Isom Kuade It’s funny. It’s taken me about 31 years to really figure out the core building blocks of how opportunities are distributed. How a person comes to change their life. Why certain individuals are in power and have enormous influence over others. Why others simply have power over their own time. I’ve figured it out, and I can duplicate the same behaviors. We all can.
What do you think about when you step outside and feel a breeze? When you close your eyes and the breeze hits your face…when you inhale, what are you thinking about? How do you feel?
After these 31 years, I feel extremely tired already. I’m exhausted. For a second, I inhale and enjoy the quiet. I enjoy that I actually have the opportunity to breathe in fresh air as a free man. Then the very next second, right after I exhale and open my eyes, I see a system of structured conformity and am immediately reminded of my role as a cog in a much bigger relentless machine.
Then the newly constructed suburban brick houses that line the street don’t resemble actual homes. They look fabricated. They look like glorified cells.
Everything about the meticulous nature of how we keep our lawns to the stamped out facade of each house that looks just like the next stamped out box it sits next to is foreboding. It looks fabricated – fake. No matter how well we make the outside look, it gives us no indication of what’s happening on the inside. Regardless of the good and/or bad memories being formed in those walls, you have to make sure the lawn is cut every week or the association might come fine you. How embarrassing would that be?
My home is no exception. It looks like the others. I’m very much aware of my own complicit role in the machine I feel is at the very source of my claustrophobia. And that’s the problem.
I know what’s at the root of the way I feel AND I see my way out, BUT my current lack of the needed resources dictates that I have to spend extra energy I feel I don’t have to get from claustrophobia to freedom.
I find myself lacking the stamina. I’m so tired. So sleepy. Corporate purgatory waits for me every day. Then I fight traffic every evening to the point that it’s not uncommon for me to doze off during the worst bumper to bumper highway bonanza or at the next red light after I finally get a chance to exit. Every single day I am acutely reminded of how much time and energy I am forced to spend on something that gives me little in the way of return on investment. The investment of my time.
It’s takes even more energy to be a knowing complicit accomplice in the crushing of one’s daily spirit.
THEN to actively keep doing something about it, takes MORE energy that has been already been used to the max for the day. It’s hard to stay energized for myself and my own needs.
But I have a new way of doing things, and I want to show people a different way to live. So I have to be the example. I can’t expect anyone else to spend the energy on themselves if I never found the necessary reserves and gave up.
I know what I have to do…but just because I know better, will I do better?
I’m trying. But it’s hard. And I’m tired. And it’s showing in all aspects of my life. Something’s gotta give and I’m not sure what it’s going to be yet, but I know I can’t keep this pace.
So…what do you think about when you step outside and feel a breeze? When you close your eyes and the breeze hits your face…when you inhale, what are you thinking about? How do you feel?
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