Alex > Recent Status Updates

June 1: And the owner paused and said, isn't it incredible to think that some of us lie in the junkyard of life? Each of us desperately needs to find ways in which we can be molded and shaped into something more useful. If we find a way, our success is guaranteed.

May 25: Life without pain was perpetually dangerous.

May 22: The subtle ways in which the comfort zone keeps you from growing are remarkable.

May 19: I go forth in life with the realization that the kingdom lies within.

May 19: Your mind desires to know just what you expect from it. If you do not ask for anything specific, that's just what you will receive.

May 12: a job should be used in arriving at our goals in life.

May 8: So too with the more intangible parts of our natures, we must use our courage or it deserts us. We must use our determination or it leaves us. We must exercise our power of decision or we soon find we have none.

April 24: Our failure to take time to live actually prevents us from deriving the best from life.... We should remember that we do not live to work; we work to live. Good hard work is one of humanity's greatest gifts, but perhaps we can enjoy greater peace of mind if we strive less, or at least reduce the tension of our effort. What good is it to succeed if we cannot enjoy life in the process?

April 17: It is our responsibility to carve out a meaningful life. You have the power to subdue the earth. You have dominion.

April 9: Learn everything possible about the endeavor you're attempting to master. Look long and carefully at the pasture you now occupy. Chances are, it's loaded with opportunities that someone else is going to exploit. And if the grass is truly greener on the other side of the fence, it's because someone else took care of it. Today is big with blessings.

April 6: Real love is selfless and free from fear. It pours itself out upon the object of its affection without demanding in return, for love cannot be demanded, it must be given.

April 5: People only begin to fulfill their creative potential when they have a high degree of alignment in their lives, that is when their pursuits and goals are in alignment are in line with their own purpose.

April 1: Learn all you can and keep learning, whether you are 6 or 60. The minute you stop learning, life will begin to pass you by. Consider the fate of the college professor who jumped out of a plane without a parachute. The only way to succeed in our fast-paced, ever-changing world is through constant learning.

March 29: It doesn't take much to find the high road to success. The path that leads to life's most precious treasures and triumphant possibilities. But to discover those joys and feel zest for the future, you desperately need an agenda for the present. You need directions for today. You need a purpose.

March 25: The same hammer that shatters the glass, Marcus Garvey explained, forges the steel. Looking at adversity and challenge in this manner, we really can love our enemies. They serve as hard shots until we learn to return them.

March 24: Your imagination is a magic wand. Use it to visualize success

March 23: Am I stopping for realistic reasons because I hope to avoid some impending danger? Or am I stopping because I do not believe myself capable of reaching my objective?

Visual thinking is not about seeing per se... Visual thinking refers to the way the mind works. To the way we perceive.

Hyper-systemizers struggle with even the simplest of everyday social tasks, like making and keeping relationships, yet they can easily spot patterns in nature or via experimenting that others simply miss.

Most children connect language to things in their lives at a remarkable rate. Speech comes naturally to verbal people.... Many visual thinkers on the spectrum, however, must learn to adapt to the dominant culture. ...Language does not come naturally to us.

We even call commentators talking heads. The dominant culture favors verbal people. Theirs is a language-filled world.

I stood on an overhead catwalk and looked at all the complicated conveyors and exclaimed to no one, We don't make it anymore. This is the price we have paid for removing most hands-on classes from our schools, such as shop, welding, drafting, and auto mechanics. The kids who should have grown up to invent these equipment...are shunted into special education.

But when we're not emotionally vulnerable, we miss out on opportunities to have more authentic human relationships. It's harder to draw closer to our children. It's harder to draw closer to our parents. it's harder to draw closer to our romantic partners and friends. We never tap into the things that are bothering us, or we're struggling with because we can't acknowledge that we're hurt.

As long as our only legible emotion is anger, we are never shamed. These are the rules that I learned and spent most of my early life following, religiously. Here's what I was not taught. Black men model manhood after those who oppress us. We measure our humanity against the humanity of those who seek to kill us, our family, and maybe most of the planet.

A misguided theology of suffering. The shame narratives that define too many of our experiences haven't come out of nowhere. They are deeply rooted in a westernized, white supremacy-laced theology unknowingly embraced by the black church

A misguided theology of suffering. The shame narratives that define too many of our experiences haven't come out of nowhere. They are deeply rooted in a westernized, white supremacy-laced theology unknowingly embraced by the black church

The shift that needs to happen is one that aligns with the gospel the most. Embracing mystery leaves room for our own mysterious emotional responses, and allows love to fill us up in ways that our certain faith never could.

For three days, parents don't have to wonder what's going on with their children out there. But the downside, the part of this alleged certainty that does the most harm to black women is that it has a tendency to wield shame as a mechanism for keeping us in those boxes, even when we choose not to be. We find our safety there, and anything that disrupts that box is ousted like a demon or called one directly.

It is also the trauma of systematic denial of resources or stability needed to address the pain and aftershocks of massive collective trauma and daily assaults and indignities. We have survived through a persistent commitment to life by filling simple lives with big love and a commitment to justice. And the truth of the matter is that the need for healing does not disappear because we have found a way to survive.

You commit yourself to some of the worst emotional pain you have ever felt. I committed myself to that pain. You want to literally crawl out of your skin. It is not linear or exponential. And sometimes you realize that shame, hiding, shrinking, suffering is infinitely easier in the short term than the arduous and intentional work of getting spiritually and emotionally free.