One of the weakest areas in my life has always been the fact that I don't have the gene that makes me a hustler.
What I mean is, I would probably starve to death if I had to rely on my ability to get out in the street and make money off of native talent or bullshitting skill. I could never run a confidence game or sell drugs. Whatever makes people able to do that, I never learned.
I bring this up because of the state that I currently find myself. In between jobs, with no money coming in. A sad state of affairs to be sure, but hardly unusual for present times. I am one of probably a million unemployed people across the country.
But the part that sucks and makes this harder for me to accept comes from the fact that I grew up in the projects. For 15 years I was surrounded by people who lived off of thier wits alone. Most were welfare mothers, hookers, drug dealers, pimps, drug addicts, and the occasional family who had just fallen on hard times and was trying to make things work the best way that they could.
These were people who could make a dollar last for what seemed like three months. Food stamps were traded for goods other than food. Bartering was a way of life, as was theft and the occasional beat down.
You might ask what I took away from all that? Honestly, nothing. Those were golden years for me. I remember my childhood as fairly happy. My mother made sure that we knew what to stay away from and who to be wary of. She kept us sheltered in some incredible way that only allowed a peripheral glimpse of what the world truly was.
It wasn't until I was 12 that I began to see the projects in its true light. And I think that the only reason I noticed was because I'd gone to Long Island to live with my father for two years. Long Island, Amityville to be exact (yes, that Amityville...) was a completely different world. People lived in houses. Actual houses that weren't directly attached to the neighbors house next door. They had yards and fences and garages and basements.
That I could see, no one was dealing drugs directly in front of our door or beating down his ho in the apartment above. In the projects at least once every few months the garbage house would mysteriously catch fire, merrily burning everyones rotting refuse along with half the building that it sat in. This was a problem becuase our apartment was pretty close by. In Amityville, no one ever set the garbage cans on fire just to see what the fire department would do.
So I spent two years hanging out with a group of kids that I could trust and who only once in a while got into fights, but nothing that ever involved knives or hot grits. I played handball on the back of the strip mall down from my fathers house and discovered a flowering sexuality with my 'girlfriend' Lisa.
Yeah, from 12 to 14 was a banner period. But as all things must, the time drew to a close and I decided that I didn't want to live so far away from my mother and my sisters. I wanted to be back home. The problem was, I had forgotten what home meant.
It meant going back to the projects. Granted, it also meant being around the people that I had grown up with and felt the closest to. Tyrone, Nelson, the Pachecos, and my 'brother' David. People I loved and had missed in the two years I'd been absent.
So my education in street continued for another year and a half before my mother got fed up with it and we moved out of New York and started what ultimately became my 'current' life.
But again, what did I take away with me? Nothing. Nothing of any substance. Lots of memories, but memories won't pay the bills.
I don't have the specialized bullshit knowledge to get out in the streets and hustle up dinner. I am stuffed into the thinking of a man who's best answer is to get a job for someone, despite the fact that I have at least 3 talents that I could get paid for.
I look at some of these 'celebrities' and I find myself wondering what separates me from them. It can't be the simple fact that they have a dream. I have a dream too, so that's no different.
I can't be that they have loads of money to begin with. Lots of them started by selling music out the back of thier cars. Some waited tables or slept on park benches. A few were homeless or worked for sorry ass American corporations before making it. So that isn't the answer. I've been through all of that, including being homeless with my wife and children.
So what's different? The urge to get out there and hustle every day until they get thier dream? The absolute unwillingness to follow a path that millions of Americans follow every day? The inability to quit no matter what life throws at them?
Or is it something more subtle. A desire to succeed that even they don't know they possess. Some innate will that drives them to greatness despite a billion obstacles.
Whatever it is I need to discover it in myself. I need to build those muscles so that the response to getting my dream becomes automatic. There is a reason that some people make $100 million a year. They aren't any different than me. They still eat, sleep, and breathe. They still get sick and will one day die. It doesn't matter how much money a person has, one day the guy dressed in all black WILL knock on the door.
So I am left with a perplexing puzzle to solve. And I have to do it quickly. Life doesn't wait for anyone. Make up your mind or don't, it doesn't matter. But the quality of life is what matters most I think. You can be rich or you can be poor. It's all up to you.
Hmmm....
