Clean Up Your Sh*^!

One of the blessings of my position as a Municipal Court Judge is the fact that I meet and interact with so many wonderful people every day that I have many chances to gain and exchange wisdom.  In addition to my court room experience, I spent many years as a Defense attorney and all my life as a woke Black Man.  One reoccurring theme in life is that we often let our mess go unaddressed. We ignore the very things that are keeping us from truly living our best lives. However, If you want to live your best life you have to clean up your mess.


CONFRONT THE ISSUES IN FRONT OF YOU 

In order to change and move from where you are to where you want to be you have to gain the courage to confront the issues in front of you.  I get asked for advise often and I’ve come to lean that that people will ask me for advice and then defend against the answer that I give them.  They’ll ask “Do you think that I should leave this relationship because she is consistently acting disrespectful?”  Or some other question just like that.  Then I’ll start to say “from the outside looking in that person simply is not right for you...,” and before I can finish the sentence the person who asked me for advise begins to defend the person, the question and the answer. “Well I am the one who starts a lot of the arguments.....” 

I understand that many issues, situations and relationships are more than surface deep and it takes more than a few minutes of advise to get to the bottom of a problem and to the best solution, however many of you don’t even want to try.  You would rather sit in your mess, deal with the same limited success or occasional pain than to clean up your Sh*^.  Notice that I said “occasional pain” because when it comes to admitting that you need to make a major change in your life, all of a sudden the situation was not that bad.  “He only hit me a few times.” “She only acts that way when she’s been drinking.” But as I said, in order to move to the place that you know you deserve or at least to move in the direction of your gut feeling that life can be better, you have to be honest, identify, name and confront the issues that are in front of you.


COMMIT TO THE LIFE YOU WANT TO LIVE

You have to commit to the life that you want to live.  You have to commit to the success that you want to achieve.  Instead of doing this, people commit to a person, place or ideal even when that person, place or ideal doesn't’ serve them any more.
  
Instead of being so willing to commit to other people and to commit to ideas, commit to the life that you want to live. You already know the life that you want to live.  You already know the dreams that you have for your career, you already know the dreams that you have for your family.  You already know the dreams that you have for your relationship.  Why do you continue to settle for less than the life that you want?

In my court I see the result of not staying committed to the life that you really want to live.  I see the grief.  I see the regret.  I see the pain.  I see devastation that life can bring when you fail to confront your issues.  I see the traps that life presents when you won’t even admit that you have any issues at all.  ​

When you are truly ready to get off the treadmill of moving everyday, all day and never getting anywhere closer to the dream life that you want, you have to first confront the issues that are in front of you and then make a new commitment with yourself and a commitment to the life that you want to live.  In other words, you have to clean up you Sh*^!