“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

-Martin Luther King

Who defines what it is that matters to each individual? There is no possible way to truly identify with those that we have wronged. Being the one with the upper hand doesn’t necessarily mean that we are right or we deserve to be right. It means the hand that you were dealt to deal with was stacked even before I began to take my first breath. To grow into fighting a battle that was seeded centuries before you were even a concept.  That is life. That is the concept. To use your voice you were born with to impact the World in a way that they will never forget. Today is Martin Luther King Day. It reminds of us of the birth of Marin Luther King. A man who desired to see change in a World that was becoming increasing segregated and violence. Coming to an untimely end in 1968 by James Earl Ray one has only ask what have we learned over the last 50 years. I started to distinguish James as a mister but he doesn’t earn that title. No man would ever assassinate another on the basis of color or rage. I will never believe in my heart that hiding behind a mask of mental illness should absolve you of all sin. If your physical body is able to muster up the strength to end someone’s life then both you and your mind should have to stew on that for all eternity.

Think about a time when something has affected you deeply. Did you talk to the person that stirred up these feelings. Do you suppress them deep down never to be discovered until like a volcanic eruption it destroys everything in it’s immediate vicinity. Standing up for what we believe in or sitting still in our misery. How do we know right from wrong when we have become these shells of being who mindless live each and every day. What gets you out of bed in the morning? Yes it can be something as simple as living for your kids, your spouse, your fur babies. Yes everything helps push out the door but what keeps us from taking another breath. Not those shallow ones we have become so accustomed to but these deep inhalations that revitalize our soul and remind us what it is we are doing here. Think, think outside of the box. Don’t allow one person or one moment to define your being. You should be that definition. Every day should spent looking towards new ways of reaching your goals. Maybe our lives don’t have to end we are silent depending apon the reason why we have gone silent in the first place.

Sometimes it is fear that makes us step back and keep our eyes down. We like to believe that maybe ignorance is bliss but is being ignorant actually being active in your life. Are those the days you want to remember. Why would you even remember those days that are replicas of the day before? Perhaps the only reason why you remember them in the first place is out of sheer habitat and not because it is anything worthy of remembering. Sometimes we always look back at the choices we didn’t take. Every day we are presented with new ideas, new thoughts to keep us energized and feeling fulfilled. Every so often though you will need a different means in which to fill up the tank. Just like a vehicle one day the regular maintenance just doesn’t cut it anymore and you have to put in a little bit extra.

I like to preach about living in the moment yet at times I feel like I am standing still. In life, in our lives what we should really value and consider is what will make us happy and not everybody else. We can’t please others. We can only be held responsible for our own joy. By ensuring that we project ourselves in our best light we can work towards a more cohesive goal. For a man’s life work to end in such incredible violence only goes to show how little we have come to grow over the last quarter of the century. We have allowed innocent men to perish in our struggle for power. We fight over nothing and everything like there is nothing to lose and every thing to gain. Nobody wins we all lose. We all get to rest in a pine box where over time we will be reduced to ashes and returned back to the Earth. All of a sudden that person you were beating on for the color of their skin doesn’t matter. Your laughing can no longer be heard by the ears of your victims. Try to find the meaning of life and you will lash out to all out of sheer frustration. There is a secret to life that will make all your days feel complete but so many are to self absorbed to slow and see what really matter and what is really at stake.

Remember it is not the breaths it is the moments. It is not the times that we stay silent but the times that you speak up for those that have lost their voice. It’s not enough to take a back seat on this ride called life only to cry about it for not going along. One should rather be silent for not standing up for what is right. Silent though because it has been forced apon them by choice. Just like the negativity and hate they spewed in this life will follow them to the next. Lessons, hope, chance is all that we have. Staying silent and arriving eventually should scare you more than singing from the rooftops and living divinely. So although at times I remain silent it is only because maybe it isn’t the right time for anything at all to be said. I, like so many others am a work in progress. I continue to understand and embrace the World around me. I have to keep asking myself if I died tomorrow would this be enough? Right now I am stuck on a tank running on empty during a gasoline drought. In the distance I see something though. Like a mirage just taunting me at times I want to move forward. A lil scared of the uncertainty but filled with nervous apprehension. I wonder what sort of push it would take for me to walk off into the distance. I wonder if what is waiting there will help guide me in a new direction. A direction where I can use my voice to help reach others. To bring them a place of security of wealth but not by conventional means. By the means that Martin Luther King Jr believed so adamantly. That we should all be measure by the strength of our character and not the physical being that the World sees. That it is only in our strength that we are able to experience the true meaning of life. That we can use our voice and mannerisms to project a life we want that will affect the rest of the World in time and calculated way. Why waste the memories and legacies of the great leaders that stood for something.

If a middle class boy from Atlanta, Georgia (who was subject to racism and who he himself tried to commit suicide at 12) can set it all aside and lay his life on the line for us shouldn’t we do the same for him? Just because he wasn’t hung from the cross by his persecutors does not mean he died for our sins. In a public setting much as how the cross was carried thousands of years ago we watched a man be assassinated and did nothing. Yes we wept and yes we cried but nothing change. Look around you can attest to that. Segregation is still a fact of life. We are still assassinating, we have detainment camps, we are still at war. So on today the day of Martin Luther King Jr Day I remember him. I see him as more than an activist, a minister a man. He was a man who stood up for his convictions. So strong were his beliefs in equality that he paid the ultimate price. If that doesn’t convince you to get out of bed and get to living maybe nothing well. We have a voice now it’s time to use it. Let’s have no more innocent bled shed!!!

-An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

-Martin Luther King Jr