New Year? Lots of Us Will Maintain Dysfunctional Beliefs/Practices

A new year, whether you commemorate it in January or the spring, reflects an effort to symbolically eliminate the old and bring in the new.  The hope, of course, is that the new is a higher quality, better focused, and improved version of whatever is going in our individual and collective lives.  

For those of us dedicated to work designed to lift oppression and create a world based on values of justice, this means hopefully taking us to the next level of effectiveness.  Getting more people involved and growing our support.  Building our capacity to bring us closer to our mission and objectives.  On an individual level, those that are serious, look to challenge themselves to confront and address issues that they see as holding them back from being better people.  Being stronger.  Being more prepared to make greater contributions in all levels of their lives, individually and collectively.  For those who really put effort into this process, it can be extremely rewarding.  People literally challenging core dysfunctions within themselves that perpetuate repeated bad relationships so that they can eliminate these destructive behaviors.  

I say seriously approach this process because pretty much everyone preaches some degree of redemption for the new year.  I'm 100% sure that everyone who does this does so with the best of intentions, but we humbly suggest that the one important ingredient that separates people who struggle to advance in their processes from those who experience gradual, yet confirmed, growth with their proclamations is the willingness on the part of the latter group to be honest with themselves.  To push themselves beyond their comfort zones.  In order to do this effectively, a person must have done enough personal work so that they develop a comfort level with themselves.  This person is capable of admitting when they are wrong and doing that sincerely.  They can do this because that work they have done?  It has permitted them to grow beyond seeing errors as confirmation of inadequacy.  Instead, they learn to understand that everyone makes errors, or as Sekou Ture said; "the only person who makes no errors is the person who does nothing!"  These folks thus learn to use their errors as opportunities to grow and this consciousness builds confidence which in turn actually reduces errors while stimulating growth.  

A great deal of courage is required to reach this level of commitment to one's self growth and unless that previously mentioned personal work is carried out, its very difficult to reach that level of development.  That's why most people, unwilling to confront the discomfort involved in going beyond what they feel they can control, profess change and growth, but instead stand still, which in a world that evolves every second, means you go backwards.  There are an overwhelming level of examples to illustrate what this looks like:

One of the best examples of going beyond comfort zones is the realization that I need to learn much more than I currently know.  Or, as the Honorable Marcus Garvey said; "people live only about 70 or 80 years when the earth is millions of years old so no one person lives long enough to understand enough about how this world works.  That's why study is so important!"  To me, Garvey's statement means that the person who doesn't study is arrogant enough to actually believe they know all that they need to know.  And make no error about it, by study we mean comprehensive study which involves massive amounts of reading material that is uncomfortable for you.  Why reading?  Because reading is proven to be one of the best ways to exercise your brain's intellectual and critical analysis capabilities and since the brain is muscle, like any muscle, it definitely needs to be challenged this way in order to grow.  So, let's be loud and clear when we say that watching youtube videos is not the study we are talking about.  There's nothing wrong with watching those videos.  I watch plenty of them, but I use them only as supplemental material to what I've studied, not as a substitute to study.  If you don't really study, your brain has no choice except to accept what that video is telling you, no differently than any person telling something in person.  Even though videos have graphics, etc., that's not the study we are talking about.

And, the fact watching videos has somehow come to masquerade as study explains why so much misinformation being presented in those videos is being passed off as study today.  People with personal agendas, usually ones focused on personal/financial profits, are promoting this false narrative that African (Black) people have been in the Western Hemisphere for thousands of years before the transatlantic slave trade.  The evidence these people/videos use to support their argument?  No slave ships remain in tact in 2020.  If this foolishness wasn't so damning to our fight it would provide classic comic relief.  The sad part is these people can promote this insanity effectively without having any backgrounds or study in ship disintegration, ship recycling, etc.  Those who have taken even a little time to study those sciences can easily explain there is an entire industry dedicated to restoring ships with parts from previous ships that these corporations spend billions recovering in oceans.  In truth, this is one of the primary responsibilities and purposes of skilled divers.  They have been doing this for centuries so the answer is technically, the ships are in the same place that houses lived in hundreds years ago are, as well as any material substances that can be recycled and recovered.  Or, did some of you believe every new automobile is built with 100% new metals?  I even come across people who have convinced themselves that despite the reality that everything about their family histories i.e. where their families are from (in the Western Hemisphere, because besides plopping down money to European capitalist companies for so-called DNA tests, they haven't spent five minutes studying anything about African history), they are telling everyone their families have always been here.  And, if you talk to them as I do, you will see immediately that their talking points are all the same which illustrates the lack of study.  Meanwhile, if these people spent even a few minutes reading a single book, they would learn basic things that connect us to Africa.  Cornbread, a staple of U.S. so-called "soul food" actually derives from corn and grits, or maize.  Maize is a common food staple in Africa so just by taste and appearance, corn bread and grits reflect efforts by our ancestors to connect to West African foods like banku and foo foo which have connected histories.  These folks could learn that the sickle cell anemia gene and disease, which most Africans in the West have one or the other, evolves from our system's adaptation to fighting malaria in Africa.  The cells mutated to fight malaria.  People could perhaps learn that our non-verbal language communication, such as signaling liking a certain food dish by saying "um um!" instead of "this is good."  Signaling a scenario that is not acceptable by saying "ummmmmm?" is another example.  Or when seeing someone empirically appealing, responding with "Um, um, uh."  There are entire ethnic groupings in Africa who communicate this way such as the Hohentot peoples who viciously fought slave kidnappers.   

Most of the Western Hemispheric believers will decide in 2020 and beyond not to read anything educating about what I've mentioned above.  This is tragic.  Kwame Ture was fond of saying "if you are sick, you take an aspirin.  Why since you are ignorant, you don't read a book?"  The tragic part is these people, so conditioned with a sense of shame about Africa fed into them 24/7 by capitalist/white supremacy, have resorted to the intellectually lazy practice of making up things to try and make them feel proud of a history that in actuality, is as proud as anyone else's on the face of the earth.  

And its certainly not just African people who will opt into confusion in 2020 and beyond.  Most so-called European and other "liberals" will continue to deny all levels of scientific evidence indicating otherwise by continuing to believe that the racist democratic (and republican) party, within the U.S. capitalist system, will somehow accomplish something it hasn't done in hundreds of years.  Usher in justice and forward progress for oppressed peoples.  I would bet that out of every 100 Europeans, no more than five of them, have ever read a single book on white supremacy, patriarchy or homophobia.  Not one book on either issue, yet those 95 white people will never hesitate in 2020 and beyond to immediately speak up on each issue as if they have enough actual knowledge on any of it to half fill a thimble.  

It would dishonest to blame social media for this phenomenon.  Surely, social media has contributed to this problem, but it was here long before the internet.  The only thing the internet has done is provide cover for this laziness and dishonesty.  

Also, its not to say reading is the only method of development. It certainly isn't.  Its just one simple example to make the point that most people aren't going to be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to improve going forward.  Still, we never expose and/or express a problem without providing some suggestions for addressing it.  The first one, related to reading, is everyone should make a commitment to read one 400 page minimum book on a subject in 2020.  Any subject.  No audio reading.  One book that you have to read and comprehend for yourself.  For most people, carrying out this objective will be painful and extremely difficult, but I can guarantee you that once you complete the task, you will feel much better about yourself and what you know on the subject you studied.  

Another goal for 2020 can be to prevent anyone from talking to you in a way that makes you feel inadequate.  This you can address by promising yourself that you will interrupt this process when it happens.  It will require you practicing.  What you want to do is think about and jot down examples of negativity that comes your way and based on the people who deliver it to you, that shouldn't be too hard.  People generally stick to the same negative talking points against you often so remember them and write them down.  Then, think about ways you can respond to them in healthy ways.  When someone criticizes you for your appearance you should practice responding  in ways that communicate your satisfaction with how you look.  "I like my hairstyle and I didn't remember asking your validation regarding it."  Something like that which cuts down the insult directed at you. I believe firmly that much of the depression people experience isn't because of the abuse people direct towards you.  Most of the time, the abusers are well established as being that so people are not surprised by their behavior.  I would argue the depression is more the result of their subconscious dissatisfaction that they haven't done anything to overcome their situation.  By practicing speaking up for yourself, you will be immediately amazed at how much better you feel because you stood up for yourself.   On an organizational level, often in the interest in getting things done, people can be quick to criticize without acknowledging your efforts in producing the work.  You have to tell yourself that your contribution is a good one because if everyone could have done it, the work would have been done long before you attempted it so when the critiques start remind yourself of that so you can learn to avoid taking things personal.  Instead, practice breathing so you can hear the validity in criticisms, because there usually is some.  This helps you grow and for the negativity, you continue to practice the responses previously mentioned.  

The bottom line to all of this is you will only get out of life what you put into it.  You can survive like a roach or you can live.  If you want to live, you have to push yourself.  You can try and fail 3,000,000 times because all that means is your potential to get better the 3,000,001 time grows substantially.  The alternative, as my dad said to me when I asked him what he thought about me getting an advance degree was "if you live long enough, you will be 50 or 60 years old.  You are either going to be 50 or 60 with an advance degree, or 50 or 60 without one."  We all will either grow old, getting better, or we will just grow old.