Let me share with you some things that you need to know.

• You CAN make your own rules.

When I worked in Small Town, Oregon, Hassan would come visit on his weekends.  HIS weekends consisted of Saturday night after he had finished driving through Monday evening/Tuesday morning when he’d fly back to Chicago and hop right back in the truck.  So he would take me to work on Mondays when he was in town.  The company I worked for was so casual it would amaze you (unless you knew the industry).  Every woman in the Finance/Accounting area would talk about the number of fine suits we USED to own and what we had done with them……because slacks was the fanciest you could get and that would be at the company Christmas party.

Hassan has only commented on my appearance ONCE since I’ve known him….it was a Monday morning when he was dropping me off at work and I’ll never forget it.  He looked at me and said “You look really elegant today.”  THINK I DON’T REMEMBER THE EXACT OUTFIT!  I was wearing some jeans that actually fit my waist AND my hips, a gold and white wool pancho and some boots.  Every time I think I’m looking jazzy I remember that outfit.  So today I think I’m looking jazzy and I thought about that outfit and I smiled.  Because when I open my own corporate doors……I’ll have the ability to wear what I want.

Now…that being said, I have to exemplify my busienss style when I meet with clients….but that’s not to say that it has to be in a Donna Karan suit with pointy toed heels all the time.  I’ll make my own rules.  Guess what……IBM’s rules don’t have to be yours.  Hell…before they were IBM’s rules…they were someone else’s.  IBM didn’t start as a Fortune 500 company.  It started as someone like Glory or Melette having an idea.  And when that idea grew, they eventually developed their very own standard for dress.

My standard for dress will include jeans.   Cause it can.

• Accept the things that make you smile.

There is a blog that is so freakin silly sometimes that it gives me a migraine.  But it’s written by someone I know and could consider a friend.  Sometimes she writes things that make me smile from ear to ear.  So see…..even if the thing that makes you smile is really really stupid (and would make Big Sister Gorgeous One shake yo ass), accept that it makes you smile and move on.  Embrace those types of things more often than the alternative.

• Stress is real!

My mother and I were talking…..wait….let me back up.  I have had chronic headaches since I moved to Chicago.  Pain to the point where I have stayed home all day with the lights off.  Pain at the base of my head, scaring the hell out of me.  I thought something was severly wrong.  I had headaches, I would get nauseous, it’s a terrible feeling.  I spoke to a doctor…..wanna know what the doctor said?

So how long have you suffered from migraines?

Migraines?  I don’t have migraines.  Immitrex?  Yeah, my previous doctor tried to give me that……taking it made me loopy though so I stopped.  Migraines?  FOR REAL?  Damn.  I hate migraines.  The worst part is that I can feel it coming on.  It comes in stages.  I have been investigating natural remedies (and lifestyle) and it was suggested that I check out a specific website of an herbalist.  Right there was an article written about headaches……..he didn’t suggest a body detox, he didn’t suggest a raw foods diet, he didn’t attribute migraines to refined sugar and starch.  Nope.  He said that 90% of the fault lay with stress and fatigue.

Well damn.

As a matter of fact, he was very spiritual in writing that when we BLOCK ourselves from our intended path….we get locked up.  We lock up our entire bodies and minds fighting what we’re “supposed” to be doing.  We are basically in a battle…….having battle headaches, blocking headaches.  As I was reading th article, I stopped and focused on myself.  My teeth were cleanched together, jaw tight, my shoulders were hunched up to my ears, and my head was killing me.

WOW!

Back to the conversation I had with my mother.  My young cousin that was recently crowned a beauty queen, has been having similar headaches.  Pain to the point that she was rushed to the hospital following an appearance.  The doctor’s diagnosys was stress and fatigue.  When my aunt told my mother, my mother went into flashback mode….”I remember when Original Diva was first diagnosed with stress issues back in college girl.  Her hair fell out, she had headaches, her vision suffered…..life was hard.  Hell….5 years ago she was sitting in the doctor’s office arguing about being exhausted and the next thing I know they called me from the hospital and she was being admitted.”

Yep…..I’ll never forget it.  I was sitting on that folding bed thing talking to my doctor.  He said that I was “suffering” from exhaustion and that my blood pressure was off the charts (which is never normal for me) and that my iron and protein levels didn’t look good.  He was telling me to sit down but I was too busy arguing with him because exhaustion is not a damn disease!  You don’t see a damn doctor for exhaustion!  Well I woke up the next day in a hospital room with a damn IV in my arm.  I fooled around and fell out in the damn doctor’s office!  Want to know what my A-HA moment was?  The people stressing me the most didn’t even call to see if I was okay. 

Motivation for not being stressed?  Healthy hair!  My hair was so damn bad in undergrad.  I’ve been wearing it straight all week and it’s full of body, healthy, and fabulous.  My skin is in good shape.  You just have no idea the change that not being stressed can have on you.

If you think you’re stressed….WORK ON IT!  If you know you’re stressed….WORK ON IT!  If you’re not stressed now….STAY THAT WAY!  Acknowledge that stress is real and can kill you.

• Stop lying to yourself.

One of my favorite people in the world called me last night.  I love this chick so much that I have decided to add Philly to my road trip map just to see her.  She called to talk to me about the challenge I apparently issued to my readers by asking them what their MORE to life is.  So I say to everyone else what I said to her……not identifying our MORE is an excuse for us not to achieve it.  As long as you don’t know what it is, you have an excuse not to do it.  You keep doing what you’re doing (that makes you halfway miserable) because you “don’t know what that more is.”  Identify it…..and go for it.  If I haven’t gotten anything else out of being married for 9 months (today) it’s to just go for it hell.

When I started typing I swear I had more lessons than this….but in the process I forget some.  Oh well.