Tips to Living Your Best Life Despite the Obstacles We Face Daily

Reading from my latest novel "The Paradox Principles" last night at the Vision Voices Bookstore in Cleveland, Ohio

I've always had the ability to feel things deeply.  I remember feeling like that ability was a curse because I felt such pain, embarrassment, and discomfort with experiences that everyone seemed to just take in stride.  As I've matured, I've learned that this is no curse.  Its a blessing to be able to feel and experience life on all levels.  And, by experience I mean pain as well as happiness.  From a dialectical perspective, pain is the gauge from which we learn to evaluate and experience happiness.  You cannot have one without the other.  So, instead of being unscientific and seeing pain from a position of isolation, I see the pain I experience as education on how to improve errors so as to enable myself to experience more happiness.  So, I've grown appreciation for being able to fully experience everything, even that which hurts because that is what life is really all about.

For example, today, I'm sitting right now in a restaurant enjoying a great lunch.  I'm in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.  A city and state that before yesterday I had never visited before.  Last night, I had the opportunity to share my vision of Pan-African work, Pan-African fiction through my book, and community defense with a small, but spirited, audience.  I met some great people and got to spend time with people I already knew were great.  I was able to talk about my book in great detail.  Doing that is my personal dream come true.  From the time I was quite little, I realized that my voice was not valued.  It certainly wasn't valued by the state.  I'm not even respected as a human being by the state.  My voice wasn't valued in my own family because of the intense oppression my family experienced, there was no time and energy to entertain the fears and development needs of a terrified and traumatized young boy.  My experiences functioning within this reality taught me that what I felt and what I had to say was not important.  It has only been because of an incredible amount of pain, determination, and support at the right times from the right people, that has enabled me to learn how to use my voice.  My writings are the best manifestation of how I use my voice and that's why being able to talk about my book(s) unashamedly and with passion and commitment, is the best version of me being myself and more importantly, making a contribution to this world we live in with my voice.  

I'll have another opportunity tonight here in Cleveland to do the same thing.  I'm hopeful for a larger turnout, but I'm even more hopeful for the same spirit that was experienced last night.  I'm also anxious to explain to you why all of this represents my best life and how my experiences can hopefully help you do the same.

What I've learned from my journey is we are never under any obligation to accept the definitions of our existence that are imposed upon us by the system that oppresses us.  Any system, and this capitalist economy certainly is included in this, that places more value on money than people is not a system that you should listen to about anything pertaining to you and anyone else.  Its always important for us to surround ourselves with reaffirming resources in the midst of this rampant negativity.  That means positive people e.g. folks who are doing more than satisfying their egos.  People who recognize that you have value and encourage you to reach your full potential.  Of course, in order to benefit from relationships like that you have to be that same person who is feeding those values into other people.  In other words, if you don't value and trust people.  If you don't believe in people, guess what?  Nobody is going to be there to value, trust, and believe in you.  So, make sure you are doing everything you can to appreciate people and let them know you are there for them.  Make investments in people even if there is no material return for you.  Especially if there is no material return for you. Institutionalize doing that in your daily life.   When you do that you find that people will be there for you.  Not everyone, but enough so that you will develop a stable enough foundation to go out and make the contribution you are here to make.

The other important factor is you have to develop your vision for what it looks like for you to  live your best life.  And that vision cannot be based in any way on the values being pumped into us by this backward system.  So many people unconsciously live their lives through negative rules imposed upon them by this system.  They'll tell you "I can't do that because...
No one will accept this from me because...I've got to do that differently because...."  If the things you are doing are about enriching humanity and the planet and not just personal advancement, I'm here to tell you that you have absolutely no responsibility to listen to any negative reinforcement about the things you are doing.  Spend time developing your vision and the only things driving that vision should be values rooted in justice and a formula to make you become the best person you are capable of becoming, period.  The only way you can create this type of environment for yourself is you have to develop tools to help you prepare to combat the negative.  I have spent years institutionalizing positive self talk techniques that today jump in immediately whenever the negative self talk starts up.  I've gotten to the point where I have regular internal discussions and battles which are very healthy for me because by the time I come to the point of making decisions, I have learned to feel confident about my reasons for doing so.  And, once you learn how to do that, you will find you experience much less stress in your life.  I'll give you an example.  My trip here to Cleveland.  Obviously making such a trip is not inexpensive.  And, I spend much of my money investing in this type of activity.  For other people, that may seem insane.  Why would I spend literally thousands of dollars traveling somewhere to do events where I don't even know how many people will show up?  Those people would believe I should be investing in something tangible (by capitalist standards) like a house or car.  Nothing wrong with the house and car, but I've had all of those things throughout my life and those things have never been my focus whereas I know plenty of people who's entire lives are set up around those things.  All they do is invest all their time and resources in projects to improve their homes and more power to them, but I know people doing that are not discovering any magic formula for happiness and stress release.  Most of the time they are just as depressed, if not more, and dysfunctional as anyone, despite how good their lawn and backyard looks.  So, that gets back to establishing your own vision based on values of justice.  With that you do the most I believe you can do to avoid that empty feeling that so much of our lives are subjected to in this money over people society.

Yes, I sacrificed to come here.  When I did the same with my sweetie to go through the state of Texas in February, I sacrificed then also, including a $300.00 ticket after being pulled over twice in four days there.  When I travel to Memphis and hopefully several other places for book/political events, I'll be sacrificing then as well.  And, I'm enjoying and benefiting from every moment of it and the people I'm meeting are telling me that they are doing the same.  The joy comes from being able to deliver messages of hope to communities and being able to feel, without question, that your presence is uplifting people.  That you are planting necessary seeds that will germinate in time.  That feeling for me is so empowering and life giving that its the plateau I seek in every bit of work that I do.  Its the reason, at least for me, that I haven't needed any artificial mechanisms to permit me to function.  As Fred Hampton once said "I'm high because the people are high!"  There is no amount of money that can give me that feeling of worth and accomplishment.  I feel that way right now and provided at least one person comes out tonight and I can make a positive connection for the forward progress of humanity, I'll enhancement that feeling again.

Finally, you have to have a plan.  And, you cannot confuse your vision with a plan.  Your vision or mission is the objective you want your life to serve.  The plan is the mechanism you implement to get you there.  My life plan is dictated mostly by the political objectives of the organization I've committed my entire life's work to.  From that, I've been able to implement my personal creativity to have my own voice in that work and my books are the manifestation of that.  Can you imagine a more healthy way to validate yourself?  To give yourself hope and feelings of being formidable to face all challenges come your way?  People constantly tell me I'm an inspiration to them and that I'm an example of how to be strong for them and that's not an egotistical compliment for me.  Its a confirmation that the things I've worked on for so long hold some of the keys for us to get out of this terrible situation we and the planet find ourselves in today.  

Develop your tools to reinforce your psychological and physical foundation.  Create your mission and vision.  Organize your plan and implement all of it based on principles of justice and forward human progress.  I mentioned that much of my process is tied to my organizational work.  Yours needs to be also.  You cannot do the things I'm talking about on a strictly individual basis.  This system is all about individualism.  Rampant individualism.  You cannot use the tactics of our enemies to liberate you from their oppression.  The solution to rampant individualism based on the model of capitalism is collectivism based on the principles of socialism.  If you don't understand that, you are missing the entire essence of what's being presented here.

So, think about and rethink all of this.  Wish me well on my book event tonight and future events.  Support people who are doing good work for justice and develop your process for moving forward.  The only way we cannot win is if we give up.