On the Beach

Good evening all. I wrote a short story today. It's dedicated to African American History Month, and I thought I'd share it with you all. Enjoy.

--

Today I sat on the beach. I sat on the beach as a young boy of color, surrounded by people of a tone more similar to the sand. 

But none were moved.

I observed human beings in a state of transparency.

I saw two middle aged women staring at the sand. They searched diligently for something of value. They kicked, they dug, and maneuvered the sand. Their eyes filled with passion, somehow knew that they'll find nothing in place of where they thought to find all their hopes and dreams.

But none were moved.

I saw people with bodies as toned as the gods, lacking no perfection. Exposed. Distraction. A distraction to blind the outsider from the insecurities they posses. 

But none were moved.

I saw others with bodies containing defect, a bit more concealed, but exposed none the less. Thoughts of overcoming physical insecurities raced through their mind, I thought, as a look of not caring -some genuine, some artificial- covered their face. They walked with confidence.

But none were moved

I saw older women among the pelicans, enjoying each others company. They celebrated life, being long and well lived. They fed each other literally and emotionally.

But all the while, none were moved.

I sat on the beach today a young Jamaican American of African and Indian descent. I could only help but be thankful. Thankful that I have the opportunity to live in a country different than my heritage and live comfortable. I was thankful that many years ago, African American men and women stood boldly and fought for equal rights in order to pave the way of the future for so many people of different race and culture.

Today, I was thankful on the beach, and none were moved.

--

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this, and I hope it made some type of impact in your life. 

Good Night for now.

Work Flow

So it is 12:04 AM, and I'm just getting home from work.The great life of being an Urban kid, awesome. Tonight was a pretty interesting night, from the customers, to my co-workers and the atmosphere, one would think that this was another chill night at Urban Outfitters with chill people. But for some reason, I was a bit uneasy. From the second I arrived to work, trouble was waiting.

Personally I hate the idea of stealing. I think that being a thief is more than overrated, and just outright wrong. I remember when I was probably seven or eight, my brother Mikhail and I went to Burdines with our mother after church one Sunday. I saw a pair of blue sunglasses that had the flip up lens. I thought they were the coolest things since wearing Space Jam clothing everywhere (yes I loved that movie). I carried them everywhere around that Burdines, clenching them tight with high hopes that my mom would purchase these glasses along with her items. Finally, after long minutes of lingering throughout the women's department, my mother decided that she was ready to make her purchase. The Moment of Truth: I remember this so vividly, we went to a register that had no line.

The young lady called us up to the counter and greeted us with a smile. She took the items from my mom, scanned them, and desensitized them. I then proceeded to hand the glasses to the young lady, but before I could get them to her, my mom stopped me and said no. I tried reasoning with her, but she would not budge. My heart was broken (not really). I just could not leave that store without those glasses, so i stuffed them in my pocket when no one was looking. I felt so guilty when we were leaving the store, but in my mind, all of that would disappear when I put those smooth looking glasses on. We finally made it to the door leading outside, and of course there was a security guard at the door. "What if he knew?" I thought. But we made it past and to the outside. I decided it was time for a test drive of my new fresh shades. I took them out of my pocket and put them on. I was right. My sense of guilt that was killing me in the store went away. I felt like the coolest kid ever. Then my mom saw me. She went off. I had just committed a crime and gave myself away within minutes. My mom told me she was going to turn me in to the authorities since I wanted to be a theif, and we walked back to the store. I was so scared. Long story short she had the security guard talk to me about stealing, and made me say sorry. We went on about our day.

Point of this whole story? That Sunday afternoon, on our drive home from Burdines, I did a lot of thinking in my eight year old mind. I decided that I would never steal from any one ever again. A fear of the things that could happen to me if I did, and a sense of just knowing that it is more than morally wrong to steal entered my thoughts, and I have felt the same ever since. If you can't afford to buy it, then maybe you should not have it, is my mindset. I just wish that everyone would think about it like that. But the reality is that people just don't.

I hate when I notice young people come into my work-place and attempt to steal or actually steal. They just have that same thought process that I had. "This is so cool, and I can't leave without it." So they steal it, and get caught. Automatically their whole life is changed, because now they have a record of some sort. It may not be big, but it's there. But for what though? A 25 dollar hat? or some 8 dollar socks? Tonight I witnessed an attempted theft by a 16 year old, and my heart hurt, low-key, but it hurt. This young man just messed up himself for something he doesn't need.

I don't know this kid from Timbuktu, but oddly enough I was saddened to know that my generation can be so superficial to the point where someone would steal so they can keep up with the latest trends. I know it may seem like I'm preaching tonight, but I just think that people should understand that they should never steal.It's better to say that you earned the ability to buy all the things you own, and not know that you stole from the legacy of someone else, in order to be trendy. Honesty is good for the soul.

Other than that, be enlightened always my peeps.

Permanently Consistent

It's safe to say that I'm pretty much one of the most inconsistent people that I know. As you can tell, it's been a while since I've blogged, and for that I am deeply sorry. It took a great friend of mine pointing out that July was the last time she read a post from me to even realize how much time has gone by. I'm not saying that I up and forgot about my blog, but it seems like the most consistent thing I've been doing that pertains to my blogging career, is putting off the actual act of blogging for another day or time.

Someone once said that you make time for what you want to make time for. I always disagreed with this statement. For a guy like me who gets pretty busy almost all the time, I tend to forget about certain things of intrinsic value to me, like keeping up with my friends or even blogging. It seems like the excuse "I don't have time right now," always finds its way into my sentence choice. But the truth hit me hard. I can make time for whatever I want to make time for. If it really is that important to me, I would make sure that I take care of my business, so to speak.

I know I struggle with consistency. As a matter of fact, one of my main resolutions this new year is to be a more consistent person, keeping up with the things that matter to me. This is sort of my apologetic blog to my readers. I feel like I broke a connection with you all. It has been a VERY long time, but I want to ask for your support as I embark on my new journey of being a consistent man for the rest of my life.

Side Note: Thursday Night is blog night for me. So be on the lookout weekly for a new post.

                  I also appreciate feedback! Let me know what you think. What did you like? What did you                           dislike? What would you like to see me talk about in the future? I love communicating with you,                     my readers.

Until next time my peeps.

A Moral Equation

A moral equation

Pride: noun. a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.

Honesty: noun.  freedom from deceit or fraud.

Pride and honesty are two very powerful characteristics that play major roles in my life. I was raised to be prideful in anything that I do. I was also raised to be an honest citizen. Although I may not have been consistent in portraying these traits 100 percent, I strived to do so as much as possible.

Pride and honesty are traits I believe all human beings should posses, but can an imbalance of the two cause one to be immoral? -- Before I go any further, let me also define moral as the distinction between right and wrong within ones own ethical values. Keep in mind these are my own morals.-- Can someone's pride be too powerful that it causes their honesty to be questioned? I think it can. Sometimes we can't handle things in our life and we need help desperately, but we have too much pride to ask for assistance. This can cause the demise of our selves.

Pride is a trait that should be used to boost your confidence. However, what many people fail to realize is that the two are not the same. When we become too prideful, we tend to call it overconfidence and see it as a good thing, but too much pride in my opinion can cause us to be blinded to proper actions.

Recently, I allowed my pride to get the best of me. Brandon and I were taking care of some business and we decided that I should oversee the remainder of these affairs. Of course it became a tad overwhelming, and rather than ask for help from my brother and business partner, I kept it to myself trying to handle the situation on my own. Too much pride almost caused my company to take a loss. Thank God he stepped in at the right time. I felt embarrassed that I couldn't handle this on my own, but I was even more embarrassed that I wasn't honest with Brandon or even myself. Too much pride in the beginning caused me to have no pride in the end.

This is a prime example of my moral equation:
           pride - honesty = failure

I know you're thinking that you won't fail every time with this equation, but if you do not achieve an honest and ethical success, you haven't achieved real success. Don't base anything in your life on lies.

I love the definition of honesty that I used above. Freedom from deceit or fraud. Powerful. Don't be so prideful that it causes you to be a fraud.

Until next time my peeps.

Read me Right

People say that they can tell how you feel just by observing your body language and by your facial expressions. There are even studies that go deep into the connections between humans and their personas.

Typically, a smile equals happiness
                 a frown equals dissapointment or sadness

Etc. Etc. We've learned these things growing up through our childhood years through observations and experience. This was when our emotions were raw and untouched. An open book eagerly searching for someone to read us, yelling to the world, "Understand me! See how I feel."

I admire, and sometimes envy, how children so openly show their emotions without the thought of someone judging them. They normally do not care. A few hours ago, my 4 year old neice, Christal, called me all the way from Jacksonville. She has a sore throat. Her mother was trying to get her to gargle salt water to help soothe the burning. Christal, being ignorant to the thought of salt water helping her, was puzzled. She was questioning her mother with the look of disbelief, and she insisted on calling me to see if I knew that this crazy idea of warm salt water would actually help her. Of course she refused to do it until she spoke to me to gain reassurance, which I gave her.

I think this was amazing. I love how she had the boldness to question, and reveal the thought that she did not agree, all the way down to the expression on her face. I hope she always has the unction to be bold. This is the boldness that we all had as children. We cried aloud when we were upset no matter where we were. We laughed when we were happy. We questioned, we disagreed. But what I have noticed, is that as we grew older, we developed the capacity to understand when people judge us, and we do not like it.

The result? Well, we hide our emotions. Suddenly, it's not ok to cry and let people know of your grief, or whatever you are going through. It has now been looked down upon when we disagree with the majority, and we tend to accept this new found idea. Am I saying that we should revert back to a state of transparency? Of course not. The thought that I am eluding to is that we should not fear every ones judgement over OUR lives. Don't let people judge you for feeling a certain way. Be free to express your self.

Sometimes your emotions are not worth hiding. You end up wasting too much energy, because believe it or not, The pain that you sometimes hide behind that smile is visible to the ones who love you. They can see it. These are the people who know you and want you to be real and almost child-like with them.

This past weekend, Envisionary did a photo shoot with three beautiful ladies.
Joselyn Hudson, Maysa Joachin and Mikayla Murphey. It was a fun day. I enjoyed their transparancy with our photographer, Brandon Cunningham, and myself. I truly appreciated how they let us capture the essence of their emotions with our camera, and I hope you do as well.

Until next time my peeps.

Joselyn Hudson

             

Maysa Joachin

  Mikayla Murphey

   

Strive

A wise man once said that life is all about moderation. How can we as humans ever have a peace of mind if we don't learn to be satisfied with ourselves ? This is the exact definition of complacency, again which is self-satisfaction or a feeling of contentment.

Now as most things, there are pros and cons to complacency. Picking up the attitude gives you a sense of peace, basically living with no worries about any external issues that may arise. This sounds good. I mean is this not what everybody wants to have at some point in their life ? Well this may be good for some people but to others it is dreadful disease adapted to a habit which eventually evolves into their character. 

Complacency can eliminate every ounce of drive or motivation that you have inside. It basically removes your urgency to advance as a leader, employee, or just a person overall. It actually prohibits a person from growth because it keeps you thinking that there is nothing else to learn, and that you know everything needed to know. Education never stops, remember that. So never think that you know everything, because you really don't. If you ever want to reach your full potential then complacency is not the state of mind you want to have. It takes sacrifice, dedication, and motivation in order to reach to your full potential which cannot be attained if you think you know it all or you just get too comfortable.

The point of this blog is to tell you to strive to be the greatest, don't get comfortable with the average. Use all you got to get where you want to be. That will truly bring you peace of mind. Knowing your all was given.  

What is Envisionary??

What is Envisionary?

The root word of Envisionary, Envision, is defined as a verb, to picture in the mind. Envisionary however, is a noun. A person place or thing. It is a breed of human, a way of life, being able to envision every aspect of your life more than just skin deep.

Envisionary Ent. was officially established August 16, 2012 by Brandon, Rj and I. We decided that life is invaluable when lived selfishly, and that it must be lived selflessly, working to promote the minds and well-being of others, rather than just ourselves. 

I find it funny how God placed three talented young men together, giving them the opportunity to achieve goals only dreamed about by most people. Divine Appointment in my opinion. I know you may think I'm reading into this a little too much, but isn't that the natural tendency of a true Envisionary?

We are a team of martyrs, philanthropists, and artists who use what we know to stop the spread of negativity. Negativity, of course, is a part of life. It's inevitable, but it must be balanced by positivism. This is the main goal of Envisionary Ent. In everything that we do, we strive to assist and promote.  I pray that we do no matter what.

It's really hard for me to give a set definition of Envisionary. Every day the definition evolves. We learn new things, and it is our duty to implement what we learn in our daily routines. Becoming more and more complex  as we grow as humans.

I hope this helps you understand what we stand for, what we stood for, and what we will soon stand for in the near future. 

Until next time peeps