Attitude = Altitude

Smile
When your heart is aching

Smile
When your heart is breaking

Though there are clouds in the sky
You'll get by

Because that's the time you must keep on smiling

Smile.... What's the use of crying?

You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just.....

Smile

Thank you Michael Jackson

Girl-Fight

I’ve never been a fighter.

I’ve never woke up in the morning with fighting on my mind.

The thing about fighting is that you want to win. I honestly was never confident that I would win fights, because I thought only mean people knew how to fight, not nice people. Naturally, I was a nice person, I grew up watching Disney movies and sing-alongs', but once I moved to a new environment at the age of 7, I met trouble.

In my neighborhood where I grew up, I was surrounded by “bad a*@#s” who would shadow box with each other day in and day out. I learned that the “windmill” was for punks who didn’t know how to fight.  If someone was staring at you, they need to stop, so you shoot them a mean mug. The people who always fought were the ones who walked with authority in their step. They talked the loudest in the groups and everyone followed them. Their mothers would allow them to do whatever they wanted and they were allowed to walk to the other neighborhoods. I always had to ask. I had to stay in front of the house. I couldn’t go too far. But when I was allowed to “walk” I wanted to soak in everything it was about. So I studied and wanted to mirror the females I walked with.

“Walking” was like going to the club. When it was time to “walk” all the girls would go in the house and take a shower and put on the best wardrobe they had. Pro-style gel was like crack. And the ponytail with the gelled “swoop” in the front had to always be crispy.  We all planned our outfits, and everyone had to have their hair the same way. The girls in my neighborhood always competed with girls from the other neighborhood and it was all about “mean-mugging” whoever wasn’t a part of our group. We talked about people as we walked, laughed at people as we walked. We cursed, we talked about boys, we were independent. So we thought.

I always argued with a young lady because she used to always talk about my weight. For some time I used to ignore her because I was naturally a peaceful person. And I honestly was scared of her. One day we were around other people and they started instigating. I would say that 99.9 % of my fights were brought up by instigators. Some of them were my friends who would tell me behind closed doors that I shouldn’t allow this girl to call me names.

One day we were outside and she started on me.  I told the girl to “shut up”. “Shut-Up” meant fighting words… and I had to back it up. So she got in my face and we ended up fighting. I really don’t think I won, because she still wanted to fight me afterwards, and we fought and fought for years. The last fight, we ever had, I knew she won because I let go of her as she kept popping me in my head telling me to let her hair go. (embarrassing right?) But the point is that I really didn’t want to fight this girl. It was nothing inside of me telling me to fight her. She just had a big mouth. But in this “town”, this was grounds for fighting. In my eyes, I just thought “whatever”. But how many people have been killed because of a dispute that could have been ignored?

I find it funny that the only fight I was proud of was the last fight I ever had with another girl. This fight, I knew I was standing up for a principle. This wasn’t something that anyone had to push me to do. It was something that cooked in my spirit. I loved my mother and this female, overstepped her boundaries one too many times.

After this fight, the girl never disrespected my mother again. I was 13 at this time and I was pretty much made into a “drama queen” but this was a fight that I was very, very sure about. Because anyone who went against your “Mom” that was a death wish, where I was from.

And I think that this gives way to fighting for a cause. If you have instigators around or people rooting you on from the sidelines, pushing you to fight, then your fight is really in vain. It’s not really “your” fight as you wish to believe. The will to fight, really starts from within. It has to be some real principles backing it up.

Nowadays I wonder what do people really fight for? What is the good fight, they talk about in spirituality? Not just fist fighting, but anything that we go after.

99.9% of the fights I mentioned earlier were from people on the sidelines telling me to fight. That’s a big difference than wanting to fight from within.

But I also don’t think that self-motivated fights are all justified fights either. We see evidence of that on the 11:00pm news every day.

We all fight for something in this life. Yes. But  it starts with the will to take a stand and fight, but I am trying to understand this deeper.

The reason I spent a lot of time on my environment above was because I believe that in the projects, it’s really a “project”. There are a set of rules and standards that are taught to the people who live there.

“Don’t let anybody punk you”

“You gotta be hard”

I don’t know about the boys’ world, but with the girls’, it was a jungle. Anybody who went against those rules above, had to be dealt with. There were more pointless rules that were promoted; it’s survival of the fittest. It’s a jungle. It’s learned behaviors. We searched for drama when we walked outside, we took everything to the highest degree. If the tone of your voice was wrong as you spoke, you had to get checked. 

Drama was expected.

I carried on this mindset when I moved at the age of 14, and I took it with me everywhere I went. I kept them in my relationships with everyone I came in contact with. And it’s still hard to break free from this attitude. As I reflect, I’m 99% sure that most of the conflicts I have, come from the fights and pointless arguments I had growing up. I won’t even entertain the public school communities and those rules on top of the “project” rules.

But I know that there is a fight out there that I need to pick up that is more valuable than the pointless things I entertain now. I believe there’s a fight for a true principle. When I see disunity, injustice and hatred in our world, I know that there is a fight that’s not being taken up. But do I care enough to fight for it? Is it a fight someone has to force me to fight because I’m comfortable? If the fight is not in me, how do I develop the compassion? And more importantly, how can I let go of the old style thinking to adopt a better style of thought?

This is as far as I can go for now. 

Don't Take It Personal... Or Yes?

I was walking pass some teenage sistas today and I smiled at them and said "Hi!". Two of them spoke and the third just mean mugged me and kept walking....

I felt stupid... I felt like I should have just kept my mouth shut... after all I don't know these girls....

First I thought it was me... Maybe  I need to return "evil for evil" .... Mean mug her back?

But then I thought deeper. And I continued to smile.. I felt a little like I got punked out but whatever....

9 out of 10 times when these type of encounters happen... It's never something that the "offended" should take personal.

Because I know when Ive been stressed out... The ones closest to me get the results of my stress...

How do we respond to others when we are in a depressed state of mind?    Or when stress befalls us?

Do we respond to people different when we are blessed with some good news or a good experience?

Could this lead to the answer to "Why the rate of crime is so high in the black community? And all over the nation?"

Though I can't take it personal, should I take responsibility to do something about this problem?


Thoughts?