On Common Sense...

"In order to be used for greatness, one must forget everything the average man knows."


From the time I was a child, I knew I was different.  I thought differently from most of the people around me, but I wasn't aware of just how different I was until I started my M.Ed. program which focused on behavioral studies.  As got older, I became more aware of my difference and struggled to find someone to understand me.  I thought my mother did, but realized later that she really didn't.  She tolerated me because I made her laugh (and I bought her good gifts!).  She accepted my personality as "different" from her other children and, as long as I did what she wanted me to do, she didn't mind it so much.  Without realizing it, she became my best friend.  I didn't understand how different our relationship was from hers with the other siblings because I thought we all treated her with the same respect and loyalty.  Once what I knew to be true became different from what she knew, it began to separate me from her, and that's when I began to find out that her relationships with the others was quite different from ours.  The others had to help me to understand who she really was.

I'd always thought she was wiser than anyone could ever imagine.  I believed she would guide me through life and help me to understand all there was to know because, in my mind, she knew it all.  And she liked it that way.  I worshipped her.  Because of that, I never realized how much she was actually learning from me!  Everything I learned, I brought back to her.  Every experience I had in life, I shared with her as if she had been there herself.  In her own right, she lived vicariously through me, but I was totally and completely unaware of it at the time.  As my mind matured, I came to realize that she had married young in a day and age where the only thing a woman could really do to enjoy the finer things in life was marry a man who could provide them for her.  Women weren't treated equally nor were the opportunities for ethnic minorities as available as they are now.  She married young and had a whole bunch of children.  As each child was thrown into the whirlwind of life, experiencing what she wasn't quite ready for, she took what she learned from each experience and gave as much wisdom about it as she could to the next child.  Because there were a slew of kids older than me, by the time I was ready to face the things that separated the teenagers from the babies, she appeared wise beyond her years.  I never took into account all that went on before my teenage years because I was unaware of what my older siblings had gone through.  I learned from her what she wished she had taught them.  What I learned from her carried me well into adulthood, but once I made the decision to mature beyond only that which pleased her, I needed--and got--a new teacher.  As the Wisdom of life began to lead me down roads my mom had never traveled, I began to change in a way she didn't understand or like.  For both of us, it was an emotional roller coaster ride that snatched me from her grasp and threw me into a realm of existence that separated me not only from her, but from everyone and everything else I knew.  It took some years, but I came to realize that my mother and I were not as close as I thought we were.  It wasn't closeness, but rather the result of a mother's pleasure with her obedient child.  And that was what she liked about me.  Hell, I was scared to disobey!  Not only because she'd discipline me severely if I didn't, but because I had seen what life had done to the others before me who defied her.  There was never a good end to those stories, and she used their endings to her advantage when she dealt with me.  In other words, she used the negative experiences of her older children to mold me into what she wanted me to be, and as long as I was obedient, we didn't have a problem.

When it was time to cut the apron strings, Wisdom took ahold of me and catapulted me out of my mother's bosom and into my purpose in life---which was not to be an obedient little girl, but rather an adult woman with the wisdom and intellect necessary to help people in need of answers at a time when family, school, church, and sadly, elders, were not in a place to be trusted for the answers to life's most intimate questions.  In order to be this woman, I had to forget everything I once knew.  I went through many painful life's experiences, but each one branded me with what I needed in order to be who I am today, and what those who have needed my professional help needed me to be.  It's been a long journey, one my mother died not understanding, but I am finally very happy in the skin I'm in.  I knkow now that I'm different because I was chosen for greatness.  In order to bring out the greatness, I had to forget what the average me knew, and those who knew me had forget who I was back then.  And for the record, it wasn't easy for them, either.

Today, I'm quite successful doing what I do--producing for T.V. and the big screen--but I'm not in the presence of those who knew me "when" because they are not able to accept who I am now.  They knew me as I was struggling to have common sense.   "God gave you common sense!" I would often hear family and friends say.  After having had my feelings crushed by this statement several times, I learned to answer back, "No.  He gave you common sense; He gave me wisdom!"  They knew me when I was trying to hang on to what they knew.  I hung on because I knew that accepting what I now know would alienate me from everything I had always held so fast to.  Finally, I let go of the common sense and embraced Wisdom.  Wisdom is now my Guide, but I don't have the "common sense" God gave a goat!  I know this because I play Family Feud on my iPad every night before I go to bed.  I suck at it!  My answers are never the simple ones!  On the other hand, my scores are quite simple!

For Wisdom, one must let go of his common sense.  Though the payoff is huge, the process is costly.  Not everyone has to have wisdom.  You can stick with common sense, but common sense keeps you at the same pace as most others.  If you're like most others, it's because of what you all have in common.  It means you think alike.  That's okay, but you can't be used for greatness if you think like everyone else.  If you think like everyone else, the majority of people know what you know.  That makes your thoughts normal, not great.  Greatness is going to cost you everything you know, but it will replace what it takes away from you with amazing things you've never heard of.  That's what makes your thoughts great.  You think about things no one else has ever heard of.  With those thoughts, you can introduce to the world things that are creative and innovative.  Dare to be different.  In many cases, you already are.  Don't fret about being different.  You may just be the one used to save a drowning world--or at least a fraction of it.