Pay It Forward

The other day, I was helping an associate of mine with a problem that she had. (Neither the nature of the problem nor the solution/resolution is perniant to what is about to follow. It is simply a background to how and why this particular manuscript came to form.) After helping this young lady out, she insisted on returning the favor in some kind of way, which I said “Don’t worry about it.” We then proceeded to go back and forth about it. Finally I relented and said she could pay me back by paying it forward in some form. To my surprise she wasn’t aware of the term “Pay It Forward”, and asked me to explain what I meant. At the time I thought nothing of it, but later that day when I was thinking/mediating/praying I realized a flaw that plagues today’s society.

Paying it forward is a philosophy I firmly believe in. I am a product of the pay it forward philosophy, I cannot simply abandon the concept that helped mold me into the individual I am today. So I choose to pay it forward, more importantly I make sure knowledge to be the thing I pay forward. Knowledge is power and it’s one of those things no one can take away from you. You may be stripped of all worldly possessions; you may be stripped of your happiness and joy, but you will always be able to keep the knowledge you’ve gained. Not enough people share the knowledge they have. In today’s society everybody wants something for what they do; people hardly do things just because they want to do it. Or they believe if they share their knowledge and thoughts it it’ll diminish them in some kind of way. Knowledge shared does not diminish the giver in any way, knowledge is meant to be shared and recycled to be expounded upon. Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

Knowledge is all I have to give. I am neither rich in money or material things, but I’ve been able to learn quite a few things in my walk of life. It’s quite amazing when I look back on the people who chose to pay it forward and shared their knowledge with me; I’m grateful for everything and everyone. Some were from conventional sources like coaches and teachers while others were idiosyncratic sources, such as a homeless man who used to be around my old neighborhood. I would sit outside my building at night talking to myself and every so often he would be pushing his cart by. At first I thought he was just attempting small talk to receive some food but even when I didn’t have anything to give, he would still stand outside the gate and babble. Now that I think about it, it might’ve been stupid and dangerous to interact with that homeless gentleman but he was full of knowledge and provided several nuggets of what not to know with the opportunities of life. So I take everything I learn, everything that was ever told to me, everything that I’ve thought of myself and I tell it to other. I tell it to the youth I coach in football. I tell it to some of my friends during our conversations. I tell it to anyone who is willing to listen; unfortunately many don’t feel compelled to listen. I listen because at a young age I learned,

‘Hear instruction, and be wise, and refused it not’

By paying knowledge forward, I hope to also receive knowledge. Even if I receive no knowledge in return, it is still rewarding. It’s a satisfying feeling knowing you’ve helped someone along the way or cheered someone with a word or song. As much as I enjoy paying it forward, I also enjoy listening and hearing others impart knowledge, wisdom and understanding. I do it simply because I find it interesting to listen and hear other people’s story. Everyone has a story to tell and there’s a moral to every story. Not everyone is receptive of this concept, many will think you have ulterior motives and close you out [which in turn also close themselves]. I may not be able to reach as many people as MLK Jr. or Ghandi, but Mother Theresa once said “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed one.” Consider this my one. I hope to reach many others, only time will tell how successful I am.

“I hope the fruits of my labor are ripe for many generations to come.” - Donovan Nichols

The Vulnerability of Love

Love might be the most important thing to the survival of the human race. It allows humans to work together, plays a vital role in reproduction, and allows us to connect with and understand the world around us. Love, in its purest state, is an interesting and complex entity. It's something that many have tried to understand only to find out it is sometimes incomprehensible. Many spend their whole life trying to find love, only to never find it. To be clear, I’m not talking about the motherly love or that strong bond that exist between people who share common interest or activity (friendship). I’m talking about that true romantic unconditional love. Some welcome this feeling of natural bliss that stems from romantic unconditional love, while others prefer not to experience it. As sad as it may sound, they are some people who will run away or change course when they start to feel this type of love. I believe my generation calls it “Catching feelings.”

Have you ever seen someone in love? Whether it’s an elderly couple that’s been together for 20+ years, newlyweds, or just two people in a committed relationship; the love is the same. When you observe someone who’s in love, you’ll see certain things. There is a certain admiration and appreciation when it comes to their significant other. There’s a noticeable pep in their step. If observe two people who genuine care for each other you may start to wonder, “Who wouldn’t want that?” Eventually, I found out why people run away from this particular feeling. While love can bring forth feelings of happiness/joy/bliss, there’s another side of love that isn’t so beautiful. There’s another side of love that is difficult to come to terms with. I call this side the Vulnerability of Love. When you experience the vulnerability of love, it’s enough to make you not want to love ever again. The vulnerability of love has the ability to hurt you with the worst hurt you’ll know. Physical injuries cause pain that can be treated with remedies to aid in the healing process; the hurt and pain that comes from the vulnerability of love cannot be treated with such remedies. I’ve played football and did a little thai boxing so I’ve been hurt several times in life, but nothing compares to the hurt you experience when the vulnerability of love introduces itself to you. It was/is a formidable blow, a blow that will always be remembered.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. One cannot simply say they’re in love without have that sense of vulnerability, even if it is unbeknownst at the time. If you look back at a time when you thought you were in love, but can’t remember being vulnerable, chances you weren’t really in love. There’s no way around it, to love means to be vulnerable in some fashion. When you love someone, truly love them, you lay your heart open to them. You give them a part of yourself that you give to no one else, and you let them inside a part of you that only they can hurt; you literally hand them the razor with a map of where to cut deepest and most painfully on your heart and soul. And when they do strike, it’s crippling; like having your heart carved out. Love is something that requires your all. It is constant action and attention to detail. It difficult to accept the fact that something is over, you don’t simply stop loving on command. It's a very difficult thing to walk away from something after you've put your all into it, especially if you feel like you're coming away with nothing. You may come away with memories and many lessons learned, but at that moment it all feels like nothing.

While it’s painful to go through the effects of the vulnerability of love, it has its place one’s life’s cycle of ebbs & flows. I sometimes have to remind myself, being vulnerable has its purpose; A purpose that can be missed when dealing with one of its side effects. Any love makes us vulnerable. You will be given the gift of pain somewhere along the road. However, you can’t live your life sealed in spiritual cellophane just to keep from ever being hurt. While that cellophane may be able to keep you ‘safe’, it will also hinder the ability to learn life’s many lessons. Not many people like to the take a backseat in situations, but taking a backseat provides you with a different angle, a different perspective and point of view. I believe it’s important to embrace the vulnerability of love and the vulnerability of life. While it may bring you down for a moment, you’ll learn something about yourself.

“Vulnerability is the only authentic state. Being vulnerable means being open, for wounding, but also for pleasure. Being open to the wounds of life means also being open to the bounty and beauty. Don’t mask or deny your vulnerability: it is your greatest asset. Be vulnerable: quake and shake in your boots with it. The new goodness that is coming to you, in the form of people, situations, and things can only come to you when you are vulnerable, i.e. open.” - Stephen Russel

Cycle of Life - Reality of Life

When you're growing up, everyone tell you to strive and fight for your dream. They tell you don't ever stop believing in yourself or your dreams. It doesn't matter what your dream is. It may be to be a famous athlete, actor, writer, singer, dancer or any other occupation society deems "far fetch" for any responsible adult to hold on to. They tell you to shoot for the moon, if you fall you'll still be among the stars. They then proceed to tell you about the multitude of people who went from nothing to everything. My personal favorite is the one about Michael Jordan, who failed to make the final roster of his Junior Varsity basketball team only to go on to be the greatest basketball player to ever handle a Spalding. Most importantly, they say you can be anything you put your mind to. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with that, after all, with today's misguided youth it's a good thing to provide a sense of desire and purpose in a young person's life.

What happens when this young person gets hit with the cold hard reality of life? They start to realize a lot of what they've been told isn't always true. They start to realize they weren't told everything they should've been told. What they don't tell is that not everyone can be an actor, rapper, singer, athlete or dancer. Somebody has to be the teachers, guidance counselors, salesman, police offers, firefighters and such. They don't tell you in addition to hard work, you will also need a little luck to reach your dreams. They don't tell you sometimes a dream is just that, a dream.

They ultimately fail to tell you, sometimes your life expectations will exceed it's opportunity.

As unfortunate as that is, it's the truth for a lot of people. So you go through your early life believing one thing, only to receive a gut check aka reality check (normally you get this reality check sometime in your early twenties but some people receive it later in life). This effectuation can hit you like a sack of bricks if you're not ready for it, most people aren't ready when it comes and have a hard time accepting it. All this is just part of the process of maturing and growing up. Being 21 and older doesn't make you grown , it just means you're old enough to make decisions for yourself but you may still be too stupid to make the right decision. Oh, did i say stupid?? I meant 'inexperience'. You end up learning life is ultimately a cycle of highs and lows. It ebs and flows over time.

The Ohio Players once told the world about the "Love Roller-coaster" (Roller-coaster of love...say what?!) However, there's a roller-coaster of life too. Socrates, Plato, Machiavelli, Aristotle and other great thinkers of their time all tried to understand the meaning of life. Life is simply a series of good and bad, highs and lows.

You will laugh, cry, love, hate, sometimes all in the same day.

In due time you learn to enjoy and appreciate the highs/good while learning from the lows/bad. It's easy to dwell on the rough patches of life when your dealing with a death, personal or professional failure, or when the love of your life breaks your heart. The author of Ecclesiastes tell us, "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." You should embrace the seasons when they come, regardless of what season it is or what emotions/feelings the season ushers in. It is better to be old and wise through life's many experiences than it is to be old and naively oblivious to the world. For wisdom is better than sliver and gold.

The Pursuit of Happiness

I’ve come to understand the words “happy” and “happiness” are words that are thrown around quite a bit in life. When you start a new job, people ask “Are you happy there”. When you enter into a new relationship, your close friends and family will ask you “Does S/he make you happy?” I’m sure most people have even seen the film “The Pursuit of Happyness”. The ‘pursuit of happiness’ is one of the three unalienable rights mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. If you ask 10 people what they want out of life, I’m guessing at least half of them will say “To be happy”. To go even further, if you ask them what it means to be happy they’ll probably say something along the line of “Having a successful career, a wife/husband, some children, and/or house” After all, that is what is portrayed to be happiness in terms of media/film. Happiness is something a lot of people strive to attain in their life. However, if you ask me, I will tell you the pursuit of happiness is a vain pursuit. Just hear me out…I’m not saying there’s something wrong with happiness or wanting to be happy. I just think of it in a different way.

Ever since I started to think critically about the various aspect of life in my mid/late teenage years, I was never sold on living life for the sole purpose of being happy. I always thought it was more important to be content in one’s life than it is to be happy, and the first 5 months of 2014 quickly reminded me of why I have that mindset (more on this later though). A thesaurus will tell you happiness and contentment are the same, but it’s not. I always viewed life as a circle and not a straight line, it is a cycle. As you journey through life, you will encounter many feelings and emotions on more than one occasion. Situations will differ as you journey through life but the emotions/feelings you have experienced and will come to experience are the same.
Living life for the sole purpose of being happy is a vain endeavor because it is impossible to sustain a sense of happiness. Many have tried to find a way to sustain happiness but they soon find out there’s another end of the spectrum. The seesaw called life has its ebbs & flows…peaks & valleys…to-and-fros. In your pursuit of happiness you’ll find sorrow, pain, heartache, confusion woe, misery and a host of other emotions. Eventually you’ll find happiness but the sustainment of said happiness will only last for so long. That not to say you shouldn’t continue to pursuit it though.

Another reason why living life for the sole purpose of being happy is an unavailing endeavor is because happiness is not exclusive. There are too many things that can be tied into one’s happiness. Let’s say you lose one of those things, does that one thing make you unhappy or less happy? Are there varying degrees of happiness? Allow me to use myself as an example. For the past several years I have had romantic companion (I actually dislike the word girlfriend, therefore I use many other words instead) in my life. She was/is without doubt a confidante of mine and I was her confidant. As we built upon our foundation (relationship), she eventually became tied into a part (not whole) of my happiness. Sidenote: I know some people tie their significant other to their entire happiness. If you’re one of these people, I need you to reevaluate some things. You’re potentially setting yourself up for some serious hurt down the line. Even if that person never ends up causing you hurt, it’s still important to find oneself in the journey of life, but I digress. So she eventually became tied into a part of my happiness (love has a way of doing stuff like that), then after about 4 years our companionship ended abruptly for reasons I cannot understand or for reasons that was not explained to me clearly. Well, it was abrupt for me at least, that’s all I can really say about it at the moment because this excerpt isn’t about that. Sidenote: I actually do have an excerpt regarding that whole situation called “The Vulnerability of Love” on paper. Eventually I’ll edit it and make available. Naturally I felt a myriad of emotions as a result of this: shock/denial, followed by grief, sadness, sense of abandonment, numbness, at one point I think I even felt hatred, but it didn’t last past a few hours. As I navigated and continue to navigate through this multitudinous sea of emotions, I know this is a flow to one of my life’s ebb. It’s all part of the pursuit of happiness being content in life. Should I be unhappy? Or is my happiness at a level 5 instead of a level 10?

The psalmist tells us “Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Unfortunately joy doesn’t last forever, and that too may only be endured for a period of time. It is impossible to talk about happiness without some reference to sorrow/sadness. There are two sides to a coin; the yin must be accompanied by the yang. When the yin is joined with the yang, you have balance. You don’t strive solely for sadness/sorrow nor should you strive solely for happiness; instead strive for the balance between the two which is contentment. You may find that’s what you’ve been after all along.

Paradox Of A College Graduate

The other day, while browsing on the internet, I came across a job posting. The posting was for an entry-level job in the marketing department of a company. After reading the job description, i went on to read the "Qualification Requirements" where the first sentence read "2-3 years of experience is required for this entry-level position". I then found myself wondering about a variety of thing regarding someone who's on the job hunt.

Speaking from a recent college grad perspective, this was quite perplexing. First of all, the posted was for an entry-level position. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't an entry-level position for newcomers like recent college grads or individuals who looking to change careers? If I had 2-3 years of experience of entry-level work, my next step would be a forward progression up the job hierarchy. Who actually jumps from one entry-level job to another?? Seems pretty stagnant to me, but I digress.

My next point is: where do companies expect you to gain valuable experience if they are looking for 2-3 years of experience for an entry-level job?? For college students, internships are great ways to gain relevant experience but how many college students can actually gain 2-3 years of experience from internships? Most companies seek college juniors and seniors for their internship positions, therefor most of them spent their first 2 summers of college working menial jobs at the local department store or fast food restaurant. So if your lucky, you'll typically come out of college with about 6 months to a year of relevant experience in the field you intend on working in. Thankfully, many universities curricula now require their students to find at least one internship to satisfy graduation requirements.

Most college graduates go from undergraduate studies straight to graduate studies but times has changed. A master degree used to separate someone from other in the employment pool, but now it seems as though one requires a master degree just to enter the fray of the competition. Even if you go straight to graduate school, the problem still exist. Now you have a master's degree but you still don't have the amount of relevant experience these companies are looking for. The cost of education is too high for someone to have a an advance degree and not be able to find a decent job.

In tough economic times like these many people are forced to settle for any job to makes ends meet, until something better comes along. However nobody likes to settle, and. Furthermore is settle a good idea??? All these companies are looking for 2-3 years of relevant experience. Hypothetically speaking if someone was a marketing major but couldn't find a job in their field, so they settle and start working in a group home. What are the odds that they'll be able to find something in their marketing field?? After all, although they are working they still don't have the relevant experience.

It's things like these that make me wonder and question the choice to go to college. You can't help but wonder if you wasted time and money going to institutions of higher learning when there is virtually no career fulling jobs for recent college graduate.

Things that make you go "hmmmmm"....

Exactly Why Are You Doing That?

While browsing the plethora of social networking available to the public i notice some common trends. I noticed that a lot of people are making changes in their lives. Some of these changes are big changes and some of these changes are subtle changes. Whatever the change may be, I often ask the person this one question "Why did you decided to change ? To my amazement, most of the times people don't know why they are doing something. Whats the point of doing something if you don't know why your doing it? In this day and time people like to emulate others, but don't truly understand why that person is doing what they're doing.

You shouldn't do things just because someone else is doing it, you shouldn't do things because someone else thinks it's right,and you def shouldn't be doing something because someone else told you to do it. For ever action there is a reaction, and often times when you change things in your life other things and/or people are affected as a byproduct. If you don't truly know and understand why your doing something, you may not be ready for what results due to the change.

For ex: The decision to settle down and get married because everyone in your friendship/associate circle is doing it. If you aren't truly ready to settle down and commit to a monogamous relationship, chances are it probably won't last. Furthermore, if you don't understand why you want to settle down and get married your gonna wind up in a situation that you don't want to be in.

The point of it all is this: Do something because you want to do it, not because of others. Ask yourself: Why am I doing this?? What's going to change as a result of doing this?? Do I really understand what I am doing?

Taking It To The Next Level

It's been quite some time since I've last posted on my online blog, I've been neglecting it like Cinderella stepmother neglected her. However, I was thinking to myself the other night and realized it's time to stop being lazy. It's time to take this blog to another level. A long time ago I realized that I talk to myself a lot. Call me crazy if you will, but i find that i say some deep and insightful thoughts when I talk to myself. All that remains is for me to put my thoughts into txt. Since I have an ample amount of time on my hands I will be blogging more frequently.