Fear: To be in reverential awe of. (Source: Miriam-Webster)

I talk to a cricle of my closest friends about my future plans.  Where I expect to be when it is all said and done.  They look at each other slowly and then begin to laugh.  The idea of where I would end up compared to where I started and where I am now is so farfetched to them that they think I am joking.  I couldn’t possibly be serious.  Then they realize that I am the only one not laughing.  They slowly bring the laughing to a halt and ask me questions about why in the world I would want to set my self up for failure.  They give me what I view to be backhanded compliments such as, “I am sure you will do great but I don’t think there is anyway you can make it that far.”  Then another of my friends will stop them all and say, “just let him thinks what he wants, he will see.”  I always wake up around this point. 

I am haunted by this self doubt that manifests itself in my dreams.  It is a recreation of a much less dramatic situation when I told one of my few close friends about my future dreams.  My one future dream that I have told very few people.  Due to my well established history as a jokester he thought I was joking when I told him my dream.  Obviously his laughs still bother me. 

Since then I have yet to tell anyone else.  I have been reading Sonya Sotomayor’s book and in it she talks about sharing your wildest dreams with others.  She advises against it.  My interpretation of her reasoning is that people will go out of way to bring you back to the norm or bring you back to average.  Outliers in either direction make people uncomfortable at times and even without really meaning to they tend bring people to a level that they feel comfortable with.

Comfort is the opiate of the masses in my opinon.  The aversion of fear.  It is what will keep the highly intelligent at dead end jobs that don’t fully take advantage of their skills and potential.  They are making enough to support their family pay check to pay check and to want more would illicit ideas of greed instead of ambition in most. 

I’ve grown to change my opinon on fear and comfort of the last couple of years.  I used to think a person had to be fearless.  He should never feel that feeling in any sense.  That is what made a man a man.  But now I understand that the only time a man is without fear is when he has become to comfortable with his surroundings and refuses to strive for improvements in his life and the lives of the people around him.  Because when you strive for improvement their is always a huge risk of failure and if you do not fear failure you will not do the diligent work necessary to prevent against it.

Fear is the most necessary feeling to a man besides love.  If you do not fear then you are not striving for something that you are in “reverential awe” of according to the defenition provided by Miriam-Webster.  And if you are not striving for something that great then what is the point of living.  Why else would we or should we be here.  If not to advanced towards the incredible.

The most difficult thing about fear is no matter what kind of case I can make in favor of fear we will always will be strongly be fear adverse.  The “fight or flight” instincts given to us through years of conditioning is hard to resist.  That is what made the greatest great, Dr. King didn’t “fight or flight” when it came to his fears of failure in the civil rights movement.  He chose to live in his fears and work with the people and situations that he had always feared.  It is so simple and yet so difficult.  Just like many things in life.  The beautiful simplistic complexity of how to handle fear is very much a microcosm of the world we live in.  So many can understand the concepts but very few can actually execute them.  I hope one day to be among those few.

It seems like a common theme with “White America,” for lack of a better way to reference the majority of Americans, is that they are absolutely confused and terrified when it comes to Latinos.  My boss today was speaking about driving towards Hialeah and said “and then you will be in Cuba” with a tone of such disdain that made everyone know that he felt that those trips should be avoided at all costs. 

I also spoke with a manager in ATL and through conversation I mentioned I was getting married in Dominican Republic she asked me if I was from there.  I said no I was from Puerto Rico.  She then asked me “what is the difference?”  Later in the conversation we bagan discussing Miami and she kept telling me how much she couldn’t stand the “atmosphere” in Miami but she wouldn’t directly tell me what it was about the city that bothered her so much.  I would venture to guess that she was referring to the extraordinary amount of Latino influence.

It scares a lot of “White America,”  the language, the culture, the food, and the customs.  Our loud voices and our lack of knowledge of personal space and boundaries oftentimes.  But are those things all that scary?  Are we all really that different?

When she asked me “what is the difference,” I simply responded “What is the difference between someone from Alabama and Georgia?”  Not much really, they are both American and southern.  But they both have very distinct pride in where they come from and the nuances that make them unique.  It is the same as Latinos.  Being Mexican, Caribbean, Nicaraguan or any other flavor Latinos come in is just that, a flavor.  We are all so similar yet we hold certain subtle nuances that make us proud about being who we are.  These things are not seen by those who don’t take the time to know more about us.  Just like a Northerner won’t know what makes a person from Alabama and Georgia different if he didn’t take the time to get to know them. 

One day we will be able to put our fear aside and gain a greater sense of understanding.  That will be a beautiful day, and that day will make a beautiful America.

Accepting Gifts is something that has consistently haunted me my whole life.  The inability to accept a gift from another person.  Whether it be deserved or not.  Even if that gift is as simple as a compliment.  This blog is something I have been wanting to write for a while but for one reason or another I have continuously chosen to put it off.  It might be the underlying insecurities that cause this inablitiy to accpet gifts.  Though this is something I am improving at and constantly working at I still have a long way to go.  This blog is not meant to be any kind of doctirine or concrete answer but instead theories that should be discussed and mulled over to help those who suffer from similar difficulties.  Now I would like to visit the main reasons why I have this inability to comfortably accept gifts.

I am confident that there are two main reasons why people have difficutlites accepting gifts is because either they do not feel worthy of the gift or because they feel like the gift will come with strings attached or a combination of both of these.  I would like to delve much deeper into both of these theories and see where we end up.

Let’s start with the easier of the two reasons.  Feeling like gifts come with strings attached.  All people at one point or another are exposed to the ugly in life.  Some are exposed more than others during the early parts of their lives.  They encounter people with hidden agendas.  Who give with the expectation of getting and are more than willing to remind you of the “debt” you have incurred by allowing them to do something for you or give you something.  The world will never be absent of people who posses this trait as their nature.  This early conditioning of many of us if you get something you better be willing to repay your debt has caused many of us to be inclined to shy away from gifts for the simple instinct to avoid future collections.  This is a very rational and humanistic response.  Now the question that I now ask, is this the most appropriate response.

Past experience would encourage you to believe it is.  Simple Logic would agree as well.  You accept a gift, makes others incline to seek repayment, therefore to avoid repayment never accept a gift in the first place.  Makes perfect sense.  But what if there was a different way of thinking.  Maybe accepting gifts is looked at different by a select few.  This was a foreign idea for me when I first began my journey.  What if the select few that we all look at as the successful elite of our society view giving and accepting gifts not as a transaction that requires repayment but instead as planting a seed that will one day bear fruit that will be available to give back not only to the original giver but to many more. 

How foreign of a concept.  We give not to receive oursleves but to inspire others to be givers.  I couldn’t wrap my mind around that concept for a long time. 

Right before I left from Miami to start my journey with AT&T in Atlanta I had lunch with my mentor.  It was a great lunch and he offered to help me in so many ways on top of the immense amount of knowledge he shared with me.  At the end of the lunch the check game.  I offered to pay and said “I will cover lunch, I owe you for all you have done for me.”  My mentor stopped me right there and said “Jesse you do not owe me anything.  Giving to you is just as rewarding for me as it is for you.”  I thought about that for a while and it never quite sat well.  Then I read a book named The Go Giver.  The book in general has so many laws that speak on the essence behind giving.  The third law is what finally struck a cord and got me to understand why my mentor said what he said. 

The law is the Law of Influence.  The law states that your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interest first.  It finally clicked.  I finally understood why my mentor is so incredibly influential in the community that he serves and why he said what he said to me.  He genuinely places people’s interest ahead of his.  Because of this genuine interest in others he is able to give and feel the reward of giving because he is repaid in other ways.  The byproduct of his genuine care and genuine giving causes great influence.  So without ever asking for any sort of payment in return.  The universe continuously pays him back in ways exponentially greater than how he originally gave.

Now how does this talk of giving relate to Accepting Gifts.  This takes me to the 5th law of success stated in the Go Giver. The Law of Receptivity states the key to giving is to stay open to receiving.  How can the universe ever exponentially give back to the givers if there are never people there to receive.  A receiver is just as valuable as the original giver.  Therefore if we all can simply change the mentality on the purpose and payoff of giving we can all better understand how to give and how to recieve. 

The first thing that came to my mind when I finally thought this and what I expect many people to argue as a rebuttal to this idea is “but what about the people who don’t get on the boat and change their mentality towards giving and receiving?”  Let me take the time to tell you how I addressed this possible concern.  Look at all the people who give in that manner.  Most people who give and immediate expect equal payment immediately are those who can’t escape the cycle of the “Rat Race.”  Constantly barely getting by and not finding the fulfilling success they crave.  Even those who acheive a certain level of success through these means always seem to crave more and feel unfulfilled despite what they acheive.  Now look at those that we admire for their success:  Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Bob Menendez, Ralph De La Vega, etc..  They all are known for their giving.  Known for their constant desire to give back to something greater than themselves without asking for the transactional payment in return.  The ones who’s lights shine brighter than any dollar amount you can put on it are always givers and recievers in the mentality of the Go Giver.  Not transactional but as a farmer planting a seed.

I think we have covered a lot here today and I look forward to comments and feedback.  I will leave the second theory for another day and another time since we have so much to digest in this one post.  Till Next Time.

I am writing this entry to let out the ideas that bouncing around my head like a pin ball machine gone haywire. 

I began thinking about what I want to do with my life.  Do I really want to be in staffing.  Is that what would make me happy.  Is that what would fulfill my dreams?  My first instinct was to say “NO” of course not who dreams to do staffing sales?  No one I am guessing.  So then I asked myself well what is it I really want to do.  My next thought was obviously I want to play basketball.  That has been my dream since I was a young child watching Michael Jordan do his thing.  I then started planning how I would quit my job and move to Puerto Rico to play in the League over there for a couple of years and then move to Europe to play ball over there than finally, if everything falls into place I would make an NBA roster and live out my dream.  Even if i rarely played significant minutes.  Just making it to the “L” was enough. 

Then I started to analyze deeper.  Why do I want to be an NBA player.  I don’t personally know any NBA players.  I don’t know how happy any of them really are with their life choices once it is all over.  So why am I so attracted to that profession?

Then I started thinking maybe it is the fame, but I really don’t like people invading my privacy too much.  I can be very standoffish at times. 

Maybe it is the money, but there is other professions that I can make just as much money over my lifetime as the average basketball player makes (including the one I am in right now).  But those professions don’t interest me as much. 

Then finally I thought maybe it is the respect and the recognition.  The reverence there is when people talk about you. “You know Jesse made it to the NBA.” “Man that is crazy he worked so hard and is so good.”  Then I thought “Yea that is what it is.”  But then I thought why do I want the respect of other people?  To carry on my father’s name of course.  So really what I want is to earn my father’s name.  To earn his respect.  But my father isn’t alive so who’s respect am I really fighting for?  My own?

Fighting to prove to myself that I am worthy of the sacrifice he made.  The sacrifice my mother made to put me in the position I am in today. 

So what would quitting my job and running to Puerto Rico to chase a dream I am unsure if I really want prove?  That I am just quitting once again.  Like most things I have done in my life.  When it gets too hard I run.  I say “it’s not for me,” “I am not meant for this,” Or “this doesn’t make me happy.”  Without ever really giving it a real shot.  Greatness is a process not an event that I have to achieve one step at a time.  This was made no clearer to me than this morning when I met with a potential client and asked them “explain for me what the best staffing company you have ever worked with did so well?”  She said to me that she learned the company, managers, and department “inside and out.”  I asked “how did she do that?”  She said she dedicated the time and effort to us and never gave up.  She said that account manager from TekSystems had been working that account for over 6 years and has obviously had her ups and downs within that account but she never gave up and now is in a position to have their respect as a consultant and not a staffing sales person.

That is what I want.  Success. 

I just got off the phone with my cousin who texted me saying “I had a dream about your father.  Call me if you want to talk about it.”  For those who don’t know my father passed when I was two years old.  It has been a constant struggle to deal with growing up as I am sure it is for all people in my sitation.  He was also my cousin’s God Father.  Because of that reason me and her share a particularly close bond. 

When I called her she told me that my father shared the story of how he died and what happend and then he started talking to her about herself and her life and things she needs to do to find her happiness and her success.  Then he started talking about me.

He told her that he feels my sadness.  He feels that I am as sad as I have ever been in my life.  That I feel lost in the world and I am trying so hard to find myself but nothing seems to work.  He told her that I have to remain patient and go through what I am going through.  It will take time and it will be painful but it is happening for a reason.  To make me a better man and a better person.  He also said he knows I don’t believe in God but I have to talk to God.  God wants to hear from me.  He has been waiting to hear from me for a very long time.  He said he understands if I still don’t visit church but I still have to have my conversations with God and ask him for guidance.  He will help me, my father said, and all I have to do is ask.

As you can imagine it was a highly emotion phone call for me and my cousin.  We both cried and had trouble getting our words out.  It was another awakening.

The skeptic in me wants to dismiss the idea that my father’s spirit could possibly come to her in her sleep and share these kind of insights.  “These are probably things that I conveyed to her while talking about my situation and she was just smart enough to put two and two together,” was my first thought.  But what does that matter.  Does it really matter where the message came from?  Whether it was her subconscious desperately trying to find a way to reach out to me or if it was really a spiritual occurrence.  Either way the message is just as powerful and just as valid.

I have decided to have at minimum weekly conversations with God to discuss my spirituality and purpose and see where it goes from there.  I have to begin to fight the skeptic in me that refuses God and begin to accept the idea of a higher being into my heart.  This will be another great challenge that will be so much of a process as oppose to an event.  But it is a journey I am looking forward to take head on.