There is an idea that suggests if we have money or if we are successful, or if we are beautiful, or if we simply had better luck that all things would be well. Everything would be fine and that our questions and concerns would all be solved if we just had a different set of talents. However, in the case of emptiness, nothing could be more further from the truth. 

Of course, if we could go back and change the past then we would. If we could, we would make the necessary changes and the present wouldn’t ever be what it is.

If there was ever such a thing as a rewind button, then this would mean we could unsay what we said and undo what we did and there would be no such thing as regret.
Wouldn’t that be nice?

Breathe  . . .
The idea behind this process is to visualize the moment ahead of us. This is going to be the design we follow. This will be the path we take to create a platform and springboard from here into the rest of our day.

Here we are, closing in on the final quarter of the year and yet, 2020 has been around for a while now and most of us are still looking around and waiting for something to begin.
I would like to direct your attention now to the big screen; the heavens, the skylines, the mountainsides, and the cityscapes. I would like to direct your attention away from the small screens, the cell phones, the computers, or the televisions and the news that never says anything kind or uplifting. 

The truth is there is no competition. This is only the mind. There is no me against you or you against me. There is no reason to compare scars or cross examine each other to see which one goes farther or does more. There is no reason to look at people, like say, me or the neighbor.

There is no reason to keep up with the Jones’s or see who has the bigger house or the better pool or the nicer car. The truth is there is no competition.

The weight of the wallet or the title of a job is not the measure of greatness. Educational competence does not always equal cultural competence and many times, educational competence has nothing to do with competence at all. Life is not always what we think it is.

Early morning and I remember. It was summertime. The sky was blue and the world was still young to me. I was still young. I was also the one that always woke up early. Everyone else was asleep. Mom was upstairs. The Old Man was sleeping too. My brother Dave was asleep in his room and me, I was up already and outside in the backyard.

I have always found my town interesting during the early morning hours. The day has started but no one has ventured out. This was especially so on the weekends.

There is a reason behind everything we do. And I am sure of this. There is a science to us all and a pathology to our behavior that stems from an idea, a thought, a feeling, or a need to settle a discomfort.

We all have this. We all look for comfort. We want to feel better. We want to fit in. We want to be accepted, wanted, desired, and moreover, we all want to be soothed, consoled, and reassured. This is primal by the way. This is the piece of us looking for the warmth of the womb or the swaddle in the blanket.

There are stages in life which we all go through. We grow. We live and we learn. We apply ourselves in different ways until we find our place. This is where the science behind our behavior comes in.

I have a drawer filled with little keepsakes and mementos from friends I’ve gained along the way. I have a picture that was drawn of me while standing in front of a roomful of people at one of my empowerment classes.
I have a tie that someone bought for me, which is nothing like anything I would wear but still, I kept this.
I keep things like this because from whichever angle the gifts come from and from whomever remembered me enough to give me something, I see each of these gifts as tiny victories. I keep them because they mean something to me.

I am young now.
In fact, I am younger now than before because I choose to be.
I am a man by my own definition; therefore, I do not concern myself with the definition of others or concern myself with the pronouns someone else uses. I do not concern myself with the way someone else chooses to define me because above all things; I am me and no one else can say or sway any of this from ever being true.