Category — Building a Brand

Dear Commenters:

This is a subject I wish I did not have to address, but I am receiving too many comments that are repetitions of the same thing, in other words…SPAM! I truly appreciate the attention I am receiving for my work, but trying to weed through all the spam is really distracting from continuing with providing articles. I try to read each comment and personally respond to quite a few, but the task has become quite tedious of late.

I know there are many who use translators and perhaps it is easier to make one good comment and use it throughout, but I also use translators to respond and it doesn’t take that long to do. For many of the articles, lively discussion has become impossible because of the number of comments that are not relevant to the topic of the post.

This plea is not to stop or reduce the number of wonderful comments I receive, but offered in the interest of other readers who are making comments about the number of redundant comments. So I am asking that you please continue to let me hear from you, but reduce your self-promotion and advertising, and as of 1/21/2011, any repeated comments and those which do not address a specific subject will be marked as spam and deleted.

Please help me make this site a beneficial one for everyone who reads it.

Thank you, Paris

For the last four or five years I’ve been writing blogs and doing social networking and have joined or connected to over 300 internet groups. When I Google my name, I’m surprised at the things that pop up and am amazed at how far my name and messages have reached. This is not to thump my own chest, rather to set the stage for something which never ceases to amaze me. I wonder and am surprised when others comment on how strong they consider me to be.

My readers’ perceptions make me wonder to what exactly is that strength attributed? Is it the time I’ve spent at the keyboard pecking away; or it is starting, deleting, uploading and downloading pictures and videos? Is it using the Thesaurus to express the same words in different ways to vary my content; or is it reading and re-reading, checking the spell-checked text to be sure I’ve caught all the errors? Is it arranging, rearranging, placing and displacing sentences, clauses, phrases, titles, paragraphs, punctuation marks, or whole topics?

Is it the subject matter I write about; the opinions I confer, the arguments in which I take a determined stand, or the information about my experiences I choose to share? Or could it be my resolve to write even when I wonder if what I am saying is making a difference?

I have come to accept that my being strong is not a power that I particularly possess. But my strength comes from the perception of my readers. If those who read my articles can derive some measure of understanding, enlightenment and inspiration, I believe they are made stronger. Their strength is then reflected back to me in encouraging comments they send which in turn makes me stronger.

Without receiving responses, the posts I write are merely me consuming time and effort. Instead they have become more than expressions of my point of view and a sharing of my life’s journey. Our ongoing communications have become a source of reciprocal strength, and I wish to thank all of my readers for making me strong.

When we attain a certain level of maturity, it becomes easier to see the dynamics of human clashes or battles which we perhaps never noticed before. As a result, we learn to choose our battles rather than get involved in every conflict presented. In choosing our battles, we will also have a much quicker recovery time of letting things go and we are better able to respond or retract when necessary. Being immature, we usually only respond.

When there is some sort of confusion or problem, recognition of how to cooperatively proceed may require letting go of our bruised ego to achieve a safe, calm outcome. Knowing how and when to choose the battles we decide to fight can make life much less stressful and more controlled.

Indications that the situation is getting out of control, like raised voices and defensive body language, may signal the time to withdraw and exit. It may be that the scenario can or should continue without our further involvement. But if we insist on trying to explain why we are interested or try to protect our position in the matter, things could escalate into an argument, hurt feelings and a rift.

This is an example of several considerations we can go over in our mind in choosing our battles:

1. Have I overstepped my authority by saying something?
2. Am I aware or unaware of the reason(s) for the decision(s) which have been made?
3. Do I need to ask more questions before getting involved?
4. Should I just mind my own business and say nothing?
5. Although the situation used to be my concern, I am no longer involved; so the problem is not mine to try to solve.
6. I am doing or did the right thing by backing down and out.

When we learn to choose our battles and act accordingly, we can maintain the joy, peace and harmony in our lives and in the lives of others.

The best way to stop feeling sorry for oneself is to consider the plight of another. When the brightness of your self-pity is deflected from the mirror of your mind and you illuminate the path of someone else, you can stop squinting and open your eyes widely. Your light is no longer blinding.

But one of the most difficult things for a person to do is to turn attention away from themselves and devote it wholeheartedly to another when they themselves are confused or in pain. Being selfless is usually an act that requires a conscious decision, particularly if the other person is our equal or close to it.

We may sympathize with or be empathetic about someone’s pain. We may internalize or choose to ignore their suffering, but our reaction is based on how it will or does affect us. Regarding another becomes a personal matter of considering our own wellbeing first before promoting the caring focus toward the other person. We may eventually decide to put their need(s) before our own, but only after some thought as to what it will cost us.

It is not that we should dwell on our shortcomings as human beings, because we more often than not recognize our need to survive first and foremost, and usually make our determinations out of concern for our limitations. Therefore, in our interactions, it is normal to be well aware that we are not created to “be all things to all people.”

In celebration of Juneteenth, I wish I had the ability to express the wave of powerful emotions that washed over me and brought scalding tears to my eyes when I thought about writing this article. My mind flashed on my grandmother who was born in 1865, the year the slaves were “freed,” wearing her long white apron in Louisiana. I saw the fields of cotton my fiance took me to see in 2003 in California because I had never seen similar places down south where my people had labored during slavery.

In my mind’s eye I saw pictures of my black sisters and brothers being attacked with water hoses, dogs, Billy clubs and savagery. Then like fast forward, my mind brought me back to sitting in my bed and a blank sheet of paper, but the pain lingered.

I am a person who does not like black rhetoric, in fact I hate it; particularly when we linger and wallow in our ex-slave misery, using it as an excuse not to perform on the level we are capable of; we meaning black folks. But then I remember those who were left behind when the flight to white neighborhoods and a “better life” lured away our teachers, doctors, business people, ministers, and others of higher status and education after civil rights laws were mandated.

I don’t blame them. When my ex-husband and I bought our first home in 1976, it was in a new development with only one other black family. So I can relate to the desire to live the “American dream,” but what about all those who couldn’t leave and escape their stifling environment? What about all those who had menial jobs, but were decent, God-fearing folks who marched, and were beaten and spat on, but were left behind?

They are those on whose shoulders and graves so many of us black folks stand on today, and the generations they spawned are the people we now call the black Underclass. They are that group of low-income, barely educated, unsophisticated, crude people that many of us now avert our eyes from rather than notice or acknowledge. The ones many blacks and others from various ethnic groups are employed to serve because we are teachers, social workers, government employees, preachers, doctors, lawyers, police officers, prison staff, counselors, etc. etc. They are also the ones none of us can seem to accept as fellow human beings. We denigrate them to cases and files, numbers without faces or souls, but characters who are certainly not like us.

To proper society the Underclass are welfare mothers, drug-addicted or incarcerated or absent fathers, low-lifers, irresponsible, criminal, stupid, crazy, less-than-human wastes of time. And we wonder where they came from, or call them “refugees” as they were labeled in New Orleans after Katrina. We can take their children because they are poor and give them to others without a look back or a thought about their feelings. We can make them wait for hours while we take breaks or talk on the phone, thinking they have nothing else to do, and they need us to give them equity of food, clothing and shelter.

But the Underclass are none of these things, and without them many of us wouldn’t have jobs, or be able to live in our comfort zones. But primarily, we should consider that they are the products of the same stock of people from which many of us have come. They are the descendants of the bridges over which many of us have crossed, and they only want what we all want…to be loved and understood. But primarily, we should consider that they are the offspring of the people who were simply left behind.

In one of my earlier posts, I said I had some regrets for decisions I’d made in my past. I would like to rescind that today. Last night I was having a conversation with one of my sons who lived through a very traumatic portion of my life with me, and knows first hand of some of my decisions. He spoke of my having regret, but without thinking about how I felt in the past, I said to him, “No, I don’t have any regrets about anything I’ve done.”

He thought my leaving home and relocating to a different state should have been viewed by me as regrettable. The fact that I left my children behind with their father was his most fault-finding reason, but to me I made the decision to leave and it was the best thing I could do for myself at the time. I’m not apologizing for my actions, but perhaps a little explanation is necessary.

I was married at 19 to my first boyfriend, who was a blind date for my senior prom. That should say something about my social and life experience. My parents approved of my now ex-husband, and we were married a year after I graduated from high school. Right away we had two sons, and on the day our second son was born, my husband conceived another son with someone else, in my home, in my bed.

For someone who had a childlike mentality of playing house as a wife, and was still reading fairy tales which all ended in “happily ever-after,” my world was turned completely upside down. Unknown to everyone in my family, I kept my husband’s secret for 13 years, and we had two more children, our daughters.

But after suffering in silence and telling myself for those 13 years that, “One day I will get away,” I did. The mental and emotional abuse of his continuing infidelity became more than overwhelming and I escaped with the first offer of freedom that came along. My family encouraged me to stay and my father told me, “It doesn’t matter if he has 2 or 3 old women lying around. Stay there anyway.”

But taking my father’s example of relocating our family from Louisiana to California years before, I left my family and moved from San Francisco to Atlanta believing I could make an untroubled life for me and my children. My actions, however, were seen as tantamount to heresy because I was a “mother.” My son, family and many others think I should feel regret for doing what I did (although he and his brother would never have been born if I hadn’t.) Why is it that men seldom feel the need to explain or regret? To me it is a classic example of sexism. What are your views?

One of the things I appreciate most about getting older is learning to relax and allow life to happen. When you’re young everything seems to be an emergency, a tragedy or a disaster. Young people are in constant struggle mode. All events become mountains. But when you get older, the challenges of life are like bumps in the road and the solutions are expected to be just over the horizon.

Recently, the subject of using one’s expertise to form a monetized business has been very prevalent in many of the social network sites to which I belong. The writers of those blogs and articles have turned their skill of giving advice into businesses of encouraging others to do the same. They are calling themselves coaches or consultants. As I have lived for 67 years and find myself safely on the other side of many of life’s challenges, perhaps my experiences have become my expertise.

I tell my special someone all the time that when I make my final transition this time, I will not be coming back as there is not too much of life I haven’t already lived through. So whether I make money or not by sharing my experiences, I feel that the matters of life I learned will be of benefit to someone, and I welcome the chance to share them.

Prior to becoming a blogger, I decided to make recordings for my children and grandchildren about things I felt they might need to help on their journeys. These tidbits of “wisdom” were paid for with many tears, sleepless nights, confusion and faulty decisions. But there were also flashes of pure joy, pleasure, fun, laughter, satisfaction and love. To say the good outweighed or outnumbered the bad is one of the reasons I am still standing and happy today. So the first and most important “fully-lived” matters of life aspect, barring extreme physical or mental disability, is the balance of experiences.

Another very important matter of life is that time takes care of many things. Time must always be weighed whether things are going good or bad, as everything is temporary…and I do mean everything! Taking time into consideration, we should be totally engaged in enjoying life’s good times, and detached when involved in the bad.

Detaching yourself from a negative situation does not mean to neglect your duty or give up. Detaching means to take responsibility for the part you played, but to use the experience to learn a lesson. You should forgive yourself and any others involved, and do whatever is necessary to solve the problem. “There is nothing new under the sun,” and you are not the first or last who has made the same or worse mistake. Asking for help and responding as quickly as possible are also important steps in the process.

Remember that time will alleviate some of the pressure, but your emotional state during the course of action will determine success or failure. Others will understand and allow you to move on if the situation requires remorse and restitution, and you are willing to give both. Doing your part to fix or rebuild the relationship or problem will help you mature and become stronger when the next problems come, and they always will.

In her song, Each Tear, Mary J. Blige sings:

“In each tear there’s a lesson.
Makes you wiser than before.
Makes you stronger than you know.
Each tear brings you closer to your dreams.
No mistake, no heartbreak can take away what you’re meant to be.”

In the next installment we’ll examine these factors again along with others, but remember, in matters of life, the good outweighs the bad, all things happen in time, attitude makes or breaks a situation, and the responsibility of living a good life is yours.
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After working diligently to get my children’s book and rag dolls published and manufactured, I am constantly made aware that there is always something new that needs to be done. There’s always some tweaking, redesigning, refining, and redefining required.

As our products move along in our plans for them, we become more aware of how time is affecting what we have to offer, as well as the way in which we have to offer it. For example, on one of the sites where the image of the doll is imprinted on various products, another image requiring a transparency rather than a picture will be utilized.

This change was suggested by the artist who did the vector illustrations for the book. This alteration will give a more updated, cleaner look to the products and the artwork will provide outlets for further items like cards, posters, etc.

It is changes such as this that is required to keep up with what is happening in the marketplace. When I watched cartoons with my grandson on Saturday morning, I was delighted to see how fresh and beautiful Mickey and Minnie and Goofy and all the Disney character’s looks have evolved.

Seeing Disney as an outstanding role model, and observing their evolution, keeps me moving forward. Their success motivates me to continue to realize that there is always something that needs to be done, and being willing to make the changes can be very beneficial as well as promote longevity.

This is a picture of my rag doll, Bubba Oodle. For the last 18 years I have prepared for, cared for and now I’m introducing Bubba to the world as the first visitor from the land of Oodleville. Bubba is one of 10 characters in my adventure stories for children, the first one is entitled, “The First Trip.”

The idea for Bubba and the other Oodle Dolls was conceived during a conversation with my daughter. We were sharing stories about toys and dolls we loved as children. I mentioned how I made dolls from soda bottles, clothes pins and hemp rope; she mentioned how she loved rag dolls. Then she asked why there were no commercial black rag dolls, and could I make some?

Having been a seamstress for a large portion of my life, I had scraps of cloth and ribbon in my sewing basket and soon had all of the dolls made. They were given names and occupations, and the stories seemed to flow about their imaginary land of Oodleville.

Now that the first story has been published, and the Bubba Oodle dolls’ store is up and running, things are in ready for Bubba to meet children from around the world, and I feel like a parent whose child is going off to college. As with that event, I am very proud of what has been and will be accomplished.

http://oodleville.myshopify.com

www.thefirsttrip.com

www.cafepress.com/oodleville

For the last 18-plus years since I have been trying to bring my dolls and books to market, there have been many occasions when I’ve felt like throwing in the towel and giving up, and I often wondered why I hadn’t.

I have signed three contracts and seen many people come and go who have become enthused and excited about my project, but who have faded away over time. I have even had people whom I have asked for advice and direction, and some who would have loved to see me fail, suggest that I should give up and try something else… but still I held on. Something always pulled me back whenever I got too close to the precipice of throwing in the towel. 

In time I came to see that it was not because I needed to do what I was trying to do. I’m retired, I have a nice apartment; good friends; and a loving family. It was not because I am a materialistic person, I can buy whatever I desire and come and go as I please. Sure I could use more money, who couldn’t, but money was not motivating me to keep going either. Like Martin Luther King, Jr., what was holding me hostage was the realization that I had a dream. 

My dream was and is to help my family; help other people who like me have a dream; and help parents and their children. The desire to help has been so strong it keeps pushing and pulling, carrying me along through all the disappointments, deterrents and detours I’ve had to overcome and endure. Throwing in the towel was not an option, and if nothing else, I’ve learned to be patient and to believe that “delay does not mean denial.” 

Now I have published my first children’s book, The First Trip, and have the first character doll, Bubba Oodle, ready for market and I know the thrill of achievement. But the greatest lesson learned has been the establishment of faith in my ability to successfully accomplish whatever I say I can. 

So to any entrepreneur who needs to hear it, don’t throw in the towel just yet. There could be something greater than you ever imagined waiting to be realized.