Perserverance

I received a phone call today from a friend back home who following up on a developing situation with her brother. She was worried about him. Her brother is 16, attending an all black high school much as I did and he got himself into some mess and wants to drop out of school citing it's too much trouble to change. No matter what his parents or sister say to him, he just keeps on getting himself into trouble with gangs, drugs and girls. He ran away from home and now his sister was looking for him. His sister convinced his parents not to call the police since he was answering his phone just not telling where he was. I had talked to him many times before and he was so much like me. He just wanted to prove himself, prove he was worth something more than what people gave him credit for. The kid is smart. He has much potential and I was saddened to hear that one more of my brothers was falling by the wayside. I remember him telling me he was way smarter than I was and he would prove it to me if it was the last thing he did. It was like looking in a mirror. He was like maybe 12 then. It should be noted that since then he's bested me at every test, achievement or otherwise and honestly I was glad, just excited that he was beating the same circumstances I did and moving forward. That is why I was so shocked to hear this. He is a senior I believe now but I hadn't talked to him a while. I neglected his phone calls and would always say I was busy when really I could have talked to him.

Eventually I was able to speak with him and ask him what the hell was going on. He told me no one liked him. I said what should you care if people don't like you. You are a likable person. He said his parents seemed to be solely focused on his education, his friends felt like they couldn't talk to him because he was too "deep" and some even said he was stuck up, and he decided to join a gang to get some street credit and respect from his peers. He started using hard drugs and his grades fell, and was finding himself in some very compromising situations. He felt his world crumbling around him and his grades dropped before he got kicked out of school for fighting.His girlfriend, whom he admitted tried to get him to chill left him. And to top it all off, he saw a young man beaten to a bloody pulp the other day and almost panicked when his gang insisted he join in and he didn't, thus they ridiculed him and threatened him about telling. He was distraught and said he ran away to get some peace. He didn't feel like he had anything left and now he would be a failure.

by this point, I was crying. I was so angry at how the mind and the world drives us into these positions of despair. I told him that there was nothing stopping him from being great and that in fact he was closer to it now than he'd ever been. He didn't understand, so I told him of some of my more recent experiences and how these times are necessary to strengthen us, give us wisdom and help us understand what things really matter in this world. he told me that he wants to get back to being productive but didn't know where to start. He thought his college hopes were dashed, his relationship with his parents and friends ruined because they knew he had ran away and ironically didn't respect him for the violence he was associated with. I told him it was all irrelevant. People will always have their flawed perceptions about you and what you do and why you do it. Some are jealous ones who envy your talents and abilities and want nothing more than to be like you because they themselves lack identity and purpose. Some are fools who are too ignorant to understand who you are and resort to superficial matters of satisfaction like being popular and playing to the masses. Some are fighting their own issues and compensating through gangs and otherwise and they seek out vulnerable people like you and exploit them. But you, you must be different. You must decide for yourself that you are greater than all those things and fight to regain your place. Again he asked how? I told him God and a willingness to endure heartache for a real purpose and not for the sake of having problems.

So I preached to him for a while and by the end of the conversation we were laughing it up and he was again insisting he'd be greater than I was. Little did he know I was no greater than he. I'd done the same things all the way into college. I was the same as him and he as me and we as any person in the world. We were both two black men who needed a wake up call and now were facing life with renewed motivation. He eventually returned home and currently in the process of getting his life back together. I was so glad to hear of his fortune and I thanked God I was able to help him. I wonder how many others are seeking someone to talk to, to relate. I certainly am at times. Aren't we all? It's funny how I still face those battles that my younger companion did and will.

I implore our people to help each other more. Your experiences are the key to our success.

Understanding Humility Part 1

Understanding Humility


I have always believed my most valuable revelations, lessons if you will, have come in extreme times of suffering. It seems the only time my ego is open to damage, my mind to any sorts of useful or permanent change, is when I am nearing the end of the proverbial rope. Though one might think this sort of dangerous learning will shorten my opportunities to practice new found “techniques” on life, I find more value in them because of the circumstances surrounding their origins most times--essentially the necessity of these lessons’ application for the sake of my continued existence. In other words, adapt or die. No lesson are the aforementioned beliefs more evident in my life then my learning to be humble. Of all the values and life skills I’ve attained over the years, humility undoubtedly is the most versatile. It has given me unparalleled flexibility in dealing with people, obstacles, and myself. The latter in a less pleasant manner, but humility helps nonetheless to keep me grounded in reality, rather than believe my twisted and ignorant ideals of invincibility are based in any true part of living.

Humility begins to mean something before we, as humans, even know what “meaning” is. I remember as a child talking back to my parents, telling white lies, sharing, all those things, the fundamental need that existed to engage in such activities. You can’t do them without thinking outside of yourself, considering your place in a bigger social order. Authority has no meaning unless one knows humility’s place. Guilt and reflection upon the consequences of deception require empathy, another byproduct of humility. Sharing one’s joy, material, or knowledge requires an understanding of how you can be of value to others rather yourself. Humility has always been at the base of everyday, useful interaction. My childhood minister always preached to me to be humble when I’d get angry when it was my turn to serve the cookies after bible study. I was the smartest person in the class and I had no interest in serving anyone, not even God. I was mean to all the kids and if they weren’t padding my ego with compliments, I didn’t care to be around them. I had no idea what he meant when he said “the same people you see going up the ladder are the same you see coming down.” It was only a matter of time before I would learn what that meant.

But to consider how humility works to reveal itself it what intrigues me. In order for me to truly contemplate what role its played in my life, I have to consider the most important transitions and periods of my existence. When my father died, I was an arrogant freshman in college. I, back then, didn’t care for memories of my childhood and that unfortunately included all recollections of my horrid upbringing, the ghettos and the gangsters, the visions of apathy that ran rampant through the ravaged neighborhoods I lived in. So many Black men and women all dying from the inside, lacking the motivation necessary to lift themselves up, would rot in that place. I despised all parts of poverty. It created in me a seemingly positive bitterness toward underachieving and fostered the beginnings of my self perception--I believed myself better than all of that mess and everything that was poor, poverty or pathetic. The rage I felt through those cold nights with no heat, the ridicule I endured because I valued an education, the pain and anger I felt when my father would demand my respect when he didn’t even work for a living, made me into a monster.

to be continued....