We didn't grow up with TV as a viable means of supporting yourself.

Yvonne Orji

Categorized in : Up Yourself Grow Grow Up

You turn 'Insecure' on, and you see a sea of brown. You see at the core of it a strong friendship between two brown-skinned girls.

you strong sea friendship

A lot of people have done things in the name of Christianity and religion and faith in a not-so-nice way.

name faith people religion

A lot of people hustle differently, and I was like, 'You know what, let me hustle and create, and let me have something to show,' cuz my hustle led to opportunity.

me you opportunity people

I love a dark brown blush, like brown on brown.

blush like dark love

To not have the wherewithal to give fully to a relationship bothered me.

give me bothered relationship

I have a saying: Nigerians don't fit in second place. Everything we do we go hard.

saying everything place go

I can only see what's in front of me, but God can see what's behind, what's ahead of me, what's beside me, and it just makes it so much easier to release control, cuz at the end of the day, if He brought me to it, He's gonna have to bring me through it.

end-of-the-day day me god

I don't look at God as some boring dude in the sky that tells me what to do all day. I legitimately be like, 'Yo, you know what, G, that's crazy how that happened. That's dope. You know, you the real MVP.'

day me god sky

Over the years, my relationship with God has changed my life for the better - it's grown me up, given me a sense of purpose, and grounded me in my identity.

me god relationship life

Sometimes you have to experience things for yourself to learn the lessons that you need to learn.

yourself you experience sometimes

I would never do something I'm uncomfortable with.

would something never uncomfortable

Auto-pay is not for convenience; it's for the gainfully employed.

employed convenience

There's random people calling my phone: 'Your mother gave me your number.' My mother has tried to set me up so many times long-distance.

random me mother people

I want to do more good work. That's very much my parents' influence in me.

parents good me work

There are different types of experiences, and all of them are valid, and all of them deserve to be portrayed in a real way.

different real deserve way

For me, staying ready has always been, like, the preparations: do the behind-the-scenes or do what you think that's not sexy that nobody will see, but when they do see it, it's like, 'Oh, snap... what she's doing on her own, we'll add to that, and it'll blow up.'

nobody me you sexy

I'm grounded in who I am.

am i-am who grounded

I was bullied because I have this thick Nigerian accent.

nigerian accent because thick

I remember talking to old-school African American grandpops, and they're just like, 'When I saw my wife, I looked up from across the street, and I said, 'That girl gon' be my wife someday.' And we've been married 45 years.' Like, what? That's all it took?

street wife girl remember

I was so focused on advancing in my career that I didn't have enough emotional capacity for dating.

focused dating emotional enough