Adventure – Her life shall never be the same with you in it
Because of you she will see the world from a new perspective, if she opens her eyes
He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it
Fathers Day Quote by: Clarence Budington Kelland
How do you not revert back to your tribal instincts?
Have you heard this popular saying from the 1950’s negro migration North: “You can take the nigga out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of the nigga”. I used to hate that saying. Even though I didn’t subscribe to it, I knew there always was some ghetto in me that I could pull out at any given moment. How about this old popular saying of the 1960’s in the South: What do you call an educated black man?… A nigga. If I make the wrong move, I can be locked up with all the other fools through a court system that hates black men almost as bad as black men hate themselves.
How you build a pyramid will influence your rationale (see my article on pyramiding- entitled Complex game of Chess). But that can only take you so far. If you are like me and you came from the hood after building a juvenile criminal record that would be the pride of any life long criminal, then try to emerge into a world with limitless boundaries, you have to learn how to suppress the urge to act on the tribal instinct that you were taught in tribal societies. In a governmental society, the police and civil court is a legitimate way to resolve big problems. On the other hand tribal warfare will be fueled by rage given the need to display your ego publicly. In a tribe, you can not show any signs of weakness, and often times that translates to not showing any signs of intelligence. If you don’t know the difference, that is a discredit to your level of intellect. Rite of Passage into Manhood
I live in guilt for my choice or inability to be a full time dad to my children. It eats at my subconscious that it didn’t go as it should have. In an effort to make the biggest impact I may have pushed my son too far. I may have done more damage than good. I sit in the middle of this road and think to my self, where is my son? Why is he not right behind me, he is not responding, he is not motivated to be or do. Why? Have I failed him? I need help understanding what to do. My grand plan of a Rite of passage ceremony seems not to bare any fruit.
I struggle to be better, to impact my spirit positively, and to positively impact those for whom my heart carries love. I struggle daily with my role in bringing a clearer view of adulthood to my children. Is it my job to be a part of those decisions, or shall I sit in the background and allow my children to find their own way? Every young person has the divine right to their own visions. Rites of passage have been the birthright of young people since the dawn of time. Nearly all tribal cultures provide their young with an opportunity to seek their own vision and enter into adulthood with a spiritual connection to the Universe. Read more
Inflow-mation
Our second Men of Means breakfast is scheduled for April 5th. We will discuss topics regarding manhood with our young brothers. This is an opportunity to flex our inner Obama for the sake of unity and solidarity. We will share our successes and defeats to serve as a guiding post to our young brothers 16 years old +
When is it appropriate to hit a woman?
This is one of the questions we posed to our young brothers at the first men’s breakfast last month. The big brothers first went around the table sharing their experiences when they faced an adverse confrontational situation with someone they were in a relationship with. Not all of the stories where pleasant or ended on a good note. We as mentors kept it real, we did not sugar coat it or try to preach. We once had no clue, we learned the hard way. Now we discuss with the next generation so they may stop and think before they let their temper get the best of them.
As men we are normally at a disadvantage in that we were not raised to feel and express our emotions through verbal communication. Women tend to underestimate our frustrations when we are dealing with emotions that are fresh and contradict what we’ve been taught regarding manhood. Read more
Men of Means Breakfast #1
Assurance Financial is co-sponsoring the first of many Men’s Breakfast. We will meet every 6 weeks to break bread and discuss the many facets of “Manhood”. Each of the men may invite young men 16 to 23 to join us and help us figure out a common definition of manhood. Our hopes are to assist all in attendance in living up to our individual potential by focusing on our individual purpose.
Maturity
Have you ever looked up the word Mature? Are you mature? By whose standards are you mature?
My definition of mature is the ability to take into consideration the long term affects of current decisions. Wisdom is the ability to accurately predict how current decisions will affect the future. Maturity and wisdom go hand in hand. You can consider the long term affects of a current decision, but if you don’t have a clue about what the possible long term affects are, then your maturity is limited. This is why we go to school, and listen to our elders. So we don’t have to actually make as many mistakes as possible, but we learn vicariously through others shared knowledge. As my grandmother would say “A hard head makes a soft bottom”
So when you are face with a decision to do something that feels real good right now (immediate gratification) yet increases the risk of a negative outcome in the future, do you weigh the good with the bad. Or do you jump right in and suffer the consequences later.
If you have the opportunity to have sex with a person on the first date, you have to decide to do it or not; you have to decide to have oral sex or not; you have to decide to use a condom or not. You have to decide if the risk of this being a fatal attraction once you get physical is worth it. We all know the risk involved with permissiveness, but many of us take that gamble.
Have you ever been in a relationship and felt something was wrong, so instead of considering what outcome you truly want, you act out of emotion and make the situation worse? Many times you’ll find that you over reacted. Well that is letting your emotions get the best of you. It is very difficult to manage your emotions, but you must rely on maturity to not take action based on those uncontrollable emotions. Stop, take a breath and think on it before you react. Ask yourself, what do you wish the outcome to be. Probably, you want that thought of something wrong to not be correct. So don’t act out in a way that if there was nothing wrong, there is now because you just showed your ass with stupidity.
Have you ever known someone who continued to make immature comments? They say something that pops in their head without thinking of the long term affects of hurting someone’s feelings and damaging their relationship. Or just loosing the respect of others, which will haunt a person when they need to be taken seriously.
Maturity is better served warm, this means that you don’t have to make decisions while you are hot and bothered. You also don’t have to say no to living a quality and adventurous life for the sake of being “mature”, which is maturity served cold. Serving it warm means that you have a code that you live by, a plan. You can balance the risk in your life for enhancement without the high chance of living the rest of your life in a sling. Prepare with deep thought so that when you find yourself in situations, you know what to do. Some people rely on their religion to give them that guidance. Or maybe discussions with their parents that they actually listened to.
Between the age of 15 and 25 we make mistakes that we spend the remainder of our lives trying to correct. The object of the game is to find maturity as quickly as possible to reduce the regret, pain and anguish. People with morals, standards and self-respect tend to make more mature decisions than those who are most interested in immediate gratification. Which are you?
