5 reasons not to fall for a guy's potential

When I first heard the Wale song/poem "ambitious girl" the line that stuck out to me was "i like the person you are but I love the person you have the potential to be." At first, I definitely related to that mentality but then I started thinking more about the things wrong with thinking that way. I'm guilty of it myself but I am simultaneously learning that it might not be such a good idea to love someone's potential.

Everybody wants to find that perfect guy but perfect doesn’t exist. Because perfect doesn’t exist, we try to get as close to it as possible. People often fall for the potential a guy has rather than who they are to begin with. We think we can change them and they’ll be molded into the perfect guy for us. But what happens when that crumbles in our faces? Here are 5 reasons not to fall for a guy’s potential.

1. A lot of times guys don’t want to be changed. They are happy with who they are; whether flawed or not we have to remember that what might be a flaw to us might be treasured by the next person.
2. You will stress yourself out trying so hard to change somebody who as I’ve mentioned might not want to be changed. As the saying goes “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” You will be pulling your hair out trying to figure out how to make your “horse” drink that water.
3. Once you realize that the guy is not changing, you may begin to settle. There’s a big difference from compromising and accepting someone’s flaws and settling. Settling is when you just accept the person because you don’t have the energy to fight it anymore even if their entire character is not what you ever saw yourself with.
4. The guy may NEVER reach the potential that you imagined for him. Just because you think he can be this great guy who fits your needs and wants perfectly, doesn’t mean he ever will. You’ll be left waiting for a change that’s never coming.
5. Lastly, your guy may reach the potential that you saw in him and helped him to achieve and find someone else! Now, you’ve spent all of this time molding a guy to be exactly how you want him just for him to go out and find someone who he may have never been able to get if he wasn’t the guy you helped him to be. Now you’re back at square one all over again.

Are Good Guys Extinct?

The other day I was talking to one of my friends and she was telling me her viewpoints on guys and relationships. Listening to her, I was in disbelief of how her views had become so pessimistic but when I thought about it longer I did understand why. In her opinion, all guys are bad and that sometimes very rarely you can find someone who isn’t. I asked her how she explained the fact that I’ve been in a relationship and happy for almost four years with someone who she knows is a good guy. Her explanation was “ya’ll got together when you were younger though. It’s harder to find that now.”

As I dissected her argument, I realized that her viewpoints were all grounded in her experiences and things that she has witnessed, as with most people. I do agree with her that finding a good guy might be hard but I don’t think it’s as impossible as she was making it seem. I know plenty of genuine guys as well as plenty of people in happy relationships. At the same time, my friend who thought this way did so because of what she is surrounded by. She is surrounded by nothing but hood dudes and quite honestly that’s self explanatory. Guys that she has dealt with as well as a lot of her friends have been in this environment which I think more than contributes to their behavior. Maybe if she was surrounded by a more diverse group of men, her opinion wouldn’t be so one-sided and pessimistic. I just wonder how she can judge “all guys” when all she knows is the same guys. I told her that once she breaks out of that environment and starts to meet different groups of people she’ll reevaluate her views. She just kept shooting that down and saying that REAL good guys don’t exist because all the guys she met who told her they were different turned out to be the same. My reply to that is, nobody who really is “different” has to stress how different they are, they just are and that was her mistake in believing them. Her mentality on the extinction of good guys is comparable to looking at a rose bush. Just because one rose bush has more thorns than roses doesn’t mean that if you go to a different bush, there won’t be more roses than thorns because different environments result in different situations.

Although I’ve watched even as some of my other friends struggle through relationship problems, I refuse to believe her viewpoint that “good guys” are obsolete. As I explained to another one of my friends, a “good guy” can be defined as a genuine nice guy. He is somebody who isn’t trying to play around with people’s feelings, who’s overall intentions are good and honest and who doesn’t act as the typical guy. Good guys don’t wow you with their words, but they wow you with their actions. I see these guys as the Derwin Davis’s of the world (The Game) who are genuine at heart and although they may mess up because all humans are flawed, they stay true to their humility and honesty as well as their good intentions. Am I wrong for thinking this exists? I don’t think so because I think I’ve got it. I was listening to a song by Lyfe Jennings and he said “be the person you want to find. Don’t be a penny out here looking for a dime,” and I think that statement underlines what might be the problem for many in finding a “good guy.” This might not be the most original of topics. I’m pretty sure all the single women stuck idolizing sex in the city and becoming the characters that make up “he’s not that into you” have debated this forever. However, my friend’s attitude towards the whole subject just had me thinking. Granted we’re young, but I wonder if she thinks it’s going to get any better in the future. Instead of thinking there’s nothing out there because there isn’t on her beach, she needs to dig through the sand with her metal detector to find some treasure on a different island.

Clueless in College? I think not..

Do you have it together? I don’t. Recently I have begun to realize that as far as my career goals and aspirations, I haven’t been doing all the things that I should be doing to achieve them. I’ve always felt that I had it all figured out because I knew what I wanted to do and was on the correct pathway to doing so. Despite this, in a field that is so competitive, I am now seeing that I should have been doing more and I could have been doing more. Now I’m panicking and thinking that I wasted so much time because I’m in my last year of college and this is my last shot. Because I’m the type of person that likes to plan things out, I’m tacitly freaking out because things have not gone according to the plans that I had set for myself. Before going into college, I knew for a while that journalism was what I wanted to pursue and I felt that in knowing that, I was one step ahead of my peers who at the time were clueless (some of which who still are). I told myself that I was going to do an internship every year of my college career so that by the time I left, I would have a job secured instead of idly wasting time waiting around for an opportunity. The thing is, plans don’t always work out perfectly and as I went through 2 and a half years of college I watched as my plans crumbled. I had yet to obtain an internship despite the fact that I was applying everywhere I could. Even then, I didn’t realize how behind I already was.

Now that I have an internship that I love because I am learning so much, reality is setting in more and more that I don’t have it all together, not even halfway. There’s so much more to learn and more importantly so much more for me to do that I just can’t believe I let myself reach this point. Just when I really started beating myself up over it, my best friend came to my house. When we got into the discussion of careers and where we’re going, I realized that her situation is much worse than my own. She is about to be in her last year of college as well and is majoring in animal science because her dreams of being a veterinarian met with the reality of how difficult a task that was. But what does someone do with a major in animal science? Now she’s at the point where she wants to change her career path all together and go to graduate school for communications. It’s definitely more than a little late in the game to be changing career paths and she will have a bachelor’s degree that is practically useless to her. Even with all her thoughts on what she might do, she still hasn’t made up her mind definitively and is more or less clueless. It’s crazy that there are actually still so many people like her who just don’t have a clue and no one to give them one either. At that point, I felt much better about myself and the mental panic attacks I was having. Although I might not have been doing all that I should have been doing, I am positive on what it is that I want to do. I realized for once in my life though, that maybe I’m not meant to have it all figured out and that things won’t always go the way that I plan them to go in my head but it’s ok. My best friend’s situation made me realize that although I don’t have it all together, I’m still a step ahead of all of the people like her of the college world who are just wasting away time and money to remain without a clue. Realizing that I don’t have it all figured out has been more beneficial to me than anything. My problem was that I had been too set on believing that I had it all figured out but that was mentally and my actions weren’t backing that up. They do say that step one to solving the problem is acknowledging the problem. Well now that I’ve acknowledged it, it has sparked the drive in me that I should have had from day one. I see so many people like my best friend spending all this time in college to be clueless and I’m determined that I will not fall into that category. This is the last chance for me and I don’t have time to let myself fall into that category. I don’t have it all together and I’m ok with that for now because these realizations are all steps added on my pathway to success. I just know that no matter what it takes, I’m not going to be just another one that is clueless in college.

Interning at Juicy

On May 24, 2010, I arrived at 1115 Broadway to embark upon a journey that I wasn’t sure what to expect from. I still hadn’t come to terms with whether or not I was imagining the whole thing but once I stepped foot onto the 8th floor and signed my name, I knew it was real. From that moment on, it has been nothing less than that: real. Each day that I go to Juicy, I leave a little less naïve, a little more informed and a lot more zealous than the day before. The learning process began immediately and I realized that I had to constantly keep up with the entertainment websites and celebrities if that was the field that I wanted to work in. I was happy that it wasn’t the clichéd internship of getting coffee and making copies that I heard so many complain about but that I was actually doing things that I would have to do in the future when I pursue my career in the magazine industry. I have had to do a lot of in depth research to find out information such as the timeline and events of Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz’s relationship. Through each little detail I found, I realized all the work that really goes into making a magazine and I was truly inspired. People probably always imagine that it must take a lot of work and research to produce something like a magazine however, you never truly understand until you have done it. Those experiences alone have given me more insight into what it is really like to contribute to the production of a magazine and has driven me even more to want to do it. After doing some of that research, my editor asked me if I still want to work in the magazine industry and my answer is now more than ever. Interning at Juicy, I have also attempted writing captions which I learned was not an easy task and while I struggled at it, I realized I want to challenge myself to become better and persevere. When people ask me about my internship and what I do and I tell them, they seem almost amazed that I am actually getting to do things that are relevant to my future career goals and aspirations and I couldn’t be happier that I am. All the tasks that I have done while working here, even down to making folders for press releases have made me see how much I can envision myself doing these things in the future. My editor is always giving me advice and tips that are nothing less than invaluable and I’m determined to work harder and stop at nothing because this is the industry that I desire to be in. She also often asks me questions about things that I am doing and my future career goals that makes me reflect on myself and realize more and more how much dedication I have to put in to be in this industry. This journey and these lessons are not over yet but so far I have learned more than ever and experienced more than ever and not just about the magazine industry but about myself as well. Every dat at Juicy, I feel like I am closer to my dreams and now instead of just being dreams I feel that they are possible if I put in the effort that I have been inspired to do from working here. Every moment is helpful and relevant and I don’t think that I could ask for anything more in an internship.