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.

And here we are, two days before the beginning of August in the year of all years, 2020. I am wondering though. I am wondering about the ideas and the dreams of like say, 30 years ago. The idea of the year 2020 itself was larger than life back then. But tell me, where are the flying cars? 
What happened to the prototypes of what we thought our future would look like? Is this it, because as it stands now, somehow, I thought we would be further advanced than we really are