Hello beautiful people, it is your homie, Shameless Maya, all up in your face.
And I thought this--New York City.
This video is about fear. If you don't know, check me out on my Facebook page.
I love to chat it up with my homies over there--what video and I gave them a list to choose from.
I had photography, which I did. Fear was a second one, which is this video.
The third one I think was, are looks important. And then fourth...alter egos.
Fear. What better person to talk about it than your homegirl Shameless?
A.K.A. Fearless.
Fear is a freaking darn thing, and we are all dealing with it and living with it.
And some fear is real in terms of like, your life.
And then there's the other stuff where is just like, it's all in here. It's all in this.
Which is just as real as the physical world because it's there.
If you see it, you believe it... it's there.
Keep in mind, I'm no psychologist, I'm no doctor--I've never even read a book on fear.
I was kicked out of college, so what the heck do I know?
All I know is I've been facing my fears and knocking them out the park.
So I'ma pull up the definition of fear in Wikipedia. We gonna go through it.
'Fear is an emotion induced by a preceived threat which causes entities to quickly pull far away from it and usually hide.'
'It is a basic survival mechanism occuring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or threat of danger.'
'In short, fear is the ability to recognize danger, leading to an urge to confront it or flee from it. AKA fight or flight.'
'But in extreme cases of fear, there can be paralysis.'
I don't even think that's extreme cases--I think that's most people. You're just paralyzed, you don't do anything.
Okay. Now a year ago, I decided to do this whole shameless journey.
And Shameless is another word for fearless.
Not being ashamed of who I am and what I have to offer to random people I don't even know.
That was my thing, because I had a lot of fear or anxiety... the two are very fine. But they are different.
But for the purpose of this video, they're the same.
I was afraid of what people would think about me. Being judged. All this stupid nonsense.
What I realized was most of it was in my head.
Even if people do judge me and do criticize me and hate on me, who cares?!
When you face your fears, it no longer has power over you.
If you can deal with the fears--if you can face them, and say 'what if? What if I actually addressed this fear, what would happen?'
So I had a series of experiments, hypothesis... what would happen if I did all the things that I was afraid of, but I really wanted to do?
One of the things was starting a YouTube channel.
That was one of them... for those of you that don't know, for New York Fashion Week, I was a diva.
I was a diva carrying balloons, strutting my stuff, and I was just like...
I'm gonna address specifically that in the video, 'are looks important?'
That was very like, risque'. Prancing around New York City with giant balloons and 2 security guards? Who does that?
Me.
On the train when I'm seeing these randoms, in New York--like, New York City is capital shameless.
People are so... no censor, when they prance around the streets.
Like, you got drag queens with beards and booty shorts walking on the streets of New York.
I can dress up and be a diva for a day.
The thing is, if there's something that you want to do, but you're afraid to do it... do it.
Don't do anything morally compromising...
You know, distill what I'm saying and apply it to like, a positive, constructive thing.
Prance around as a diva in New York City. Bucket list. Check.
Dressing up in drag and making a video and posting it on YouTube. Check.
Oh! And... hello! Shaving my hair off--all of my hair.
Was I afraid? Yes.
Yes, it's a scary thought--but it was like, I wanna do it, I need to do it! I just have to do it it's on my bucket list, I gotta check it off.
Do I have any regrets? No.
And what happens when you do the things--when you face your fears?
You become like this soldier and it's just like...
Yeah! Bring it! What else?! Sock it to me!
You have superpowers. I'm not even playing, I'm not kidding you.
You have so much to offer, so much to share, and not a whole lot to lose.
Count your blessings.
Some of our fears are not real. They're in here.
And my heart does go out to people that do not have the luxury of what we have.
But even still in their situation... are rising above it and that's when the greats become greats.
Jesus Christ, Michael Jackson, Grace Jones, Andy Warhol, Shakespeare, Albert Einstein, Dr. Seuss--
all of these amazing people that I admire among many more, they all had one thing in common.
And that was: they were fearless and they were shameless.
Despite the fear, despite the inner critic, despite the judgements, they did it.
What are they doing, and do it. Imitate it. Put your own twist on it.
I'm not trying--I don't wanna be a carbon copy of somebody else.
But I am so inspired by these people, all of these great, amazing people.
I distill, and I make it my own.
So you are so effing strong! I wanna smack you!
Face your fears, live it breathe it--you have one life to live--oh my God, if there's anything you should be afraid of,
be afraid of the fact that we gonna die. And when you're on your death bed, say your last words,
you don't want them to be, 'I wish I had done that. I wish I had lived my life.'
There was actually... my homie Joel Osteen, you gotta check him out, I'm all about positivity.
And he had this woman, she worked at an old person's home and she asked hundreds of patients
in their last week before passing, 'what is the number one regret you have?'
And they all said, 'I wish I had been true to who I was and not just lived to meet the expectations of others.'
Hundreds of old people agreed on that one statement.
We can learn from that. I do not want to go to my grave with regret.
I do not wanna be an old woman with saggy titties, wrinkles everywhere, no ass and be like, 'damn, I wish I took a selfie.'
If you think a selfie is obnoxious, that's on you--wait 'till you reach 97 years old like my great-granny,
and you go back talking to your grand-kids saying, 'oh, I was really hot in my day, but I don't have a photo to show you.'
Are you kidding me? I think if you got it, flaunt it.
It's up to you how obnoxious you wanna be with it.
Never apologize for a selfie! Hello 2013!
Life should be celebrated each and every day.
Do not allow fear, negativity, all that nonsense to cripple you and get you in your bedroom stuck under the bedsheets like a damn cray cray lady. Okay?!
That is not cute! Stop your crying, stop your boohooing, get up and do something about it. Okay?
Because... time? It is ticking. It is ticking, it is up to you on how productive you use that time.
Live your life, boo. Okay?
Expose yourself, push yourself out there, there are opportunities.
People, randoms, no-names, i.e., me, are using social media to build empires.
Honestly, I'm at this point in my life where I'm like...
I have a bigger vision. If that means I gotta do things that people don't like, f--- it!
I don't care! They're not paying my rent check!
Don't you dare judge, and if you do, I don't care, okay?!
So that's where I'm at. Be fearless, be shameless, stay trickin'!
Do you boo, okay?!
I want you guys to let me know what is something you're afraid of, and what do you plan to do to get over it, okay?
You can write this in the comment box, or you can hit me up on Facebook and share your message.
Be shameless. Do you boo. I love you.
I love you baby!
Let me know!
And make sure you like, comment, subscribe.
Watch my previous video, my shameless skin care routine.
See you guys next week.