Over the years I have sold numerous articles of clothing and accessories on eBay. Recently I was selling a pair of Orande’s sneakers and a buyer was very persistent. He would berate me with questions & comments constantly for days prior to him purchasing, during the shipment and after they were received. Of course the nightmare didn’t end there, supposedly the sneakers didn’t “fit” and although I don’t accept returns, due to this guy working my last nerve, I took on the return.

eBay has a return policy and it takes up to 7 days for the money to be returned to the buyer. During those days of waiting the now returner of the sneakers decided continue the badgering within the emails to me. Now if I hadn’t read their policy I would’ve been questioning the wait myself. But my responses to the questions were in the range of, “have you read eBay’s return policy before asking me questions”?; “Stop asking me questions and revert your attention to eBay’s customer service team as I have returned the payment”, and more such as this.

After my frustration tolerance level was reached, I called eBay to make sure this buyer could no longer buy anything from my page as well as no more emails. Sigh of relief right? I was done...almost. Going back to my sellers page I noticed a new review. And wouldn’t you know that the buyer/returner left a bad review while the payment return was in the interim period? So rude.

As I was stewing from newfound review, I thought about how my score went way down from 100% due to this. I was angry that the buyer didn’t include the facts into the review to begin with. Now the old version of me a year ago or even a few months ago would have taken this extremely personal and read him for filth. Instead I let it roll off my shoulders. Granted this is not always easy, then again we are all a work in progress. Having hold and accountability of your own power is liberating and not even an angry sneaker head could take it away. Try to make sure in any situation, you keep a vice grip on your power and don’t let anyone take you out of your element. And if that person ever happens to come across my blog, you know what you did wrong and in the words of Birdman when you speak of me, “put some respeck on my name!”

In case any one needed a visual...

We’ve all heard these quotes “it doesn’t matter how you get there, it’s what you do once you arrive” or “it doesn’t matter how slowly you go as long as you don’t stop”. Ever since I’ve first heard of them (not sure what age) they have become subconscious mantras in my life.

A good friend of mine, Camille, is a play writer. She has the ability to come up with amazing intricate stories that are built for the stage. We use to work together at a brand years ago. I have always admired the perseverance that she demonstrated for her writing while we were creating and building strategies or producing concepts. Even when she felt defeated she still kept on writing, learning, attending writing fellowships, etc. The first play I saw of hers a few years ago was “Lords Resistance”. She had been working on this for a while and I just remember her tenacity. To show her dedication she would work on it after work, weekends and sometimes during work (shhh don’t tell anyone) or whatever it took. And the play was great, I was honored and so proud of seeing her work come to life. Although she wanted things to come together faster or was frustrated, she trusted the process and took it at a pace she was comfortable with.

She recently had a reading of her new play “Queen Nanny” and although I wasn’t able to attend the reading, I knew of the progression and I couldn’t be more appreciative of her sharing a piece of her creative mind. It’s not easy learning patience with yourself and the process of your creativity. So take your time to get to where you desire to be. You can’t rush because when your time comes, it’s just that, your time and you have no power over when that will be. But you do have control over how much effort you put in, so give your dreams their best shot at life.

This was the flyer for her reading of “Queen Nanny”. I marked out the date of the reading.