Post-Obama: Still Addicted to Negativity?

I left the room after hearing his first press conference, and breath an unconscious sigh of relief. For the first time in 30 years, I did not feel like my government was persecuting me. ("Phweeeph"!)

So it's been a little over a month, and there is still a lightness in the air. The California Bay Area hasn't felt this good since the 70's. Yet, already, the bloggers, writers, and media reporters are re-hitching up their little wagons to stars of hatred, fear and resentment.

It's like half the population is addicted to being the victim. Literally ... addicted. In his book, "People of The Lie," Dr. M. Scott Peck speaks to the fundamentals of "Evil."

I guess I'm alarmed at how quickly people can go from elation, hope, and joy ... to returning to the slop of their "Lazy Thinking" ... blaming others instead of getting to work on creating the society ... the culture ... and the individual lives we most want to experience.

It's been easy to point fingers at all the many sources of evil that has came at us these past 30 years. OK ... longer ... but there's been breaks... and it's during these "breaks" that the greatest change can occur. The 60s was a wonderful break. That decade gave us Dr. Martin Luther King, an end to institutionalized Jim Crow, and privileges like the right to vote. And now, as President-elect Obama prepares to enter the White House, we all stand, at a threshold of another unique time in history where great change can happen ... if we only become aware of how the trauma of racism has become a habit in our thinking.

"Since they must deny their own badness, they must perceive others as bad. They project their own evil onto the world. The evil attack others instead of facing their own failures. Spiritual growth requires the acknowledgment of one's own need to grow. If we cannot make that acknowledgment, we have no option except to attempt to eradicate the evidence of our imperfection. Strangely enough, evil people are often destructive because they are attempting to destroy evil. The problem is that they misplace the locus of the evil. Instead of destroying others they should be destroying the sickness within themselves."

I suppose what I'm challenging everyone ... blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, et al ... is to begin ... quickly... to think about what each of us as individuals can bring to the table to make this a better place to live. Stop looking at the faults of others for a minute, and begin thinking about what they need. More, what do I need to be fully happy, healthy, joyous and free ... and what am I doing to stop that from becoming reality in my life? That is the work and the great opportunity of this moment.

Here are some quotes by Dr. Peck ... food for thought...

Books by Dr. M. Scott Peck

Hustle ... Legal, right?

I was standing in line at a Newark, New Jersey coffee shop waiting to buy a donut. The guy next to me spoke very broken English. Said he was from Poland. Been here five years. Yet he had the newest cell phones and dressed like he had cash. Turns out he buys used cars at auctions, fixes them up, and then sells them. Makes a damn good living. No bosses to please. No HR Department to get turned down by. Just cash.



Being from the SF/Oakland Bay Area, I suffered economically when I was younger simply because I lacked ideas. "Everything Changes". If you're up today, you'll be down tomorrow. So a brother needs both a 21st Century skill set AND an 18th set of skills.

It's simply being a man. If you're smart enough to move out of the California Bay Area and purchase a home, then ... why shell out much needed cash to pay some joker who lives around the corner to check out your pad and halfway fix the holes in your dry wall? Learn how to do it yourself... it's all much easier than you think.

There are increasing numbers of places like SF City College's Evans Street Campus that teaches courses like:



Auto Body Repair
Home Building (from the ground up)
Auto Mechanics
Class A Truck Driving
HazMat
Motorcycle (two stroke) engine repair
Blue Print Reading

FOR FREE! Did you get that playa (I never figured out why so many people think they want to be players when life ain't NO game. Trust me.)

Besides, if you don't live in San Francisco or San Mateo Counties, how much game does it take to ask someone to use theirs ... or to simply tell the people you're homeless? (Happens every day playa.)

See, the idea is not to do these kind of gigs forever... the idea is to gain a currently needed skill and make enough money to buy some CHEAP property (with acreage) and then get onto doing the kinds of creative activities you really want to do. Remember the link I always preach ... rural real estate ... LAND in the country?

www.unitedcountry.com