Embrace Your Eccentricities

A lot of that drive comes from the mentors in my life.
I've had quite a few, but some of the most memorable.
One would be a woman who was a teacher at the comm college where i started going to school.
I had a really, really bad family drama day.
Found out some really bad news.
It was really poor conditions growing up.
I was really upset and I said, "Miss Singer, I can't come to class today."
She was like, "What happened?"
I told her what happened.
She goes, "Anita is there anything you can do about that right now?"
And I was like, "I guess not."
She goes, "Well, come to class."
The lesson of that has been tremendous throughout my life;
which is making sure you can actually impact something before you go and worry about it.
Or, stop your life in order to do something with someone else's.
Let's see.
Some other important advice was from my old roommate, Becky.
She gave me this wonderful, wonderful gem of advice.
As long as I'm honest, and as long as I represent myself with integrity, then I am not responsible
for how people react to me and to my truth.
That's one of the hardest things to remember is that whatever someone else says or does is a reflection of them, not a reflection of who you are as a person.
Once we begin to realize that, our tendency to react versus to take pause and respond thoughtfully is tremendously impacted.

And lastly, one of my favorite, favorite pieces of advice or insight was from a man named Baby Gramps.
He's from Portland, I think, Oregon. Or Seattle.
I think it's Portland.
He is a musician, a Vaudeville old-time, piano; or, excuse me - guitar player.
He is really wonderful and entertaining.
He's a storyteller.
He knows more about music than anybody I've ever met.
One time he told me at a music festival where I was performing.
Sometimes I have a bit of issue with self-worth.
Am I doing well enough and that kind of thing.
He said, "Anita. You have to embrace your eccentricities."
I thought that was crazy at the time.
I didn't know what he meant.
Now that I've quit waiting tables, and started doing something that I feel very passionate about - in terms of music, art, and political activism.
I know what he means now.
Embrace your eccentricities is, I would say, be unapologetic about who you are.
If you don't know who that is, take some time to learn because it's really important.