Knowing Why You’re Worth It

by Sydney Longworth, West Liberty University graduate student

This blog post is coming at you in the form of a reflection on an article I recently read by Karamo Brown. Karamo is the culture expert on Netflix’s series, “Queer Eye.” In the article, Karamo shares some personal insights on following his dreams as the first openly gay black reality star. Before becoming a reality star, Karamo was a social worker. However, in the article, he openly shares that a conversation with his son forced him to take a step back and ask himself if he was truly following his dreams (which he then realized, he was not). The most telling facet of this article to me, was that Karamo shares that it is not only important to know your dream, but you must know WHY you deserve it. This is very telling. How often do we look at our dreams or aspirations in this light? Karamo tells us that he decided to write down the answer to that question, and continue to repeat it to himself DAILY, as he knew this was the only way he would force these words to become actions. He also talks about seeing “no” as a gateway to “yes.”
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You might be thinking, “how does this connect to Fluency?” Well, this article, and Karamo’s way of thinking, is forcing us to the type of reflection that Fluency strives to give to us; the type of reflection that we RARELY have time for. So, my challenge for you is this: ask yourself, “Am I living my dream?” and do some serious, but simple, self-reflection on WHY you are worthy of allowing all of your dreams to come to life. You can make it happen. The first step is recognizing that you can! And your dream can be anything—it can connect to your classroom, a personal goal, or a professional goal. The purpose is, that we can turn these dreams into a reality, (self-fulfilled prophecy) when we are at least recognizing it daily. This daily practice could also be used regarding your specific Fluency goals, and it also could be translated as a daily classroom activity for your students (of any grade level). This can also be used by students in a multitude of ways! If they are striving for a specific academic goal, they can address that goal, and their WHY for that goal. Why is it important for me to reach this academic goal? Why do I owe it to my future self to achieve this goal? As you can see, the WHY question can be asked in many different ways. This allows students to take ownership of their learning goals, as well as having their own voice over them. What matters, is that students are putting their goals down, habitually re-reading them, and making them apart of their everyday reality.


Here is the link to the original article if you are interested in reading it:
 
https://advice.shinetext.com/articles/queer-eyes-karamo-brown-shares-a-word-on-showing-up-to-your-dreams/?utm_campaign=SMS&utm_medium=BroadcastPopCulture&utm_source=Shine