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Be The Change That You Seek

May 11, 2016 africafifth@gmail.com 2 Comments

I have often spoken of change in my posts because I believe it is an integral process that leads to growth of oneself both inward and outward. Often times in life we find ourselves confronted with circumstances of adversity. We tend to lack the fundamental tools that are needed to cope with these moments and we are reluctant to challenge ourselves to press on and press through. We throw up our hands to surrender rather than to conquer which is why we always find ourselves at the same place no matter how much we may lament for change.

For one to be the change that one seeks is a daunting undertaking. There are so many dynamics that come into play which make for a very complex and challenging transition. Change is not a process that occurs just from the mere wanting of it. We have to understand that there are many unforseen complications and variables that arise out of attempting to change..

So, with that said one must ask oneself how badly does one need that change to take place. Just like anything in life that is worth having, it comes at a price. Which brings me to my next question; How much is the change worth to you and how much are you willing to pay, ie;( sacrifice)? You see, most of us have no conception of how demanding change can be and are ill prepared to meet those demands. But if one can tolerate the adversity and meet the challenge head on, one will benefit immensely from the process as well as the results…..

I’m going to share with you a bit about myself and what I had experienced some 40 plus years ago. Lost and confused I went into a very dark and lonely place where I dwelled for quite a few years not knowing where I was going in life, I did however have one thing that I would cling to and that was a strong desire to live my life differently. I realize and understand that we all have different experiences in life and disappointments, I get it. But the one constant here is that dismal is dismal and if that is hovering over us, we most definitely want it to change..

I had spent the majority of my teenage years and early 20’s as a somewhat defiant and non conforming individual. I rejected all manner of authority and basically felt like an outcast which eventually led me down the wrong path and to reform school. Which by the way is where I had asked my probation officer to send me. I was being abused by my dad, pushed around and poked fun at constantly by others so I figured that this would definitely get me away from it all and garner me some street cred. Well it did do that and a lot more. I was eleven years old at the time and fed up with this world and all that was in it. So without going into a lot of details, needless to say this was the one mistake in judgement that was the genus for what would follow. By deciding to go this route I had set in motion an unguided and reckless force and embarked on a journey of self-inflicted pain and self-destruction.

I would, like most rebellious kids at that time venture into a world of sex, booze, marijuana, pills and eventually heroin which became the most debilitating and destructive force in my life. I had become snared by the powerful unrelenting grip of intravenous heroin use and I couldn’t see any clear way out.. Everyday that I lived, I lived for the warm feeling of this drug entering into my veins and taking me on a euphoric trip that would ease all of the pain that I felt in life. These moments only lasted for a short while and I would revisit the misery and pain of a drug addicted and disappointed life. I would struggle with my addiction on and off for years before and after military service and alienating myself from everyone .. I would attempt to project some semblance of a normal life but I struggled day in and day out with my addiction to the point where I was contemplating suicide. My life couldn’t get any lower and I couldn’t continue any farther like this!

Suddenly, I was confronted with a very harsh reality. I could remain a slave to this powerful binding drug, commit suicide or I could free myself from this heroin addiction and live. I made a choice to live because I had lacked the courage or will to do the other. I may have also thought that suicide was an easy way out which could also be viewed as cowardly. So I decided that I would go and apply for outpatient treatment but the powers that be decided that methadone would not be given to me. Reluctantly, I decided to enter into an in-house treatment program to begin my journey towards self discovery and a promise of a better life untainted by drug use.. It’s amazing how the initial action causes the unfolding of other actions and reactions.

I was not prepared for the amount of emotional and mental work required of me to make this transition. I ended up leaving a couple of times after making substantial progress only to relapsed and return to begin the process all over again. This type of behavior definitely sounded familiar. It was another pattern that I had developed somewhere along the way in my life. It may have been with my first decision to go away to reform school and not face the issues that I was confronted with in life. How does one know or develop the tools needed if there is no-one to teach or guide them? These are the essentials to life that I would come to be extremely familiar with through countless interactive group sessions and one on one therapy. But first I needed to commit myself to the process which brings me to that moment in my life when my mother had come to visit me at the program. She had uttered something to me that would change my life from that moment on. Quite simply she said to me, Alton you want change but you only want it on the outside. In order for you to change you have to want it on the inside. BOOM! There it was as simple as one, two,three. Is that all there was to it? Just to want it on the inside? You mean to tell me that I have been fronting it all along, you know acting as though I wanted it but not really wanting it? Was I just kinda going through the motions?

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No, that wasn’t the case at all. I merely needed to go through what I went through in order for me to realize that real change has to take place within and until I was really sincere and ready for it, it would not happen. That is when the real work begins, because now I had to remain diligent and determined to make it no matter what. The demons never really go anywhere, they just wait in the shadows for you to slip up.I have had people tell me that I had squared up or that I would always be a junkie. Once a junkie, always a junkie. My own mother had even said to me once when I was clean and living a productive life that if someone had told her that I would turn out to be the person that I have become today, she would have told them that they were full of shit. Yeah folks, that is just how bad I was. Well, it has been well over 35 years and I have never stuck another needle of heroin in my veins.

Yes, so what am I saying? It’s plain and simple; We have to decide whether or not we really want it in order to change and at the same time are we willing to separate ourselves from those forces that lead us to unproductive lives and influence our ability to make the transition. I made a choice early on that put me in a bad place with some people who engaged in some not so healthy activities and as a result set into motion life altering patterns. It is profoundly amazing that I am still on the planet and I believe that I have been given considerable favor by my creators. So check it out; if you are still on the planet and if you don’t like where you are today nor what you see in the mirror, then change it. Make that commitment to turn your life around and embrace the challenge. It will make you a much stronger person. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.. For every action there is a reaction. Good or Bad!

So once again I reiterate; Be the change that you seek.

Thank you Mom, Love you.

Written by; Alton T. DeVeaux Jr (Africafifth)

A BETTER YOU, A BETTER US, A BETTER WORLD

Black Awareness, Black Lives Matter, Black Minds Matter, Education, Empowerment, Enlightenment, Human Conscious, Philosophy, Social Conscious

Bamboozeled Part 2

November 10, 2014 africafifth@gmail.com Leave a comment

We today have a large percentage of our brothers and sisters who are unproductive and aspiring to be something that is elusive. We find them chasing after an elusive life which emulates false images of fame and stardom. We witness them embracing a lifestyle that is rife with violence, no sense of direction, no education, no self-identity, no self-esteem, or self-confidence. These people are the sheep who have strayed away from the flock and have fallen victim to false prophets and salivating predators that use them for their own self gain. Most individuals lack any concept of what real success is and how it can be attained. Consequently what they decide to chase after is fleeting and non-substantive( importance or value). Is it because we still are riffed with a self-imposed slavery mentality or a self defeatist attitude?

Are we to afraid of pursuing an education or some legitimate skill set that would allow us to assimilate into the world of responsibility and productivity? By our lack of desire to ascend to greater heights we are relegated to a position where others dictate what we can and can not do. Where we can and can not live. What schools our children can and can not attend. We have relinquished any form of control to the whim of the white man. I must reiterate that we have allowed ourselves to unknowingly be subdued and brainwashed and have lapsed into a more advanced and modern-day form of slavery. We believe ourselves to be in control but we are actually not. We are completely insentient and do not realize it.
We tell ourselves that to have a command of the English language is to speak like a white person. To be be an educated person and want to have access to the finer things in life is to emulate white people. We continuously say that we don’t want to be like white people. Yet every day I see black men and women emulating the very people that they proclaim not to want to be anything like. I see sisters with breast implants, an assortment of different colored wigs and weaves that they wag back and forth like some attention seeking white girl. They’re inserting blue, green and hazel colored contacts or having their pupils injected with color altering chemicals and bleaching their skin. What the heck is that all about if not someone who is in denial, full of self-hatred and doesn’t know who they really are?
This also applies to brothers with the tattoos depicting the thug life and riding around in cars that have been blinged out with accessories that usually cost more than the car is worth. When some of them open their mouths to speak I need sub titles to understand what the heck they’re saying. The style of dress is to wear pants down and low exposing buttocks for all to see and the accessories of the day are gold covered teeth ( referred to as a grill ). This is absolutely pitiful and yet it is embraced, accepted and glamorized.
You have been dining on and digesting a constant diet of B.S. and either you are too stupid to realize it or you have no other aspirations in life so this is what is embraced. This is the flavor of success your palate has acquired a taste for . You want to sample being a rapper or maybe a thug and live a gangster lifestyle. Definitely the wrong selection on the menu!!! Here are just a couple of examples used in the industry to “BAMBOOZLE” the unsuspecting prey.

Example; Rappers on video proclaiming to be thugs and gangsters drinking booze and waving around assault weapons and handguns. ie: white gangsters and thugs from the 1920’s to 1960’s who robbed and killed each other indiscriminately for territory and control over illegitimate enterprises. They also did not have any regard for a human life..
Example: P Diddy and fellow rappers on video sporting a white robe, slippers and cigar in hand occupying a high end hotel room.
Example: P Diddy in commercial promoting Cirock accompanied by some actors better known for their mob roles along with beautiful long-legged women and other well dressed people. Boarding a private jet and flying out to Vegas and seen traversing through an extravagant palatial hotel or casino, dancing with beautiful women and toasting the high life!!!!! Yeah, we should all aspire for that lifestyle. I understand the marketing concept and the promotion of your product but there is also a message that is being sent that is not conducive or in step with the plight of most ordinary African-American people. It is a self promoting commercial to get you to buy into the false imagery of what your life could be like if you would only buy and drink Cirock. They are selling you on the glamorous life of Las Vegas, private jets, pretty women, partying and expensive hotel accommodations. Oh and let’s not forget the alcohol to which African-Americans spend over 400 million dollars annually to consume. This is a lifestyle that most people will never acquire in their lifetime and if they do they’ll just end up pissing it away.
This does not begin nor end with P Diddy but is a poison that has been perpetuated by him and others in that arena.
Regular smoking: The harmful chemicals in the prescription pills or are unable to take purchase cheap levitra unica-web.com the necessary precautions. Also, it is levitra pill suggested to avoid meal before taking these tablets or have a pill 2-3 hours after meal. This initial primitive form of the internet we know today began by connecting universities, research facilities and military installations, with the further development of networks in other countries. 2. buy cialis online unica-web.com A women’s health basically affects cialis viagra online the entire family. Rapping used to be something that was fun and good to listen to because it was fresh and new. But then some cats figured they would use it as a vehicle to send their message of oppression that was accompanied by the blatant disrespect of our women, use of drugs, alcohol, and violence. Music execs are the pimps, rappers are the prostitutes selling the goods and you are the tricks that purchase it. So I guess at the end of the day your just being played. Just another hustle and form of Black Exploitation!!!

The record labels recognized a prime opportunity to make an enormous amount of cash by grabbing these rappers to write and deliver these lyrics of hate, disrespect and violence and selling it to you.
They are trick ‘in you people by selling you on a lifestyle that most of them only write lyrics about and do not live. You buy into it because you are easily BAMBOOZLED. You lack the ability to discern between what is genuine and what isn’t. What is reasonably achievable and what isn’t. I’m not for one minute suggesting that you don’t aim high but it is what you’re aiming high for that matters. I do not have an issue with someone expressing what they are experiencing however there must be some accountability. We have to take responsibility for what we are saying and how that is received by others. The platform was a great one that could have been utilized to raise the awareness level and empower the masses but it got turned into a pimp machine…

As long as we continue to pursue these types of misguided dreams and lifestyles, great and meaningful achievements will never happen. End of Story!

Written by: Al DeVeaux Jr.