Oh. My. Goodness. Lauryn Hill is (was?) incredible. Firstly, I can't believe she was only 25 dropping these truth bombs! Like, what??? I'm the same age now as Lauryn Hill is in this video and I am just astounded at the amount of knowledge and self-awareness she possessed at this point in her life. Right now, I'm on this kick where I'm really inspired by what I feel are "self-possessed" women, meaning women who are self-contained and confident in their knowledge of themselves and their quirks.

I like this video not only because Lauryn is just so cool, calm, and collected (I can't believe she was only 25...) but because she speaks about things that many of use are dealing with, no scratch that, things that I am dealing with right now. It's like she plucked all the ideas and concepts swimming around in my brain right now and went back in time to her 25 year old self just to shed light on them.Gems:

"The music industry is just a microcosm of the world. So whenever you stand for something and you stand for goodness and truth you will always get resistance, period.""Five years ago I was so thin skinned. Whatever anyone said...then one day I woke up. And it was like, my skin, it was so thick, it was impenetrable by those fiery darts. They just had no effect. And I realized that that was a strength and a confidence that only came from a higher source.""It's better to be righteous than right.""In order to be used by God, you have to really be used. We always want to be used for the glorious jobs...but that's not being used. Sometimes being used also means you have to be humiliated...""We don't know love like we should. We always talk about 'I have unconditional love"...unconditional love is...we don't even know it. Because if a person stops stimulating us, we stop loving them. You're not interesting to talk to anymore, goodbye. But that real love, that love that sometimes is difficult, difficult to have. That's that love. And that's a confidence builder.""The only reason The Miseducation was the album it was because of the myriad of experiences that took place before the production part. Before the creation. So what I realized is, you know what, I can't create and not live. I can't be in this vacuum of creativity, creativity, creativity, without life.""We're all trying to get to this next level without the next level finding us. You know, life is peaks and valleys. Some people explain that as good times and bad times...but I actually think it's learning, mastership, learning, mastership. Or study, mastership, study, mastership.""Never be afraid of not knowing. Find out.""Let's not be mediocre in our greatness. Think big. And think in doses. Think in experiences. And don't be afraid of experiences that teach you."

Her thoughts on mastership resonated with me so. stinkin'. hard! I'm in this space where I'm really starting to understand not only the value but the NECESSITY of MASTERING YOUR CRAFT if you aspire to be great. So many young women and young people, people in my generation in general, want what their favorite musician or actress or entrepreneur or whoever has without first dedicating themselves to MASTER what it takes to get there. And mastery is hard because as Lauryn spoke about with her choosing not to record music at that time, mastery takes you out of the game for a minute. Mastery takes years. It's like a "time out" that you call on yourself which means letting some opportunities go by. But if you appreciate mastery with the right mindset, then you understand that its better to let go of a good thing in favor of the more excellent thing. This is what I'm trying to will myself to do!Many thanks to Keturah Ariel for sharing this video!

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Talk to Me:

What do you think about Lauryn Hill's comments? Anything in particular stand out to you?