Week 1:Thou shall not expect

Recently Ive noticed music heads as myself, tend to post, and screenshot quotes advising followers to 'Choose people who choose you'. The old 'dont trust people, who's back you've scratched, and cant do the same for you' mentality.  Don’t give energy, time or recognition to anyone who doesn’t give that to you in return or first. At a point I believed in that. It made sense to me at one stage. Why should you help someone with the music who has betrayed your trust? Why should you show love to another artist if they dont follow you ? Why should you help someone who hasn’t helped you? Why should you wait on someone who’s constantly let you down before?

I’ve always been a generous person, but at one point in time I used to think that same way, the “help me, help you” mentality. I’d never ask anyone to repay me or call them out, mostly because I do not expect it in return.  But when I would go out of my way,  promoting other artists ,I previously expected the same effort returned when I needed it – and when it wasn’t (especially from rappers whom I admire), it had me feeling really bummed out and annoyed. But I’d keep giving myself, thinking that one of these days they will click. They usually didn’t. And some still haven't. 

Some of us upcoming rappers seem to be expecting something in return. And as people thats a normal feeling. 

My family are generous people, especially my parents; they always help and love people who aren’t helpful or loving towards them. They’ve never cared about having that love and kindness reciprocated. They had always taught (and reminded) me to be kind to everyone. My parents told me that, as long as they know they have done what they can for their neighbour, they were fine. But I couldn’t get my head around this lesson. In the music, I still felt used, I still felt like it wasn’t fair. Artists getting more recognition, and never thanked me for helping them out. 

It took me a year to realise that I was being selfish, by expecting people to treat my music and promotion how I treated theirs. I was no better than they were! So I stopped expecting people to be as kind as I was and stopped expecting people to show love back. Learning this and practicing it has changed my mental in the best way.

Now I know better. I know that if we only give ourselves to those who give back, then our hearts are no more righteous than those who never give love. When you give help to those who only help you, you’re only really helping yourself. Choose the assholes and those who have let you down before, these people probably need more love with their sour ass. We shouldn’t let someone else’s lack of love, dictate how we love next or if we love next. We do not need to be loved to love. So choose one another and love, without draining one another for paybacks.

Choosing the people who choose you, has become a common attitude. The thoughts and posts are still being retweeted and liked. But just think, how good it could be if we all stopped being selfish, and we all just helped those who didn’t help us. If we showed love to everyone and anyone, without expecting something in return. 

This type of thinking and maturity has also helped me in my music career. I lost focus of my artwork and payed way too much attention to expectation of rappers paying me back with credit. Now, I have become a better person and an even more determined artist, as I focus on completing my EP. 

How peaceful could our world be, if we learned to live with the negatives to balance out the positives?!

 Stay blessed and stay happy my waves and wavettes.