I remember when I was in the 5th grade, I lived with my grandparents. Grama was pretty modest when it came to buying us fancy clothes. We mostly shopped at the Salvation Army and had shoes three times our size. We only had two pairs of pants each. My brother had newer pants, being he was older, and I had his old pants. He shared his secret on how he had gotten Grama to buy him new pants one time. "Jess' all you gotta do is rip a hole in your pants, and Grama will buy you new ones," My brother shared (Salvation Army new). I deliberately scraped my knee on the sidewalk until a hole tore in my jeans. I told Grama, and she took the jeans and smiled, saying, "Don't worry, sweetheart, Grama will take care of it." Viola! I couldn't believe how easy that was. The following day, she came downstairs with a pair of jeans. I was so excited. "New pants, Grama?" I asked. "Just like new sweetheart." She replied. As I put them on, I realized she had sewn a brown corduroy patch over my old blue jeans. "What's this? I can't go to school like this! It looks weird with a patch on one knee; I'll look like a clown." I cried. She took the pants back, sewed another brown patch on the other knee, and said, "There, now they look like they're supposed to be that way. Put em' on. You never know; maybe you'll start a fad, and soon, everyone will wear pants with patches on them." In other words, start your own community. I'm not saying I came up with the "patch-filled pants" style of the '90s (or maybe I am), but she was right; soon, everyone had patches on their pants. Find your own passion and then be passionate about it. Tell people about it. I love fishing. I love golfing. I love historic properties. You can express yourself through a blog. You could express yourself through a Facebook page, Instagram, or
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