Yesterday I was off because of Veteran’s Day. But this morning I woke up unconsciously to brush my teeth, wash my face, put on my clothes and shoes, grab my things that I set out the night before, and off I went for the 5 minute walk to my park and ride. Just like a fuckin zombie or the living dead. I know many people go through this same ritual for 5 days a week, but I am talking about me and how I felt throughout the whole day. The main reason why I feel this way is because of my current living situation. Not to go into details, but I have determined that my life will be 100% better if I got my own place and away from splitting bills and living space. Damn for the most part I live in my room and what does an amibitious maturing adult do when he is only living in his room being pissed about his situation? Move the fuck out! The next step for me is moving out, which is happening right now. Note: Looking at my video and now reading this blog post I now realize that it does sound like I am moving out of my parent’s place. This is actually splitting from my brother, which we got an apartment together in the beginning of the year. 

So one might say after you move out you will develop a routine, one to your standards, but a system that will get old again. That may be true, but I don’t think so. Around this time last year when my brother and I were thinking of moving out, my dad told me, “that we have to be happy with my job and home life. If they are not in unison then my life will suffer all together.” My life right now is in a good spot; I have a good family that supports me, great girlfriend who understands and challenges me, I am keeping up with my writing on this site and slowly getting my own article samples written, professional career is going good, no real friends (I have about 3, this will be talked about later in another post), and in great physical shape. However, right now I live in a room, a place that is barely double the size of my cubicle. Again not going to go into details of my situation, but I’m making the right decision for myself and the other person I am trying to save the relationship with.

Routine, procedure, practice, pattern, drill, regimen, program, schedule, plan, method, system, customs, habits, typical, conventional, and the usual can drive people crazy.The shit is driving me bananas. We all do need some kind of routine. I think a system and spontaneity is a good balance between the same old shitty routine. I’ll let yall know how my life is shaping up after the move and when I get situated.

Story Mode

I’m pissed. I get off the bus, grab whatever info I have regarding the bank account, go to my car and make my way to the bank. I get out of the car and open the door. I then walk through the doors and wait in line for a banker on the floor. 

“Mr. Atateh (pronaunced incorrectly), why do you want to close your account.”, the banker says. 

“Because of meaningless fees, don’t use the card or the account, and I’m losing money!”, I say with a stern look on my face.

“Is there any…” 

“No it isn’t I just want to close my account!”

“Here’s your reciept and you can take it to the teller and she will get you your cash. Thank you for doing business with us.”

“Thank you. Bye bye!

Lesson

Don’t take shit from nobody, especially a huge company that doesn’t care about your interest and only wants to make as much money as possible. As companies have a right to do business, so does the customer who pays for a product and it doesn’t live up to their expectations. In the past I would have just pushed the issue aside and let others take advantage of me, but not anymore, times are changing and I don’t take much shit from people now.

Quotes:

-“Passion makes a person stop eating, sleeping, working, feeling at peace. A lot of people are frightened because, when it appears, it demolishes all the old things it finds in its path.

No one wants their life thrown into chaos. That is why a lot of people keep that threat under control and are somehow capable of sustaining a house or a structure that is already rotten. They are the engineers of the superseded.

Other people think exactly the opposite: they surrender themselves without a second thought, hoping to find in passion the solutions to all their problems. They make the other person responsible for their happiness and blame them for their possible unhappiness. They are either euphoric because something marvelous has happened or depressed because something unexpected has just ruined everything.

Keeping passion at bay or surrendering blindly to it-which of these two attitudes is the least destructive?

I don’t know.”

Having passion in life is important, but I like the fact that Paulo looks at it on both extremes. There needs to be a median and I also believe that people need to have passion in something, it has to drive the person to something.

-“Profound desire, true desire is the desire to be close to someone. From that point onwards, things change, the man and the woman come into play, but what happens before-the attraction that brought them together-is impossible to explain. It is untouched desire in its purest state.

When desire is still in this pure state, the man and the woman fall in love with life, they live each moment reverently, consciously, always ready to celebrate the next blessing.

When people feel like this, the are not in a hurry, they do not precipitate in events with unthinking actions. They know that the inevitable will happen, that what is real always finds revealing in itself. When the moment comes, they do not hesitate, they do not miss an opportunity, they do not let slip a single magic moment, because they respect the importance of each second.”

What I get from these series of quotes is that when people love to do something they are not thinking about the time; just the enjoyment and excitement of the experience. Also, with society not thinking about the time we are living more in the moment. I think people take living in the moment for granted and that we or myself personally stay in my head way too often and lose the love of living. 

-“One of his hands goes back to her breast; it feels so good, she wishes he would put his arms around her now. But, no, they are discovering the body, they have time, they need alot of time. They could make love now; it would be the most natural thing world, and it might be good, but all this is so new, she needs to control herself, she does not want to spoil everything. She remembers the wine they drank on that first night, how they sipped it slowly, savoring each mouthful, how she felt it warming her and how it made her see the world differently and left her more at ease and more in touch with life.”

Got to try this with my girlfriend…

-“I don’t remember exactly when, but one Sunday recently, I decided to go to church to attend mass. After some time, I realized that I was in the wrong church-it was a Protestant church.

I was about to leave, but the preacher was just beginning his sermon, and I thought it would be rude to get up at that point, and it was a real blessing, because that day I heard things I very much needed to hear.

He said something like: In all the languages in the word, there is the same proverb: ‘What the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over.’ Well, I say that there isn’t an ounce of truth in it. The further off they are, the closer to the heart are all those feelings that we try to repress and forget. If we’re in exile, we want to store away every tiny memory of our roots. If we’re far from the person we love, everyone we pass in the street reminds us of them.

The gospels and all the sacred texts of all religions were written in exile, in search of God’s understanding, of the faith that moves whole peoples, of the pilgrimage of souls wandering the face of the Earth. Our ancestors did not know, as we do not know, what the Divinity expects from our lives-and it is out of that doubt that books are written, pictures painted because we don’t want to forget who we are-nor can we.”

Powerful quote! This quote to me is explaining the unconscious behavior of living life with a silent time clock directing our path. A clock that can stop ticking at any moment and once it stops our life is over. The motivation that we don’t notice to be motivation and that we don’t realize because we are trying our best and hardest to complete whatever we are doing. Every person is different in the way they become motivated and once or should I say if that light bulb goes off in their head it will carry them to the end of their days… 

-“That men and women sell their time, but can never buy it back again?”

We can replace time. That is the first thing we usually give up and most of the time it is for money or for a superstitious falsehood. Time is the only thing we got and we have to be better with how we use it and have to be honest with ourselves about what we want out of our life.

-“Yes, I love you very much, as I have never loved another man, and that is precisely why I am leaving, because, if I stayed, the dream would become reality, the desire to possess, to want your life to be mine…in short, all the things that transform love into slavery. It’s best left like this-a dream. We have to be careful what we take from a country, or from life.”

One of the realist quotes that I like from the book. It is talking about balance in life and not sucking the life out of other people. In life we go through people coming and going and we learn something from each and every person indirectly and directly. When a situation is going so well we tend to take it to the next step and continue to get more involved. We have to remember though that who ever we are with is a part (wether big or small) of our life, but not our life.

-“What made you fall in love with a prostitute?

I didn’t understand it myself at the time. But I’ve thought about it since, and I think it was because, knowing that your body would never be mine alone, I had to concentrate on conquering your soul.

Weren’t you jealous?

You can’t say to the spring: ‘Come now and last as long as possible.’ You can only say: ‘Come and bless me with your hope, and stay as long as you can.’”

Another great quote that talks about controlling or keeping a person involve in one’s life by mind capturing and/or being generally interested in another person’s life. Many times we think that the only way to a person heart is through sex, we have to stretch our creativity to reach people on a different level.

Life is good, life is great. Family doing well, have great friends, and my career is going in the right direction. I love going to work because I like to use my skills to better the human race. When I wake up in the morning I do my usual routine of washing my face, brushing my teeth, taking a shower, putting on my clothes, waking up my 10 year old son, getting the pot ready to make coffee, and turning on the television to check the traffic report. This process that I do for 5 days is mindless, I don’t really cheris my time much, I am always on the move to get to work at an early time to please the boss. I am scared and frighten of all of the people losing their jobs in this low performing economy. I know that after a hurricane and moving to a new building for work I have to do my best in the projects that I over. I have to get there earlier and stay late. I have convinced my husband to take the kids to school because his job is very secure. I have to kiss ass, I have to do more work then everyone else, and I have to work 3 hours extra without getting paid for it. I’m loosing my mind and I am not being honest with myself about what I really want to do with my life. All I see are bills; long hours at work; taking care of kids; going to church; and putting on a fake smile in front of friends, family, and co-workers. I’m so damn exhausted, I sleep like a baby on the weekends and then I repeat the same typical ordinary and habitual schedule. Again I’m not being completely honest with myself and I am blinded by the signs that will ultimately destroy my self-esteem for who knows how long.

The next day comes and I am back on my grind. My boss walks in with this sadden, but calculated face. I know something is up and I just hope that it isn’t me. I love my co-workers, but dammit it is survival of the fittest and I only care about if I am here another day. I look around the office, which is a sea of archipelagoes of white picnic tables with computer monitors and cpu’s. I also see empty boxes spread out and my only guess is that my stuff or somebody else’s belongings will fill them. They will be filled with shit that people used to do their jobs with pride and dignity.

I’m just waiting and hope to God that I’m not called in. My boss calls me in! As my boss was telling me that it wasn’t me and only the struggling economy that is making the company come to these measures; I stop listening and think of all of the signs that were in my face that I ignored, all of the other people that left and found a job that suited them more, and all of the fucken hours that I poured in this damn company for free to now be given the opportunity to fill this box with my job attachments in front of everyone. I stopped pity words coming from my boss’ mouth, got up, filled up that box, and left.

Reality

Today I got a call from a friend that told me that my previous employer laid off 41 or so people yesterday. I was floored and alittle shocked of what he was telling me. There were quite a bit of people that I knew that got laid off. There were also some people that made fun of me because I was taking less money to work for a more secured company and a job opportunity that will help me grow in all areas of my life. I had the “I told you so” grin on, but started thinking of those people who had kids, bills, a mortgage, car note, and whatever else that we are all attached to as Americans. I continued to think of what those people really wanted to do in their lives; their hobbies, what they liked doing while spending time with their families, a reoccurring dream that brought a smile to their face whenever they woke up, or a childhood dream job that has constently resurfaced during these hard times in our economy.

Whatever the case for those people that got laid off or those who are thinking of doing something different in their lives, now is the chance to do so. Being fired or laid off or daydreaming at your cube is only the beginning and it is up to you to take that risk. I would say think about the parameters, how it will effect your close friends, and think about what you have to lose.

Listening to Barack Obama’s speech late last night and waking up in the morning my attitude about choices changed. A black man(I know that he is half white and was raised by a white family) is the elected president of the United States of America. Even though I personally can never be president of this great nation, the election still gives me even more motivation to make and exceed my goals and be a better human being. I think of myself as a very ambitious person and will do what needs to get done on whatever I set myself to do, but knowing that it is possible for a black man to be elected to the highest honor accomplishment is fuckin amazing.

I was talking to a friend earlier via email about Barack Obama, we got to talking about what this means for the rest of the Black American population. I instantly thought that we as black people can’t depend on Barack to come to our rescue when we need something (the government can only do so much), but we have to take responsibility in our lives; we can’t bitch and complain about somebody not treating us right (racism will always be here regardless of who is in the white house), we have to ignore all of those negative criticism, learn from the constructive assessment, and make the best of what we got and continue to improve individually; and we as Americans can come together to laugh alittle, play, compete at work and whatever else, and grow as we make a strong effort to be a great nation.

While I was riding the bus home from work I decided to read a blog post, from Mark Cuban. He was writing about the election and what he believes what will happen because of it. As I read each word I became more aware of what I have been feeling the whole day. I begun to realize that there is nothing that will stop me in doing what I want in life and that I will continue to motivate myself and to give other people that encouragement and do whatever they want in their lives.

Here is alittle excerpt of how I feel to be an American:

“Its simple. Having an elected black President will do more to energize this country than any economic or social policy ever could. In a single day of voting, our amazing country once again reinvigorated the dream that any child in this country, no matter what circumstances they are born into, can grow up to be anything they want, including President of the United States.”

“I can honestly say that I never thought that I would see a black President in my lifetime. I’m incredibly proud and excited to be part of this moment in our history. I believe that the election of President Obama will energize many, many more of our fellow citizens to work harder to achieve our goals.

My friend Ben said, “You were born in Nigeria and there for can’t be President in the United States.”

I wasn’t pissed or mad about his comment, but without hesitation I told him, “You can’t either.”

Ben laughed…I laughed…and we went on discussing the only reason why it can’t be possible in his case to be President. We joked about it over the years and even told other people we knew of the same story I sit here telling you.

It is time to eat my words and congratulate Barack Obama on making my statement not come true. It takes a bigger person to admit that he was wrong for what he said in the past. However, I am not the only other person that thought this. There are many more Americans that feel that something will happen to Barack, but I say give him the chance to prove his message and promise, and we shall judge his policies and effort to bring the nation together by him not living up to his expectations and not by his race.

These are the movies that I plan to rent and watch:

Being John Malkovich
Human Nature
Adaptation
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Synecdoche, New York

Did I give those things an honest try before telling the world about this and that life interest? Yes and no! When a person starts to live a life through other people’s expectations then they are not living much of a life for themselves. Once a person figures out that they are the ones who truly determine their happiness then the stars will align in their favor and the doors will start to open up to help them find their true life passion, their true dedication to the world, and something that they can lose total consciousness and operate in their own world of possibility. Once a person realizes that he/she will stop pushing away their night and day dreams they will try to spend as much as possible doing what they love.

When I was a little kid I always heard the term reading and writing. I thought it was what the teachers wanted us to do because they couldn’t think of anything “kid friendly”. Hell as a kid all I wanted to do was play outside and play video games, everything else came secondary. Why would I want to waste time reading a book or working on my cursive handwriting in a repetitive fashion? I also self taught myself proof reading at a very young age and on purpose skipped paragraphs altogether. I was just being a kid that wanted to play and dream about when I was going to be a grown up.

After spending a couple of years figuring out what I like and don’t like I have come to the conclusion of loving to read and write. A kid who hated the chore is now an adult who finds it intriguing and more times than not intoxicating.

Why Reading?

What I like about reading is a chance to get lost in someone else’s story, the chance to see how someone gives their point of view about a topic, and the chance to forget about all of the troubles in the world and to perhaps use a lesson in a book to live my life by. The way I plan to use the art of reading is to read whatever I can get my hand on. Whether it be from blogs, magazines, novels short and long, online articles, and newspapers I will read it, learn from it, and see how I can possibly use it in my writing.

Oke on Writing…

It has been a couple of months since I came to the conclusion that writing puts my thoughts in order and to understand myself better. Whenever I do talk out my thoughts I don’t get an in-debt understanding of what I am thinking, but is not so when I am sitting down to write. I believe it is more soothing then speaking, I am not rushed into coming up with an answer, and that when I write I only answer to myself (self analyses without the outside noise). My writing will involve blog posting, short stories, novels, and in the future for magazines.

So what is your passion and what steps are you taking to making them come true?

I always thought of myself as a well rounded person and tried my best to include people in my journey through life. My girlfriend (we’ll call her sbr) has directly and indirectly reminded me that I am indeed a great person and still growing. She has taught me patience, timeliness, appreciating each day that we are given on this earth, living by the motto of, “treating others the way you want to be treated”, being honest with yourself on what you want to do in your life, and many other life lessons that I can and have had already blog post about.

I believe that our relationship is so organic that it seems we were meant for each other. At times people think we are married because we spend so much time with each other, however we do give each other space to spend on our own or with friends and family. Throughout our relationship we have helped each other in our careers, passions, caring and spending time with friends and family, giving each other encouragement and not being intimidated to let each other know when they aren’t being true to themselves in a nonjudgemental way, and the continued growth of our love for each other.

Some things that people may not know about sbr are that she is by far the smartest woman I have ever met; loves cooking (a great chef that doesn’t know how to make rice); is an attorney that doesn’t wear her career on her sleeve; has the sexiest voice God has ever given a woman; loves playing and beating others in board games; spending time with her girlfriends; takes care of a crazy dog to others, but is her baby; whom lives the life of a strong independent woman, however doesn’t vocalize that claim; has tons of friends that consider her as their best friend; and will always fight for whatever she believes in.

All of what I have said about sbr sounds mussy and a man putting out his feelings for the world to see, but I don’t care. All of what I say is true and believe that my life is a better one because of her being a vital part of it. Sbr I appreciate your caring heart, beautiful smile, irresistible personality, someone who always tries to see the good in people, passionate about living life, and I want you to know(which you all ready do) that I love you!