Made it ’round One Mo’Gain

Haaaa-ppy New Year!

Well, i know we’re still a few hours shy, but it’s the new year somewhere in the world and i wanted to holla at you.

Yo, May is 5 months away and i’m feeling very confident about the fulfillment of my mission.  Of course, it’s not a destination, but a journey, and i’ve received plenty of re-enforcements this year.  A quick re-cap, shall we?

• In April, i started a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for my book.  We raised $1,000 in three days!  If that’s not love, i don’t know what is!  The money came through in June and by August, Spring Chicken’s Revenge was on the streets with successful book signings in New Orleans and DC.

• My band, the BlackStar Bangas, had a successful independent, national tour over the summer.  Mad love all up and down the East Coast.

• Kamali Academy opened to a full class and a child-care.  i expanded my role from Language Arts teacher to Physical Education teacher.  Get your weight up, sun!

• My sister the Empress up and left dodge, heading back to her mother’s land with a heart full of love and faith.  She definitely get’s the award for Inspiration of the Year.

There were a few other things, but i don’t want to bore you. i do, however, want to thank you for walking with me.  For real.  And i’m so grateful to have ya’ll as i move forward into forever.  As a sign of my gratitude, i would like to offer you a discount on Spring Chicken’s Revenge.  35% with the promo code thatgoodgood from now until January 7.  Just click here.

Lastly, i leave you with this video.  Thank you, i love you, and i’ll see you on the flip side.

Mad love to you and yours in the New Year and beyond.

-amari

i’m going on

i wanted to share this with you.  And by “you,” i really mean me.

i’m less than six months out from the date i set for the fulfillment of my mission of being self-sustaining and prosperous.  Scared?  No.  But certainly not cool as the fan i’d love to be.

They say that you make the path by walking and i get that.  i comprehend that.  But yo, it be hard sometimes.  It becomes difficult to plan a life that includes other people when there are so many unknowns.  i was terrible at geometry.

This is the time where principles meet practicality.  Are you really bout what you say you bout?  Do you really believe these real things in real life?

And could you live a life where, in every second, in every task that you undertook, you’d know you were wasting your existence?

Are you ok with a buster lifestyle?

::sigh::

Listen, i’ve got a few months left.  And then the rest of my life.  i’m going on.  i’d love for you to come with me.

But i’m prepared to go it alone.

-amari

Words to Live By

Remember: you are
only as great as you allow
yourself to be.

Gettin What You Give

i have to tell you something extremely important, something that we often forget:

You were put on this planet for a purpose.  And your most sincere commitment, your truest responsibility is to its fulfillment.  Everything else is a distraction.

My grandfather grew up a sharecropper.  His grandfather was enslaved.  My father, well into his sixties, continues to work graveyard shifts.  They’ve done their work and did it well.  My purpose is to continue their legacy using my particular skills and talents, yes, but not to repeat what they’ve done.  It is my duty to advance it.

We are so much greater than we allow ourselves to be.  The work ethic of our fathers and mothers seems to have been lost.  And, in some respects, rightfully so: why put so much effort into somebody else’s thing?  We’ve been doing that for generations.

To the unconnected eye, it would appear that way.  But my great-great-grandfather’s work was to put me right where i am at this exact moment.  He wasn’t doing somebody else’s thing.  He was doing ours.

It would be spit on his grave were i, were we, to not do the same.

There are no excuses.  There is only truth: success or failure is entirely upon us, and, in the end, we will get exactly what we give.

-amari

Bring Back the Star!

BlackStar Books and Caffe, a wonderful institution i was involved in founding, needs some funds to get back up and running.  Check this video and contribute as you see fit.

-amari

Focus on Success

Last night i was checking the amazon sample version of this book, Music Success in Nine Weeks.

The author begins with an important move: a chapter dedicated to getting your mind right. In it, she discusses a series of mental preparations that will have you on your way to success–whether it be in music, business, finance, love, or whatever.

One gem i caught before the sample cut off was about goal setting/achieving. She encourages readers to write down 5 successes at the end of each day. Simple, right?  Go ahead and try it. Write down five things you’ve accomplished today.

The exercise is pretty straightforward, but its far-reaching effects are quite profound.  We are generally very quick to tell ourselves what we are doing wrong and don’t spend enough time on what we do right.  “i didn’t do this.  i took too much time doing that.”  Eventually, it piles up to a mountain that dwarfs our self-esteem and we get even less done.

Right, we need to be self-critical.  But we don’t need to be self-degrading.  It’s a process that requires work, persistence, and dedication.  And the fact that you are still engaged in it means you must be bout something.

So go ahead.  Write down your daily success and, in time, you will realize that you truly are making progress.

You’re not so bad after all, huh?

-amari

Earning Wings

The other day, i posted Cee-Lo’s “Getting Grown.”  It is, without a doubt, one of my favorite songs of all time and certainly on my life’s soundtrack.  As i was listening to it, i was reminded of the line that always struck me most:

Gotta walk before you learn to fly.
We all got to earn to die.

It stands strong on its own, but there is something particularly captivating about his delivery: the emphasis of the first part, followed by the somber matter of factness of the second.

We all gotta earn to die.

i’m delving further and further into my dissertation, reading about people and organizations who committed themselves to the development of a strong Black nation, using their allotted time on this Earth to do their part: in a phrase, earning to die.

In this society, we are taught to see death as a punishment; as one final hurdle before it’s all over.  But that’s so incorrect.  Man, death is a reward.  It is an honor bestowed upon those who have lived a full and productive life!  Cause if you’ve truly been doing your best, you will have accomplished what you were supposed to accomplish.

My grandfather transitioned two years ago this Saturday.  The tears i’ve cried and continue to cry are tears of sadness, yes.  But sadness ain’t the first emotion that produces those tears.  It’s joy.  And i miss him most certainly, but above all else i am so very proud of him!  Yo, Howard Johnson did his thing!  Ain’t nobody ever did this life thing like he did, because he did with his life what we are all to do with ours: he lived with love.

And when that bright morning came and he had to fly on home, he flew with wings hand crafted by God.  First class, sun!

We all gotta earn to die.

i use my grandfather’s life as a guide.  Not as a play-by-play manual, but as a model of a life lived with purpose, with intention, and with originality.  Howard Johnson lived Howard Johnson’s life.  Only i can live mine.  Only you can live yours.

So let’s get to living.  And if we do it right, we might just earn to die.

-amari