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ALWAYS LOVE<3

~WHEN WHAT YOU BOUGHT ISN'T WHAT YOU PAID FOR~

''REAL Love begins where Nothing is expected in return...''

Okay so the other day I was listening to a program on T.V about the growth of online shopping, (I say listening because I don’t really watch T.V much, I just had it on as background noise.) and it got me thinking about how frustrating it must be to order something online [and anxiously wait for it,] only to find that it’s not at all what you thought?

When what you bought just ISN’T what you paid for!!

When what you see is NOT what you get!!

When that contractual agreement is NOT what you signed up for!!………………………………….welcome to the era of online shopping.

Here’s the thing we can now shop for clothes, a car, a house, and oh yeah a new body and spouse all at the same time and ALL online lol. The problem is when you’re purchasing something online you can only buy it off face value [worst still ‘Screen value’] which means that, whilst it may look perfect on your laptop, pc or phone screen, you can’t guarantee that’s what you  buy is what you'll get?

Now even for me [as a child of the twenty first century] this is such a bizarre concept to grasp. I know I should be au fait with it all by now but as technology advances at the speed of light, I can’t help but feel I’m getting left behind. [Definitely born in the wrong era] I mean, call me old fashioned but surely something’s should be allowed to happen organically and should not be available to purchase “ONLINE”.

With this in mind I started thinking how daunting it must be to start online dating [especially for those of us who are on the better side of 25 ;-) I mean it’s one thing ordering a dress and then deciding that it’s not a good fit and sending it back, but how does it work with the whole dating sitch…..I imagine there’s no return to sender right?? lol. Anyway, take it from me, as an independent (Not Single lol) mother of two, the thought of getting back into the dating game, definitely does NOT sound appealing. [Especially with all the horror stories that Iv heard from friends] I mean if you thought blind dates were bad back in the day, (when you had friends and family members aka overly concerned aunties) rallying around trying to play Cilla Black at her own game, that’s got nothing on the new age of findMeADate.com where ‘False Advertisement’ and being 'economic with the truth' are required skills for writing a profile lol.

• I love children – (translation) = I have ten baby mama’s
• I’m 5ft 10” – yeah ok more like 5ft 5”
• I have strawberry blonde hair – Oooooh is that the new Ginger then??? (haha I’m playing)

Worse than that though!! are the advertisements that seem authentic and have sold you a dream so much so that you don’t even recognise it’s a nightmare until you wake up. Thinking that a situation is something it’s not just because you wish it was or seeing a person as someone they’re not, until you put your glasses on. Better yet wanting something so much but then when you get it, feeling like it’s not enough.

• When you met her she was an avid gym goer  [because it was the 2^nd of January ]
• When you met him he was driving a Mercedes CLK [because his dad was away on business]
• When you took her out for dinner she told you she was a model [she neglected to mention the word ‘Glamour’]
• Whilst out for lunch he mentioned HIS company [But omitted to say it doesn’t exist yet]

It’s so easy to be disillusioned with a relationship when what you thought it was, it really never was. Just like with anything in life when you’re planning on making an investment you need to be careful where your make your deposits because getting involved with someone under false pretences i.e. liking them for what they look like, what they can do for you, or their social status ,are all superficial reasons that are subject to change and can have you investing in relationships with no returns!!!

Were you really in love with the Person or the PAY CHECK???  Were you attracted to their POWER or their Persona?? Because when you truly love a person for who they really are, I don’t think that a change in circumstance, lifestyle or even attitude will change how you feel about them. You’ll love them regardless. So even if the relationship gets altered or has to come to an end because it has become destructive or non-productive, in the words of one of the greats:

“Love does not alter when an alteration finds” (William Shakespeare)

So if you go out with someone for their, money, social status or asthetics and then find these things suddenly change and so  do your feelings, then yeah sure i guess you could say that  'what you bought into is no longer what you paid for......but,

 “Being in love with some-THING is not the same as being in love with some-ONE.”

Anyway getting back to the point......Clearly I can’t speak for everybody or even the majority of people for that matter, BUT I definitely have some reservations about ‘Hubby Hunting’ or ‘Surfing for spouses’ online.  One reason being that realistically, when did what you look like on paper ever equate to who you really are as a person?  And how is a list of likes and dislikes, pet peeves and preferences indicative of one’s moral, ethical or even spiritual values anyway?

I don’t know but couldn’t it be said, that by selecting dates based on people that “literally” tick all the right boxes you’re just considerably reducing the already shallow dating pool of potential suitors. [Lets be real, post 30 we’re looking at what…. ‘pond status’ and after that I’m backing we’ll be entering ‘puddle territory’ haha haha] Sorry I’m only playing but  I say this because I live this, I’m learning a lot about myself through introspection and so thought I’d share a little with you guys. Feel free to share some insights with me too  #ALLOpinionsWelcome

Till next week,  ease up fellow singletons, embrace the ‘differences’ and start being open to the exciting possibility of ‘change’ because evidently what you think you know or "LIKE"  hasn’t been working for you so far  has it??  :-/  #DontBeAfraid2ChangeItUP

Sometimes the so called ‘differences’ between people can be ‘THE DIFFERENCE’ that makes a couple work don’t you think?

#ALWAYSLOVE <3

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AND I WILL BE STOPPING POSTING ON THIS SITE AS OF NEXT MONTH.....SO COME JOIN ME ON THE OTHERSIDE ;-)

HEY.....JUST ANOTHER LITTLE REMINDER THAT I HAVE MOVED OVER TO WORDPRESS NOW. SO ANYONE TRYING TO FIND MY  BLOGS YOU CAN CHECK THEM OUT ON

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...SEE YOU ON THE OTHERSIDE.......#NiaJETs

#ALWAYSLOVE

Hey Guys,

****NEW BLOG WILL BE UP WEDS 30TH JANUARY.....ON MY NEW BLOG SITE... http://www.nia-jai.wordpress.com *** so if you're missing a bit of Mz M@nni in your life hit up WORDPRESS.COM tomorrow and read my latest blog!!!

#ALWAYS LOVE <3
Nia-Jai

……BIG MOUTH BUT NO BALLS!!!!

Welcome back readers :-) Happy New Year!!! how have you guys been? Good and recovered from the seasons festivities i hope. I cant lie iv missed venting with you so please feel free to let me know your thoughts and feelings on this one!!! <3

So lately it came to my attention that certain people whilst they may be getting older in age they are most definitely not more mature and it got me thinking?? Why is it that when some people have a problem with you they choose to bitch behind your back instead of just saying what they feel to your face? I mean we all must have encountered this type of person before at one point or another right?!? There is no way that you could have made it through High School without coming across that immature brat that was clearly in need of a b!tch slap!!!!!!  And the joke of it all is that the ones that run their mouth unnecessarily are always the ones that when confronted can’t seem to back it up. I think Jay-z’s lyric sums it up best…. “You know the type Loud as a motorbike but wouldn’t bus a grape in a fruit fight.”

As we all know Insecure people throw ‘In-directs’ because more often than not they don’t have the balls to say what they want to ‘Directly’ (Big Mouth but NO Balls). What I don’t get though is why after doing so they then want to feel sorry for themselves, when they face the shocking realisation that those low (insignificant) blows tend to have boomerang effect #KARMA

Enemies that are loud and ‘Peck your Head’ all the time pose no real threat because just like #Woodpecker’s you know when they’re about so you can remove them before they cause too much damage. (Superficial harm) Hence the saying ‘Never fear the enemy that makes himself known, for he alone will be his own downfall’ but rather watch out for the ones that are trained to camouflage because the enemy that takes up residence within, that pretends to be your friend and builds you up to your face but then tears you down when you’re not around is dangerous!!!! These are the ones that will eat away at your foundations and break you from within without you realising till the damage is done = #Termites

“The one that is with you but not for you…..has the ability to end you.”

So here’s the thing back in the day I used to spend my time confronting set Woodpecker’s and putting them in their place (and believe me I was good at it, bearing in mind that I have  always had a way with words so exchanging them was never a problem for me lol)  However now it just doesn’t relevant anymore. If anything it tickles me, because now I have realised that if false accusations have no truth in them then clearly they don’t need correcting. I no longer fight to prove myself right I’m content with just knowing that I AM and that like it or not, agree with it or not, the TRUTH is absolute and will always precipitate sooner or later irrespective of the level of manipulation people will go to. As the old Buddhist proverb so wisely puts it:-

“If someone offers you the gift of insults and you do not accept that gift, then to whom does the gift belong?”

That being said since receiving that revelation, my life has been a lot more enjoyable let me tell ya. Learning to let things and people go that are not important and not holding onto grudges or taking offence does a happy Mz Manni make hahaha.

My advice for you all this year (2013) would be to take a good look at the company you keep and don’t worry about the woodpeckers that you come across just watch out for the termites and exterminate them when necessary.

Remember that regardless of whether or not you are only reacting to someone else’s poor behaviour, whatsoever YOU sow YOU shall reap!! So think before you speak. Not everything or everyone is worthy of a response so don’t dignify them with one, just #LIVELOVELAUGH and keep moving on!!

Oh and my one suggestion for certain #WOODPECKERS aka angry birds out there is do yourselves a favour and "Drop the Drama already!!!! Because you’re starting to look older but clearly NOT WISER!!!

Love and Blessings to all the REAL people in my life who have done nothing but love and encourage me throughout the last year and for those who didn’t make the cut know this…..

 “It takes a lot to push my buttons but if I swing I won’t miss.”

By pecking away at this Diamond you only made me shine Brighter ©Nia-Jai 2013

#ALWAYSLOVE <3

#23 IS THE MAGIC NUMBER.....MICHAEL JORDAN!!!

Good morning J todays blog is inspired by the GREATMAN himself Michael #23 Jordan. As some of you may know I have been reading M.J’s autobiography “Driven From Within” but what you don’t know is that I am absolutely taken with it. Not just with the level of success he achieved but more so with him as a person. Without going into too much detail (as I wouldn’t want to spoil it for anyone intending on reading it) He himself highlights that ‘Greatness’ can’t be replicated and whilst there may be another player who can play as well as him maybe even better, there will NEVER be another Michael Jordan and I agree because it’s not just about ability it’s about ‘Timing’ and ‘Character’ too. MJ wasn’t trying to be the next best anyone….he was just trying to be the best he could be and in doing so he became great. Therefore can GREATNESS be created or merely harnessed?

I heard once that “…Pressure doesn’t build character it REVEALS it” and it stuck with me because it’s so true. I think it’s the same with GREATNESS, pressure merely reveals it which would imply that it is within us in the first place and not something that we need to acquire but rather something that we need to tap into. For instance take two people with exactly the same ‘ability’ or ‘skill level’ and I reckon their level of success will differ dependent on the factors mentioned above. 
M.J isn’t the best because he can jump the highest or is the tallest player or has never missed a shot….he’s the best because he knew “nothing of value comes without it being earned.” His CHARACTER determined his level of success because it was that, that made him practice later than EVERYBODY else, put in more work than ANYBODY else, put practice before partying and pretty much any other distractions. He was disciplined and “Driven from within” so it didn’t matter what was or wasn’t going on around him because he had set his mind that whatever he chose to do he was going to be the best at and in his pursuit of excellence he reached levels that most could only dream of.

Always willing to go above and beyond what others were is what made him comparable to none. I believe it’s not what you do the ‘SAME’ as everyone it’s what you chose to do ‘DIFFERENTLY.’ I don’t know if you’ve noticed but whenever people are referring to those who are deemed GREAT and they are analysing what made them that way, one of the recurring sentiments is that there was just something DIFFERENT about them something that made them stand apart from everyone else. Your difference is where your gift lays not your similarity.

What are you willing to do that no one else is? Will you stay at work later? Will you do extra shifts to get noticed? Will you be conscientious and look for work to do and not just meet the basic requirements of you? ‘Will you do what it takes to get where you want??’

Half of us have no idea how strong we are or can be until a situation presents itself where it requires us to be. We spend so much time hating the problems that arise and the trials that we are facing that we sometimes fail to see what they are trying to show us either about ourselves or our realities.

So the next trial that has you thinking I can’t do this anymore or that it’s going to break you….just remember WHEN YOU DO SURVIVE that just when you think you can’t go any further you always have an extra 10% to give. Anyone who has ever trained at the gym or is an athlete will know when your body feels like it physically can’t do anymore it can always do an extra lap or push one more rep and it’s what you do at this point that counts more than what it took to get you there, ‘pushing past the burn’ as my personal trainer calls it.

This is where you get results; this is where ‘Greatness’ is revealed. You only have to watch Olympian athletes to see that. Setting your mind will ultimately get you further than any amount of physical strength because the body reaches the limitations that the mind sets.  When you say to yourself ‘ I can’t do it’ you are sending a message to your body that it has to stop….when your body is saying you have to stop but your mind says otherwise the body responds to the messages being sent by the brain and PUSHES further. You see as I have said before the race is won in the mind FIRST once you can conceive it then you can achieve it but whilst a lot of us have heard this phrase time and time again how many of us APPLY it and I don’t mean just for that week…..I mean as a philosophy for life?? It’s not enough to know what you should be doing if you’re not doing it.  

What message are you sending to yourself?? How about the next time you meet a challenge or face a situation that you think is beyond you, you trying telling yourself  that you can do anything you set your mind to and maybe try my philosophy that….

“It IS until it isn’t….. I CAN until I CAN’T”

 

 #Mind-set of a Winner “I call myself a WINNER because I have already won” 

 

Season Greetings Peeps,

#ALWAYS LOVE <3

2 MUCH PRESSURE & THE PIPES GONNA POP!!!

Hey, how you guys doing? Have you missed me?? because I have certainly missed you. As always life got in the way this week and I have been really hectic with Uni, motherly duties and working on my book. However it hasn’t been all work ;-) like they say you work hard and you get to play even harder lol….ok maybe that’s not quite how the saying goes but that’s my take on it J

In between trying to meet deadlines, help my princess rehearse for Christmas productions both at school and in church, my little man’s 2^nd  birthday and preparing for Christmas itself…it’s safe to say I’ve had my hands a little more than full. However with all the balls in the air right now it seemed the perfect time to write a blog about dealing with pressure. We all experience it at some point or other but how do you deal with it? When everything’s falling down on top of you, or as in my case everything is up in the air it’s almost as though you’re running on a conveyor belt and getting nowhere quick regardless of how fast you appear to be moving or how much effort you’re exerting….  #TreadmillThinking.

It’s funny but when we are in the best years of our lives i.e. young free and with no responsibilities we rush through them wishing them away, so that we can have the freedom of adulthood and then when we reach those years we spend them looking back wishing we were young again??? For me when it all gets to be too much I used to just switch off and use the straw that breaks the camel’s back to flick my off switch instead, causing my brain to short circuit. That is of course before I became a mother for the second time and realised that if I was to continue with this method I would spend more time in a coma induced state than out of one.

Trying to balance life in general is never easy but when you are left with no other choice, you learn quick to either adapt or quit and as someone once said to me ‘this is real life Nia……it’s YOUR LIFE and you can’t just check out.’ So now instead of wanting to quit, I get out my pen and pad and start writing LISTS. I know I know it sounds so tedious and time consuming and we all think surely that’s just adding one more thing to the already never ending list of things to do? And if you can barely find time in your busy schedule to factor in a toilet break or sleep even, then how the heck, are you going to make time to write a list. Well my friends;

“Those who want answers ask questions and those who want progress, don’t make excuses they make lists.” (Nia-Jai 2012)

Seriously, just think of maybe 5 of the people in the world that you wouldn’t mind having even a quarter of their success and guaranteed there is a series of habits that they ALL practice and attribute to it……. And yes making LISTS is top of the list looool.                                                                

Don’t get me wrong day to day stuff may not require the use of a list, but as you get older and your responsibilities no longer start and stop with YOURSELF, the  art of balance can become quite the circus act indeed and believe me this is when you need to reach for the pen ;-).

Seriously I only survived the last two weeks because I put what was in my head on paper and then prioritised what was most important and actually what I thought would be time consuming turned out to be more economically viable. The best thing is if you have a pen and pad by your bedside table then you can literally write your list for the day before your feet even touch the ground in the morning and then 5 minutes before you go to bed you can tick off all that you achieved ( and silently hi5 yourself) and you can add anything pending to tomorrows list and before you know it  you’re no longer panicking over what needs to be done and what hasn’t been done but you have gained the quiet satisfaction of knowing this is what HAS been done and this is what WILL be done and everything is under control.

Just like cholesterol eventually clogs up the arteries causing an increase in pressure and eventually a heart attack, it’s the same in life…..if we let ourselves get too clogged up with what is or isn’t going in our lives before we know it, either our love lives or our everyday lives find themselves under ‘Cardiac Arrest’. Like a pipe carrying water, as long as it’s free flowing then there is no problem but the moment the pipe is RESTRICTED, the pressure will increase until eventually the pipe explodes.

Surely we’ve all at some point or other had #ThatMomentWhen we’re about to burst if something doesn’t give? We all have obligations its apart of life but that doesn’t mean that they are ALL of equal importance. Prioritise what or where you’re needed most. Whether it’s family, work, friends, self or others...…you need to work out what is most important to you. What you want in life comes at a price; you can’t be EVERYTHING to EVERYONE.

For instance at this very moment in time I’m typing with one hand with my son in my other hand trying to put him to sleep so I can finish this blog in the window of allocated time before I have to then do the school run again. I do it because I love it not because I have to and that makes all the difference. I’d rather be broke doing what I love than rich and hate my job but that’s because I believe that if you invest time in doing what you love sooner or later people will love what you do!!

#MemoOfTheDay : Where ever there is restriction in your life it will cause pressure…..2 much pressure and that pipes going to burst….Breathe, make a list and know that something ALWAYS has to give.

Hope this gift helps anyone feeling stuck, stifled or pressured,

#ALWAYSLOVE <3