, more hope, and an appetite for adventure. 

Do I want nice things? Yes, I do.  Do I want to be famous? For the right reasons.  Do I want to make a difference in this world? Everyday.  But, in all that I do…home is at the core.  I will never lose sight of who I am…who I’ve always been…who I was before the world knew me…in order to achieve the desires of my heart.  I am not for sale.  I am not easily persuaded.  I will always be me, a girl from a small town with big dreams.  When this journey gets crazy, I may click my heels to remind me of who I am and to whom I belong.  Hollywood is dope, but there’s no place like home! =)