Leave a GOOD Bye
How we leave a thing lets us know more about ourselves than how we enter a thing. How did you leave your last relationship and job? Goodbyes are just as important as the hello’s in our lives. First impressions mean a lot but last impressions are everything.
In the wake of the Obama’s leaving the White House *tears*, President Barack Obama left a permanent mark and impact in this world that will never be erased from our memories and history. He entered America’s lives, with his loving and influential family, full of hope and possibility for the future years ahead of him as President of the United States. As I watched the television screen and listened to his final speech on January 10, 2017, I couldn’t help but look out in awe on how many people were there, at that historic moment, gathered around the stage to support and to say farewell to one of the greatest presidents of all time. To look at the lasting impressions he left on millions of people is amazing! President Barack Obama will be considered the greatest President of the United States because of his integrity.
Integrity- The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness. The state of being whole and undivided.
What were the lasting impressions we left ending a relationship, job, and friendship? Did you curse someone out because you felt like it and told them where to put it? Did you get them back from something they did to you during a course of a relationship or business deal? Even though president Obama’s term has come to an end, he didn’t leave a bad taste in our mouths. For some of us out there, I believe just because something is ending we end it “so ratchetly” (yes, I made up that word) on purpose because it will soon be a thing of the past and we can put everything behind us. Nothing is necessarily left behind because it will show itself in another form or fashion throughout our lives. How? It will be due to the lasting impression we leave with people. The past might be behind us but people still live on. They live on with opinions, memories, and feelings that you left them with connecting to the very thing you said goodbye to. Lasting impressions are equivalent to icing on the cake. You have all the ingredients to make an awesome cake (first impressions), the cake is done baking, smells delicious and is very edible even without the icing (the impressions you have on people during a thing), and then you have the icing (last impressions). Yes, the cake is good by itself but it is something about that icing that completes the cake in such a way where it made the existence of the cake more beautiful and memorable for the people that ate it. I tend to make analogies on food often, but who doesn’t love food? (lol).
What does that say about ourselves if we left a job, relationship, and friendship in a “ratchet” way? It says we faked it until we made it. We faked to get what we want and when that opportunity ran out we could care less. Did we really care about the position in the first place? Why would we put ourselves in positions to fake anything while we make it anywhere? I would want to be in a friendship, career, and relationship where anything that i did was not because of an incentive or to achieve something for my own self gain, it would be because i had a purpose to be that persons friend, in that relationship, and working in that career to produce something productive for someone else. To make a change in the world.
When it comes to leaving behind a job, relationship, friendship no matter how difficult the situation, we always are to remain as integral at the end as we did in the beginning. I am sure President Barack Obama went through plenty of turmoil during his term as president, none of it was out in the open and no scandal occurred. Yes, he could have configured his final speech to “tell everyone off”, but what would that say about him afterwards? That would have messed up the cake! (lol) Take this great example of our great President along with you throughout the course of your life. I don’t believe those that say they don’t care what others think when what others think can get you into doors that you otherwise could not get into on your own (with the help of God of course). Even though you may have said bye to a thing, make it a GOOD bye not a “bye Felicia!” type deal. You have no idea what else your future will have in store for you just for saying goodbye the correct way.
PS: To our President Barack Obama and the First Family- this nation will miss you all dearly!
Be Blessed!
Editors note: Post originally written January 2017.