Educational Excellence

Happy Friday, y’all … shucks!!

You knew it was coming sooner or later . . . so . . T.G.I.F.!!

Part of my program’s philosophy, if you haven’t realized or even care to know, is that I try to “keep it simple” … my life that is … by staying humble.  Now, don’t confuse humility with weakness because it is a true art of balancing two ideas, concepts or notions – humility with strength that many folks lack or are unaware of.  One gets to know oneself more so you can learn your own “thresholds” for … “whatever” comes up in life rather than surprise oneself by making a mistake for THEMSELVES due to some spontaneous or ignorant decision or statement!  It’s happened to me a few times and I learned how to better manage my behavior – actions as opposed to “re-actions”!  Those darn “reactions” can be “scary”, if y’all know what I mean.  I don’t like to live with having done something really ridiculous and NOT learned from it … learned something VERY important, in fact!  I mean, I do all this because I really care for myself, so I can be a “product member of society” or a “good citizen”.  It could be a “cool alien” for me, as far as I am concerned.  I embrace the fact that I am “just passing through”, which gives more meaning to my life each day.

I can only thank each of you again for reading these pieces on the blog and these e-mails.  Taking my humble moment to say if you would like to be removed from the list, feel free to send me an e-mail with “STOP” in subject and content.  That’s just me being me.  Hey, I wanted to share this last thing as the weekend appears with a full moon in a few days.  I was watching a special on Muhammad Ali on WLRN last night called “Ali in Miami”.  It was an interesting history even trying to depict his feud with Malcolm X.  I really admired both of them as a youngster but was pretty naive at the time about what was really going on “behind the scenes” in the Nation of Islam.  I  just know I wanted to “Be Black and Proud”!  They both represented role models for me because they sought self improvement … I wasn’t so aware of the division.  Still, out of it comes one of my favorite quotes under my yearbook picture when I graduated from St. Paul’s of me shooting a layup.  The caption was: ” … float like a butterfly, sting like a bee …”!  To me, that’s that balance of humility and strength.  Some people may never understand “you” and your intentions and beliefs.  Still other folk may not even understand themselves ….  That’s why I just keep it simple and focus on myself … being the best that I can be rather than always judging someone.  When I need to to save my life or someone else’s life, I judge the situation and determine how to handle it as best as I can, too!   Of course, communications and peace are my method and goal, respectively.

So whether you’re with me or not is cool.  At least you know where I am coming from … just in case you care to know!

Peace,