Sometimes I feel like this isn't something that has to continue to be said, but sadly it is. From the modeling industry to music, down to your every day relationships, day to day encounters and your average 9 to 5. People are not being given what they deserve and it starts with the fact that they don't personally know their worth. I wanted to take a moment to stress the importance of it.

In any relationship, business or romantic, 2+ people come together for a process of give and take. If you have a lot to give, naturally you're going to attract a lot of people who are interested in taking. It's simple. There's one important thing to remember. Your Give should always equal your take. If you are doing a lot more taking than giving, you will notice you will begin to lose people in your life. When you're doing a lot more giving than taking, you haven't realized your value and you're allowing yourself to be used. You've got to know the balance so that you can get what you want out of relationships too. There's no point in doing all the work and not reaping a single benefit.

Those of you who are in the music industry or are bloggers. You're probably emailed a new artist's music links every 30 minutes. They beg for a post on your site yet they're not an artist who will generate you any traffic and if/when you DO post them, they don't even bother to promote it. For those of you who have beauty blogs, companies want you to review their product, yet don't want to send you any free product. They want you to post about them, but aren't willing to send you the slightest sample. These are just examples of people knowing your worth and disregarding it. They know that using you as a platform can be beneficial to them, yet they don't realize that there are things they could be doing for you as well. If you're an artist, you don't have to pay every blogger to put your music on but know that we get paid by hits/traffic. We get paid by ads. Buy some ad space on your favorite blog. Promote your blog post by having your fans go to the site. Click a f-cking ad!! If we as bloggers don't enforce this, and just do EVERYTHING for free, we're disregarding our own worth and being taken advantage of. The same goes for any industry. Every industry.

Now say you're in a romantic relationship with someone. You're giving 100% and he's emotionally disconnected. Yet you stay, stay and stay to make it work because you love him. You know he likes you, but can't quite speak on to what extent his feelings go. You've probably done more for him mentally and financially than he's ever done for you. Yet, you're still here giving and he's still here taking. You should be getting more than hard d-ck and bubble gum and if you never realize your worth and demand something (an emotional connect, financial support, anything) from him then you'll never get it. In the end you'll find yourself drained and depressed. And what do we do after we have broken up with a man who's left us drained and depressed? That's right! Take it out on the next one! He doesn't deserve it and neither do you.

So Ladies & Gents, it's time to look at your life and ask yourself if you're getting back what you're putting in. If not, a few changes need to be made.