Lizzie asks…
How can I get over my bitterness about my poverty and hard childhood?
I can’t stop looking at suburban white people with their perfect live and get bitter.
These white people could afford to have a family car where they could just hop in and drive to the city for fun
They could buy the best stuff for science projects in high school
They never experience any harm or violence, and college is all about partying and having fun because they NEVER have to go through the DEPRESSING bureaucracy of the financial aid office
I’m almost about to cry now.
GardenersCardiff answers:
I’m sorry you are hurting right now.
I have trouble with bitterness sometimes too.
I am white, my dad was a college professor, i grew up in suburbia, and yet i grew up in poverty, severely neglected by my parents, started working when i was 13 so i had enough to eat… I could tell you some real horror stories. I finally finished a community college, but i paid my own way through working minimum wages and babysitting… I thought because of my dad i couldn’t even qualify for financial aid but i never had any money from him (it was a strange situation). Sometimes i ask myself WHY? How could he have money and care so little for his kids that we’d go hungry? Why did he make it harder for us to succeed in life than if he hadn’t been there at all? I’ve learned “why questions” usually takes my mind nowhere good. “How questions” are better. How am i going to succeed no matter what? How can i leave bitterness behind? How can i feel happy and fortunate today, just as things are?
Anyway, I don’t want to be bitter either. Bitterness just adds to the hardship we’ve already been through. I look at it as heavy stones in my pockets and in a sack on my back. I don’t want bitterness. I want to put the weight of it down and be free of this burden and get on to the good things i deserve. I’ve suffered enough, i don’t need to add to it by carrying anger and hurt.
I can’t tell you i’m free of bitterness, but i can tell you what i do that seems to help me feel better and lighter….
I think of my success against adversity. The first time i went to college, i dropped out… Unofficially… Leaving bad grades on my records. I was depressed, that’s why i dropped out. Small wonder. I’d been through a lot and was still going through a lot and without any support. But later, even though i’d messed up, i went back and faced it, cleared up the problems, retook classes to get rid of the bad grades, and finished Phi Theta Kappa. I had to work my a$$ off to do it. And i know that accomplishment is MINE ALL MINE. Not my dad’s. And i had to leave my excuses at the door to do it.
And i’m sure you have accomplishments, too… That are all YOURS. It’s not just the accomplishment, you see, it’s what YOU know you had to struggle with to succeed that makes you proud of yourself. It makes you a deeper person… More valuable than spoon-fed idiots who are a dime a dozen. Did you know that more self-made millionaires were born in poverty than were born comfortably? It’s true! But that’s just outward success. Things we go through makes us more compassionate towards others. I think that matters a lot more.
I also… And this was hard… Try to remember all the good from my family and my experiences growing up, and i try not to overlook any advantage or resource i have, no matter how small. No one’s youth is completely grim, no matter how bad it was. Like Oprah said once, “What you focus on, increases.” All the more reason not to focus on the things that make us feel bitter, but instead on the things that make us feel grateful and lucky. Don’t focus on what disadvantages you’ve had, look at your blessings and resources and your own talents and heart and mind. Everyone has resources… You have people in your life, you have yourself, you have things you’ve learned that are useful. Build on that good.
I’m glad you asked this question… Because it reminded me of some things i need to remember. I’m open to messages, if you’d like to talk some more, and i hope you feel better soon.
Maria asks…
How many lessons a month to improve horse?
Like I said in my other question, I just got a new horse that I feel like I could go anywere with. Point her nose and there we go but… I would like to do more than that. I think I want to do eventng with her but she’s only 5 and never jumped (well, on purpose lol, she will hop over trot poles depending on how fast we go over them).
I already take weekly lessons on a lesson horse but I want lessons on this one too… I’m thinking twice a month on her. And each time the instructor can give me “homework”. I don’t know if I want to do two lessons a week one on my trained lesson horse and one on my personal horse because then I might get confused! The lessons horse helps me a lot and is more trained and I can show on her, my own horse is more for fun for now. Maybe I can show with her as we grow. 
What do you think? two lessons a month or should I see how one lesson a week on top of the weekly lessons I already have? Yikes that might get expensive though! maybe I should rotate, every other week?
guys, the reason why I want to take lessons on a very well trained lesson horse is because she helps my ridng A LOT. I get a feel of how it’s supposed to be and I don’t want to lose that feel. But I will take more lessons on my lease horse now
GardenersCardiff answers:
I think you should be riding your own horse in the riding lessons- that way you would get to ride your own horse, and your horse would benefit from the experience of being ridden with other horses in that kind of atmosphere, which would make her a better riding horse for you. And if you are having trouble with her during the lesson, your instructor would be able to help you fix the trouble.
If you want, you could still ride the riding school horse once a month, but if you did ride your own horse in the lessons, your horse would quickly become a better riding horse.
Nancy asks…
What’s with people that assume every white person that likes Hip Hop and dresses as such is a wigger?
Granted there are wannabes out there but are people that ignorant to think there’s no whites that grew up in the hood?
So how is being yourself fake?
Also what is “acting Black” anyway. There are Blacks that hate Hip Hop. There are Black skaters. There are Blacks that like Rock.
I find assumptions as this ridiculous.
Please discuss here.
GardenersCardiff answers:
Those types of people are ignorant. Its sad to say that it is a stereotype people give others based on a musical genre. I am a fan of hip-hop culture all together. I get told I’m “acting black” when I go out to the night club and dance to hip hop music just because people say I dance like a black girl. I think it is rude to put any one in any type of category, and if someone has a problem with it its their own ignorance of not knowing anything!
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Ken asks…
RHH: Your Hip-Hop Collection?
It looks like my hip hop album collection might actually start growing.
My first one was The Cool.
My favorite one is Theater Of The Mind.
The last one I got was King Of Rock, yesterday.
I hope to get Black On Both Sides, Untitled, Madvillainy, or The Massacre next.
Total albums owned ever: 4
What about you guys?
I only wanted to check out The Massacre because people argue that was the last time 50 made a good album (or music in general for that matter)
GardenersCardiff answers:
I have a lot of albums it’s too many to list, i’ll just list what i’ve bought since last July, cause that’s when i got a job and started to expand my collection.
Ludacris-Release Therapy (along with all his other albums)
Lupe Fiasco-The Cool and Food and Liquor
Nas-Untitled, Illmatic, and The Lost Tapes
Planet Asia-The Grand Opening
Mac Dre-Back N Da Hood
Cali Agents-How The West Was One
Atmosphere-When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Sh*t Gold
The Game-L.A.X.
Jedi Mind Tricks-The Psycho Social… And Violent by Design
Bay Area Greatest Hits Vol.1
Ice Cube-The Essentials
GZA-Pro Tools
Public Enemy-It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
Mobb Deep-The Infamous
A Tribe Called Quest-Midnight Marauders
Deep Concentration 4
^^^^All worth checing out^^^^
Paul asks…
young parents, hip-hop/ mostly graffiti…whats your opinion sorry its long?
Im a 22yr old mother of two, my son 7yrs old and my daughter will be 3 in july.
My boyfriend and me met 8yrs ago, and were both into the graffiti scene and hung with the hip hop crowd, Of course once we had our kids we left the illegal graffiti scene, also my boyfriend is a underground hip hop emcee, so underground is all we listen to lol my kids are growing up on it and seem to love it because it’s their daddy or their daddy’s friends they are listening to.
we have taken our kids to the graffiti art shows and they love it my daughter cause of the colors my son just enjoys the graffiti since he’s been around it all his life. he’s actually starting to try it him self. now i know its not anything to be proud of but i cant tell my son he cant when his dad and me do it, and graffiti is a big part of our life’s we are trying to our own store With our own graffiti clothing line, i tell my son that i don’t mind it but it can not be done on the streets or anywhere other than our garage or at his dads studio.
Now people may say we are bring our kids up wrong, but i see it like this if i would have let go of the hip hop music and graffiti habits i’d be one of those moms that shelters there kids from everything and honestly i think if im interested i can teach my kids early on that its fine to do it but not just anywhere, there’s places where they allow you to go paint on their walls or art shows
know that since we had our kids they have always came first, our kids never went with out. anything the needed they had anything they wanted they got, and only when my parents or my boyfriend’s parents asked to take the kids was when we would go and paint mainly in our garage.
i’d really like to know what people think, is like to see if people think we are bad parents because we like to paint and rather listen to hip hop than a kidz pop cd..
right and we do tell my 7yr old that no matter what he does see on the streets its right, and remind him that we have the garage for him to paint in and that his dads studio is there for that as well, and it seems to be sticking to him, im hoping at least
sorry ******we tell him that graffiti on the street is not right*****
GardenersCardiff answers:
I’m 23 and have a 3 year old son and I’m what some people would call a goth (cyber goth)
so I have drawn on eyebrows, love to wear colors and have crazy hair and listen to hard dance music.
My partner loves Heavy metal and Hard NRG music so our son is being brought up by that music.
Our son loves watching me put makeup on, he loves wearing colors and loves to dance to mum’s dance music and loves to rock out to his dad’s metal… He also enjoys anything musical really.
We also have friends who come over who are heavily tattooed and pierced, yet we have friends and family who don’t. So our son is growing up thinking that it’s ok to be different.
And I think that’s the best way to raise a child.
Yes he asks for tatts and piercings but we tell him no not till you’re older.
What I’m trying to entail is; is that bringing up your children on the things you like may be a good thing… I too dislike kiddy music but i let my son play it every now and again as variety is good.
The graffiti thing sounds awesome, perhaps you should do a family project with your son. Like get a huge canvas piece put it against the garage wall and design an awesome piece as a family. Explain that this is art and a way you can express yourself. (as true graffiti is art and tagging is what’s bad and it destroys many awesome graffiti pics.)
Laura asks…
Your Favorite Random Hip Hop Quotes?
“Stop buggin’, a brother said, dig em, I never dug ’em
He couldn’t follow the leader long enough so I drug ’em
into danger zone, he should arrange his own
Face it, it’s basic, erase it, change ya tone
There’s one R in the alphabet
It’s a one-letter word and it’s about to get
More complex from one rhyme to the next”
Rakim – Follow The Leader
“Godammit I’m grown
gotta help keep the heat and lights on
it would be nice to have mo
but I kinda like being po
at least I know what my friends is here fo”
Cee-Lo – Thought Process
What is in your opinion, some classic lines?
EDIT: Doesn’t have to be a classic.. just your favsss
GardenersCardiff answers:
Random lines eh?
“Other emcees simulate, spectators stand when I hold the mic in my hand
Rip the stage and step off fill my pockets with grands
Ay yo thats word to your moms uncle and gramps
Mother or brother I’ll smother you for sure
cause I get down and yo you best take a style detour
That means change and rearrange your sound
Take it long range, Black Thought get strange when getting down
Hitting now hard into your chest piece tie it up into knots
Representing sick lines that bead with sweat
Emcees couldn’t forget
Black Thought came on the scene and rappers became upset.”
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