Tag Archives: Motivation

In Hopes of Tomorrow

04 Sunday Jun 2017

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Testimonials provide snapshots into the hearts and minds of the deliverer
Yet listeners translate those messages through tempered receptors
Constructing organic truths
Privileging their distinct sensibilities
Progressivism, liberalism, moderatism, or conservativism
Frame the lenses
socially accepted or recognized
Furthering the national pastime of divisiveness
Found morally
Religiously
Intellectually
Sexually
Economically
Racially
Throughout the landscape
Forefathers are perpetually propagated without further interrogation of their imperfections as founders of a more perfect union
A union of enslavement
Classism
Patriarchy
Reservational warfare
A more perfect union that applauds systematic hate and oppression
The birth of a nation of, for, and by the people
is idealistically my hope and wish for the future inhabitants
Yet, a harsh reality exists of
Wall building
Segregation
Exclusion
Gerrymandering
Victim-blaming
Selfishness
1% has become synonymous with what it has always been
A form of tyranny that ironically is fit for a king
Yet, this is a nation without monarchies
Without caste systems
Without true democracy
Incompleteness is an unfortunate present reality where
Love is not equally recognized
Cultures are not equally recognized
Languages are not equally recognized
Opportunities are not fully possible
In hopes of tomorrow
We must truly address the dispair of today…

Crossed Among A Heart, Head, and Hard Place

11 Wednesday Mar 2015

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The lives that we live can shape our thoughts and dreams
Deterring us from our destinies and obligations
Between a rock and a hard place
When taken at face value
places us in between only two possibilities
A duality that offers us little recourse
Between a rock and a hard place
Paints a portrait of helplessness and desperation
Yet, I ask how many of us have found ourselves there?
How many of us saw no conceivable way out?
How many us were ready to fail before we even considered our ability to succeed?
Between rock and a hard place is not the end all be all
It is only a place that we, if not diligent, will remain waiting for another to rescue us
Between a rock and a hard place
Is not a natural place for human beings to
Be
Exist
Thrive
Between a rock and a hard place
Limits our free movement which so many us needed as children and as adults still need
Between a rock in a hard place is
Where we may find our enemy
Of many forms
Between a rock and a hard place
Is not to be ignored as a figment of our imaginations
It is real and harming so many bright futures and minds
Breaking spirits
Creating a sense of languish
Eroding our abilities to rise to the occasion
Between a rock and a hard place
You will find people like me
Those who seek to enter the most challenging of places because we know that we must
Because some of us know that we were and remain only a few choices and/or chances of fate from being there as well
Because at some point in time,
We’ve realized that we are not between a rock and hard place
Instead
We are crossed among a heart, head, and hard place
Our hearts extend out to those who are in all sorts of circumstances
Our heads are constantly seeking remedies and solutions for those who
suffer,
have suffered,
or will suffer in the future
And as a result of each,
We are fixtures within this space
Between a rock and a hard place
Because we believe that by us being there
If only for a moment
We’ve created a softer space that was not there before…

You

19 Wednesday Nov 2014

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The beauty of discovery is one that places us in varied states
Some of us deny ourselves the opportunity that is presented to us
Others embrace it for all that the experience offers
Why do we find ourselves limiting our opportunities between two contrasting views
that ultimately limit all of our possibilities?
We “either or” ourselves into complacency
Instead of “both anding” ourselves into our greatness
The likelihood of us ever achieving this feat is not found in
meritocratic principles that perpetuate us failing to achieve our best selves
Instead, we stunt our growth based on the perceptions of others who often are unaware of our hidden gems
Why have we become accustomed to settling for less than what we deserve?
Or even more so, why do we stunt our own promise by following the trumpeting of someone else’s tune?
We are fragile in this way?
Or better yet
malleable to the whims of those whose thoughts we’ve come to privilege
over our very own?
Don’t take the words on this page as absolute
for if you did
then you are perpetuating the process in which this was written to question
You have to reconnect with your intellect
Your inner curiosity
Your inner self
You have to be the driver of the knowledge that you have taken in within a critical framework
No longer accepting the quo that is so often the status
found within
The conversations that we have
The communities in which we live
The dreams that we allow to be so easily squandered
You can no longer just be the best you that you currently know
You have be best you
that you have YET to fully comprehend…

Roads to Redemption

28 Monday Jul 2014

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With each passing moment our lives are shaped by decisions
Decisions that we either make or refrain
Questions that we either ask or avoid
Solutions that we either find or overlook
Each has the capacity to mean so much to our respective paths
Uncharted destinations filled with presumptions
Filled with doubts
As we pursue our course
One that we often seek
once we recognize
Our mistakes
Our failures
Our inabilities to fashion ourselves
into becoming what our potentials afford us

We must look within ourselves
for no one else can do this for us
We must come clean
Not for others’ pleasure
but for our salvation
We must shed our hindrances
We own our misgivings
We must be true to our inner selves
We must find our way

Our way is unique to each of us
even if others recognize some of the markers
We must listen to the tidbits of wisdom that align with our trek
Yet, we must consciously make our own decisions
To propel us forward
Or hold us back
Only time, the ancestors, and the Creator know for sure

We must trust in ourselves
in ways that may only make sense to us
We must persist in the midst of all that suppresses our promise
We must find our way
We me weather our storms
We must speak our truths

We must be our own champions
We must follow our own North Star
We must do all of these things
One step at a time
One deep breath for each movement

Expanding our vision
Expanding our purpose
Expanding our possibilities

We must do all of these things
with as much conviction as we can muster
Enduring the greatest sacrifices and hardships
As each of us travel our own
Roads to redemption…

PSDW~

Honoring Home

22 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by in Poetry, PSDW Reflective Journal

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Over the course of roughly eleven years
a journey has been embarked upon
In search of a means to make a difference within the communities that our children grow
While all of our children matter to educators who have a love and appreciation for the responsibilities that our profession demands
There are many examples of the contrary…
Yet, this is not the purpose of this conversation,
For that,
I have to look before that fateful day in 2003 when I tearfully left my safety net as a first grade teacher.
I have to look before my years teaching while simultaneously attending graduate schools in pursuit of master’s degrees in business administration and elementary education/curriculum instruction.
I have to look even further back during my wonderful years as a Panther at my alma mater, Prairie View A&M University, in which I still struggled with some of my childhood limitations and expressions of immaturity
But more importantly, I have to dig deeper into the recesses of my memories of lessons and struggles that preceded even these valuable moments in the shaping of the person who I am…
Honoring home is what I’d like to call my current entry
Honoring the wonderful efforts of a mother who always sacrificed for not only me but all of those whom she loved
A woman who instilled a “country-type” set of values for a son who connects more with the big city
Honoring a father whose focus was leading a business that has endured many seasons and weathered a multitude of torrential storms, with some being self-inflicted.
Honoring home is reflecting on my collection of brothers who in their own ways served as models for me even though they did this from considerable distances
Honoring home is remembering the sisterly influences that I have had the privilege of receiving from a collection of remarkable women who still inspire and advise me today in my most important life decisions
Honoring home is reflecting
Honoring home is an ongoing part of my every day
It is presenting myself with dignity, respect, professionalism, honesty, integrity, sensitivity, thoughtfulness, and pride as instilled into me by my family, extended family, friends, mentors, teachers, and yes, even my students.
Honoring home is living up to charge that I have been given as a future and current elder
Honoring home is being a person who elicits pride from those who I have been inspired by
Honoring home is demonstrating a desire to grow which ultimately is one of the true measures validating that the seeds that were planted within me have actually taken root and flourished
Honoring home is being a role model to my nieces and nephews who I love dearly
Honoring home is being the man that honors my ancestors who sacrificed for others who then ultimately sacrificed for me
Honoring home means that I live up to the standards and expectations that this path requires no matter the costs
Honoring home means embracing the inner beauty and drive that is the essence of who I am.
Honoring home is offering through dedication a legacy that fortifies the true essence of all of what I’ve stated above—love…
Honoring home is loving myself for no other reason than there was a community of love invested within me so that I could know how to love myself
Honoring home is a process that I seek to do one step at a time
So as I seek to honor home, I seek to offer the best that I can in the situations that I may find myself
whether the situations are in classrooms, meetings, and/or other social settings.
Honoring home is honoring the mission that home has essentially aided in me pursuing
Each time that I teach, I am honoring home near and far
Each time that I teach I am:
Honoring my ancestors
Honoring my family
Honoring my teachers
Honoring my mentors
Honoring my friends
Honoring my community
Honoring my students’ futures
Honoring the lives of the people who my students will touch
Honoring the love that I have for learning
Honoring what calls on me to pray and give thanks
Honoring home is why I am often so excited when I teach or talk about teaching
Honoring home provides me with the motivation and passion for how I do what I do
Honoring home is what you make it
Honoring home is what makes you…

So my question for you is, “How are you honoring your home?”