What I learned as a 40-year-old black man in the last 6 months about Self
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Now, that we have arrived at the midpoint of 2022; what is it that you needed the most from your valued experiences? Coming into 2022, I was lethargic and afraid of my own truth. The pandemic was having its way with my mind and emotions. I was hobbling about, taking tentative steps.
A total wreck if you ask me. I was beginning to turn the corner to what would be my most productive writing campaign ever. I have been journaling, writing, reading, observing, rocking back and forth, biting my lip, squirming in discomfort, and passive-aggressively hyperventilating.
And yet something magical happened during this entire process. My voice appeared out of nowhere. Out of the frustrations that extends from our jobs, careers, social life, relational dynamics, and financial constraints a small star begins to emerge.
I could go on an on about the thousands of problems we all face as a society; and yet it’s in the articulation of our pain that fuels the breaking of those psychological entanglements. I learned many things about relationships from Will & Jada Smith public discourse.
Will Smith’s Oscar slap as an example when the tea kettle boils hot.; shows what it means to love and not be loved. Too bad that this had to happen at the Oscars and between two black men. The world came face to face with our internal vitriol for one another. The cat is out of the bag.
It’s an ugly evil to pit the black man against the black man, when black men are already being hunted by the world. Instead of regurgitating the heightened anxiety and insomnia I experienced verbatim; it’s a must that I present three lessons that helped me to efficiently rectify my own character flaws.
Be ok with the unpredictability of life
As hard as it is to put the Uvalde Elementary school shootings into a proper context; it’s important that we find meaning in tragedies that causes an eternity of pain. Our experiences are like mini pop-up shops. They are unplanned, seasonal and at any given moment can rent space in our lives.
Be ok with your personal experiences as lessons that propels you to think differently about the world. The recent string of mass shootings (Boston, Uvalde, Oklahoma, Wisconsin etc.) places us dead in the action whether we want to admit it or not. Death and the killing of innocent lives is painful, messy, and most important unpredictable.
These unpredictable moments at first glance seems like a broad stroke from the master’s wand; and yet a closer look reveals a pathway that uniquely inscribed to the destination of a people.
It’s in the randomness of life that the Oedipus complex begins to rise. Oedipus involves a character who starts out well but quickly lands in trouble. They successfully climb out of this pit, but the rise is short-lived, and they descend again to their doom (fall-rise-fall). Although, this could be your narrative it is leading you to a place called self. Take the ride and never forget who gave you life.
Honor Your Parents
Let no past justifications remove you from honoring your sacred duties. Whatever has transpired between you as those individuals (parents, grandparents, caregivers, foster parents, cousins, uncles, aunties, the streets, etc.); is now a thing in the past. Let those triggers that activate old wounds go.
It’s ok that some crimes warrant unforgiveness. Nobody walking this earth is perfect and despite our past upbringing we are still a work in progress. By honoring those who raised, birthed, guided, and watched over your soul sends a strong message about the legacy you will inevitably leave.
I learned the importance of honor by what I failed to capitulate in my professional life. I don’t have my dad in this current experience, but I am so thankful and grateful to have my mother alive and well. Let your hardships drive you to appreciate those that gave you life in this experience; for in doing so will create a balance in your perspective on life.
Use Balance to your Advantage
In certain aspects of our lives, it could look like a rubric cube. The Rubik’s Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik.
The Rubik’s Cube consists of 26 small cubes that rotate on a central axis; nine colored cube faces, in three rows of three each, form each side of the cube. When the cube is twisted out of its original arrangement, the player must then return it to the original configuration, one among 43 quintillion possible ones.
As masterful as the idea of the Rubik’s cube is there is a lesson; we are able listen deeper at the frequency of the matter. When we are twisted out of our original framework of thinking the game begins. We must then find a correct balance of perspectives that allows us to return to the original configuration we were initially born to use for the accomplish of our higher purpose.
I learned to compartmentalize my feelings and trust the process. It’s about your emotions, lifestyle, spirituality, peace, and financial stability in my estimation.
In summation, the unknowns of life are inevitable. You will run into a brick wall at some point, but you never play the crash dummy. You are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Our life experiences awaken us to our purpose in the earth.
The older we get the more important our understanding of honor as it relates to those who gave us life becomes. Now, a balance in perspective precedes your daily devotion to many unknowns and things begin to clear up.
Whether you get the significance of your experiences or not; change is a given. As the world turns for the better, we might as well expect laws to change for the benefit of society as whole.
I am thankful for these lessons over the last 6 months of my time on planet earth. I learned many other lessons as well on love, work, patience, spirituality, trust, fear and peace; but it was those above that I felt could inspire a new sense of destiny in the world today.
