Understanding the need for Balance in our Journey
I hope to have an opportunity to help you light up the areas you need to light up, as well as to turn off the areas you need to turn off. It is my belief that to succeed in life, to enjoy the time we spend on this planet, to be in control of where we need to be or where we plan to be or where we would like to be, we first need to have a plan of balance in our lives.
The balance is a part of the purpose for our journey. I have been able to lead a decent and honorable life, doing several things that in the scheme of this life do not seem to go together, especially when it comes to functioning as a poet/writer, community activist, as well as an entrepreneur and municipal government employee.
Early in my career, when I lived in Buffalo, NY, I served as a Deputy Commissioner for the NYS Division for Youth. Today, I’m still connected with local government where I work as Director of Community Affairs for the New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA). This is an important yet massive agency, which is responsible for providing services to one of the largest cities in the world. How did I get to this position of responsibility and public service? The key is Balance. I was born in Puerto Rico, raised in NYC, in a single parent household. My home life consisted of five sisters and two brothers, all raised under the influence and negative images of welfare, food stamps, government cheese, and peanut butter.
At an early age I found myself on the receiving end as a consumer of government’s public assistance programs.
My outside environment included gangs on every corner recruiting new victims. I experienced people drinking themselves to death, lovers betraying each other, and young people destroying their lives with drugs. I witnessed Puerto Ricans and Blacks coming together to form gangs to fight other Puerto Ricans and Blacks.
I witnessed many of my peers dropping out of school, denouncing education and refusing to learn and advance themselves.
Education was not cool – so my neighborhood friends elected to stay in the Box. By the “Box”, I mean the manipulation of their lives without their input which started very early, and one of many negative decisions and choices made in their early life period. The Box is an extension of ignorance and personal apathy. It is an invisible but powerful force, a system of mental traffic signs directing and pushing you in different directions without your full awareness or approval. …
A State of Mind…
Once within the “Box”, the captive are without a concrete philosophical or spiritual purpose. This is a dangerous imbalance.
I was fortunate that at an early age I was able to see things clearly. It took me awhile to understand and properly use this clear vision. I knew that something was not right, something was terribly wrong in the way we were just living our lives from day-to-day, without thinking of the impact of our decisions and choices. I was inside the Box.
I knew that the Italians and Irish families all had jobs. My family was on welfare. My Black and Hispanic friends were also on welfare. We accepted the government Cheese, the Ham, the dry Milk and the Peanut Butter, as well as the Black pair of shoes we used to get once a year. We never questioned why? We were a complete mess and we did not know it!
We were inside the Box!
Even today, many of us are still inside the Box, and still on the road to nowhere! This is a dangerous imbalance! As a Puerto Rican coming to a new land, a new language, and a cold climate, I became uncertain of my presence in the USA Mainland, uncertain of my worth as a human being and in the process of dealing with USA Mainland institutions, I lost my identity of who I was as a Puerto Rican and consequently, also lost my self-esteem and eventually started disliking myself. This is a dangerous imbalance.
Fortunately, the self-hatred did not last long…
Due to not going to school, I was labeled a PIN (Person in Need of Supervision) at the age of fourteen. The Juvenile Justice System confined me to reform school for about ten months, somewhere in upstate NY (a place called Warwick State Training School for Boys) where everything was green, removing me from the destructive street elements. For me, it was not just a geographic change. The experience of going/moving from New York City streets to a new environmental setting in upstate NY opened a door to a whole new world. At that moment, I realized that the world was composed of many parts, and not just the streets that were consuming me.
When I was in public school, I used to read about “Dick and Jane”, thinking they were a figment of someone’s imagination because their lives and neighborhood was nothing like mine. But I found out that they were real, along with the beautiful Barns, Cows, Pigs and Horses. This was the beginning of developing my inner structure for Balance!
I also learned that I was a pretty smart and creative individual. While in confinement, many of the White, Black and Latino youth paid me in cigarettes and other items for me to write love letters to their girlfriends and to their parents.
That was an educational and intellectual awakening for me, to have all these people come to me to write or read for them due to their inability to read or write. This experience alone broke the “colonial mentality” inside of me. The lack of self-esteem and self-hatred literally disappeared completely. This was for me a regaining of Balance!
As great as this country is, many of us have lost sight of the true values of one’s life journey, placing too much emphasis on financial needs over one’s need for good health, good friends, social enjoyment, spending quality time with our family members, and truly enjoying the work or career we find ourselves. Balance!
We should truly listen to the saying: “You can’t pay me enough to be miserable.” Hear it? Think about it! If we don’t know the meaning of that, let us become wise and begin to learn the essence of the words before our journey comes to an end. It is never too late to make a “U-turn” to regain our Balance!
I know too many people who now regret holding on to their twenty year plus jobs in order to be eligible for retirement and a pension plan. In waiting for the pension plan, they grew old and tired, letting dreams pass them by, allowing them to disappear. If they had to do it again, they would take the risk, and not the stability of a 9 to 5. Balance!
We also make decisions for the wrong reasons, and we pick choices for the wrong reasons. For example, I want more money so I will take a job that would pay me more, knowing full well that I will be miserable in the job, leading to stress and perhaps leading to some form of depression and other emotional and health disaster. This is a dangerous imbalance.
We need clarity of vision of who we are in relation to our presence on this planet. We need to identify and understand our purpose. It is not enough to live from day-to-day without examining one’s life’s journey of choices and decisions. To not examine oneself is a dangerous imbalance.
For example, many people who go into business work on developing a business plan, a blueprint to help them navigate the healthy growth of the business. Just as important for our life’s journey, we need to also develop a plan for ourselves. We need to know where we want to go and how to get there. Take a few moments and reflect on the fifteen questions I prepared for you in the next section of this book.
If you have not asked yourself the 15 questions I prepared for you, I recommend that you begin now, and take personal notes with which to reflect upon. It is never too late to begin living your life as it was supposed to be lived. If you are interested in making money, look at your hobbies and see if you can begin to turn them into a positive, rewarding business venture. We need to work to live, not live to work, which is what many of us do. This is a dangerous imbalance.
We need to understand ourselves before trying to understand others.
Use the fifteen questions to improve the potential of your vision that will help you transform your life and establish an inner structure that depends on a system of personal value-centered awareness. Once you get out the Box and become liberated, you can begin to live your purpose; and part of that purpose is for you to reach out and help other people get out the Box! The magic to life is to give, not take! But you must first be free to have that power.
You will be able to sing with the wind without being blown away, dance with the Sun without getting burned, and to have a positive impact on the lives of those you come into contact with. Balance always gives you pure and positive energy. Before I jumped out the Box, I used to focus on material things, making money and looking good on the outside while my balance of health and happiness was taking a beating. This was a dangerous imbalance.
I have utilized my life experiences to help establish an inner structure that depends on a system of personal value-centered awareness.
I have come to understand that when it rains, there is a purpose why it rains. Learn to turn your scars into stars.
When I experience joy I know that it was my encounter with sadness that provided me an opportunity to better appreciate joy.
I know that when I laugh there also will be occasions when I will have to cry.
And I know that when faced with the decision between a positive opportunity and a positive risk, I will take the risk. But know that “risk” is not impulse. It is the choice we make based on the truth we want to live.
I turned to my life experiences, looking at my strength and weaknesses to help navigate my journey.
Balance is living your true purpose on the planet! I did my studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNYAB). As a student, I learned more outside the classroom then I did inside. I was a student leader, and I was the founder of the Puerto Rican Student organization, Puerto Rican Organization for Dignity, Elevation, and Responsibility (PODER). As a student leader, I joined forces with African Americans and other students. We were able to convince the university to establish an Office of Minority Student Affairs (OMSA). The office served as a link to connect the university’s contacts and resources to the minority students and to the local minority community needs. The office was established and I graduated with my BA degree that same year, and was offered the position of Assistant to the Vice President for Student Affairs, appointed as the Associate Director of OMSA. I accepted and I used that position to educate myself, to learn about management, administration, and resources. I was then able to establish a relationship with the community’s leading African American and Latino leaders and elected officials.
In addition, because I was the liaison to the African American and Latino student organizations, I had an opportunity to work with them on the development of workshops and conferences. My responsibility was to assist them in finding appropriate African American and Latino speakers/lecturers to bring to the campus. My job was to locate or contact the existing Speakers’ Bureau that represented these speakers. I found that most bureaus had few African American or Latino speakers.
Because of this, I found myself directly contacting African American and Hispanic poets, writers, elected officials, and business leaders.
After twelve years at SUNYAB, I retired and completely divorced myself from higher education but always kept the idea of a speaker’s bureau in the back of my mind. Twenty plus years later, I used that college experience to create the first Black & Latino Speakers Bureau in the country, “AOC Speakers and Consultants”, which I established in 1991. Today, in addition to AOC, I am also the co-founder of “Nubian Speakers”, a speaker’s bureau that represents African American Speakers.
I am also the founder of Don Pedro Cookies (DPC), still in development as a positive Hispanic role model company providing scholarships and business ventures for youth. It will be marketed in New York City, with plans to approach other markets once we establish a base of loyalty and contracts in New York State.
The DPC venture is not solely based on my motives to make money. It is based on my commitment to education and my commitment to make a difference in the lives of children. Balance!
What is Don Pedro Cookies and where did this business idea come from? DPC is a reflection of my life’s experience. When I was growing up, there were no Don Pedro Cookies or Hispanic products for me to relate to showing positive Puerto Rican or Hispanic role models. There were no positive characters available to re- enforce or support my journey. There was no one telling me that education was an important key that would open the door to the world. DPC provides something for all those concerns. The Cookies are based on a positive character, “Don Pedro”, one that supports and re-enforces the importance of education. DPC is a new/start-up operation.
My plan is simply to continue to enjoy living my life. I have always focused on the idea “to serve”, and when that idea is executed with “care and love”, harmony comes your way.
If your goal is to only make money, then you may meet that goal, but ask yourself: “Will you have joy and harmony in your life.” You will miss the Balance!
If you can find it in you to learn to stay focused, and work to prepare a plan for your life journey, and you sincerely make sure to include your purpose to serve, destiny will come to support your efforts.
You will have the harmony, good health and the music that only you can hear because it was written and composed only by you – for your journey! If you hear the music, you found your purpose! I dare and challenge you to work on your Balance. God meant for you to enjoy the wonders of life with a base of spiritual balance. Go and enjoy the music!
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