Yes, I know its 14 days into the new year already, but start the year as you mean to go on right? So for me, this year is the year of reciprocity. What goes around comes around, you reap what you sow, do unto others as you would have done to yourself (I’m paraphrasing I know) are just a few examples of what reciprocity means. It’s not just something I’ve started this year but I try to live my life by it. The law of cause and effect essentially describes the notion that for every action there is a ripple effect. There is something that everyone gets each morning that they wake up and throughout the day and that is the power of choice. If you change your actions you can change your life and the beautiful thing is…you can do it right away.

I’m sure you have all heard of the story of the prodigal son…(if you haven’t it is found in Luke 15:11-32) in short it’s about a man’s son who took his inheritance and went wayward with it. Anyway, he ended up squandering it all and then going back to his father. Now people think that the gem of the story is about a reunion between a father and son, but for me, that story was about the power of choice. The son was practically rolling around in the mud with pigs, he had hit rock bottom. He could have stayed there, he could have blamed other people for his demise, but he made the CHOICE to come out of the mire/depression/darkness/struggle and go back to his father. That to me spoke volumes more than everything else. A lot of the time we wanna blame others for the positions we find ourselves in but why do we blame others for our failure and praise ourselves for our own success. That’s like saying you’re not in the driver’s seat of your own life.

I’ve made a conscious decision this year to be mindful of the seeds I sow. Always think twice about taking revenge on someone, why? Because for every action there is a reaction, like a boomerang it will come back to you. Celie from the film The Colour Purple said “Everything you’ve done to me, already been done to you”, those words had weight and power as she said it to the man who had abused her for years. It made him stop in his tracks…those words were better than revenge.

At the same time, reciprocity is the missing link in most relationships. I made a comment on a youtube video. The video was about this trending culture called “Pick Me”, this is apparently a thing in the black community where women are doing anything to keep a man. My comment was something along the lines of “Women shouldn’t be going out of her way for a man if he’s not willing to do the same for her”. Some guy responded and said something sexist like women can’t do the same things for men that men can do and vice versa. He completely missed my point because reciprocity doesn’t have to be done in the same way. Even among friends, it like an unspoken rule if I cook, you do the dishes or you bring dessert. It’s not about doing the exact same things, its about an excahnge and its the same between men and women. If you put oil in my car, I cook the dinner, you pay the electric bills I buy the shopping or whatever it may be. The point is there’s a balance. The only reason why some people feel drained in a relationship is that your input is greater than the other persons. You pour into me and I’ll pour into you is all I’m saying. Feel free to comment below.