by AP, San Diego
Later that night, I got away from the police at the McDonald’s. When we got away, my homie drove us to his house to kick it. After I took a shower, I went to the freezer and grabbed a full bottle of Jack Daniel’s. I started chugging the bottle to fill up the void I felt in my heart. Choosing to go on the run affected my life in so many ways. It was hard for me not knowing where I was going to sleep or where I will get my next meal. I partied a lot on to distract myself from the reality of my situation.
I finally acknowledged it was my fault, nobody else made me realize there is no one to blame for my personal failures but myself. Nobody made me rip off my ankle bracelet, it was all my choice. I can say there have been countless times people have treated me wrong, and to be honest, I have treated others the same way. Karma is real, folks, I believe in the Golden Rule—treat others how you want to be treated. To this day I still have held grudges towards people that have affected my life in a negative way when I was little, but I’m trying to forgive. Damn, it’s hard.
In reality, keeping grudges has done nothing but add unnecessary stress to my life. I’m ready to let those negative feelings go. The past is the past, I can only control my future. The energy I have used towards engaging in negative behavior needs to be used towards gaining prosperity. The anger and guilt I have held on to is tiring me down. How can I expect to achieve my goals if I keep doing the same negative things? I’m losing out on a lot of opportunities being locked up. Those opportunities could have taken my life far with my work ethic and potential. In order to excel I can’t be on the run.
Those early four-in-the-morning walks in the cold to the trolley was painful knowing I have nowhere to go but 12th and Imperial. Some of my homies who said they was my ride or die, wouldn’t let me stay the night. When I had money, they were around me more often.
Sometimes I ask myself “how am I still standing up wanting to be successful? The truth is being successful is in my destiny. It does not matter how many times I play my life like a game of dice. Prosperity is what I was meant for, it is in my blood because I’m a fighter.
Being a failure is me pretending to be something I am not. I used the backstabbing I have experienced as an excuse to treat people that way too. I’m starting to understand peoples aren’t going to be fair. Life is not fair. We are not obligated to having anything in life. We are who we surround ourselves around. Ife we hang out with scholars and studious people we will follow their footsteps. Look into the true intentions of being someone’s company. There is a lot of manipulative people out there…We must trust our heart and always do the right thing. Especially when others are telling us to do wrong. In order to excel we have to surround ourselves with dream chasers. It all starts with a vision. In order to turn a vision into reality you must believe in yourself.
I see the stars glistening can they be reachable like my dreams,
I can’t tell how far but I’m visioning it like a fairy tell shown on screen,
Feeling a moment of clarity, in the past my aspirations felt so weak,
Wide awake with persistence can I reach what I see?
With a tunnel vision of a lion preying on what it eats,
I’m looking for the light to accomplish whatever I choose to believe,
Being a failure is now an option, my dreams will not only be visions but achieved.
I’m proud to say I’m a survivor ready to accomplish my goals. A close friend of mine is going to share his story and how he’s a survivor chasing his goals as well. The story of my homie Lil Pleito. Let’s go back to August 8th of 2019. I woke up feeling drained in Memorial Skate Park with nowhere to go. I was still grieving over my sister who passed away three weeks before this day. To take away the pain I felt I was doing meth and smoking weed constantly throughout the day. I sneaked inside my house once everyone had left.
Soon after I took a long shower with tears running down my eyes. When I got out the shower I got dressed in all black for my sister’s funeral. As I got dressed I was staring at my weapon, debating if I should take it with me. I ended up tucking it under my pillow knowing it is not appropriate to have bring a pistol to my sister’s funeral. As I walked out the pad I seen an all grey Honda outside with tinted window. I felt nervous knowing it could be an enemy because of my gang affiliation. I was going to go inside to grab my gun but my mom texted me to hurry up.
So, I crossed the street and walked to Salud, a Mexican restaurant on 32nd Street. I put my headphones in on full blast and listen to “Hail Mary” by Tupac Shakur. Over the noise of the headphones I heard three little popping noises. I looked up and seen a Glock with a thirty-round stick pointing at me. As soon as I turned around I felt something really hot inside my body. I ran behind a car for cover. When I got up to run again I noticed blood coming out of my shirt and mouth. At the time I didn’t know it but the bullet penetrated my lung, liver and kidney. I hit the ground and waited as he came closer looking ready to finish the job.
At this time there were a lot of people calling the police so the guy ran back to his car, then drove off. I remember waking up in the hospital sore. For a second I had forgot what had happened. I had been asleep for three days. I ended up going through surgery and surviving all that happened. At this point I though how much worse can my life get? I had just lost my sister. Then soon after I got shot and almost died. There is a reason why I’m still standing tall wanting to accomplish all my goals in life. I am a survivor!
God allowed me to continue to live because I have a purpose. I can’t control other peoples and actions. Maybe if I hadn’t experience all what happened I wouldn’t be as ambitious as I am now. My intention of sharing my story is to change people’s perspective on experiencing hard times. Your life on earth is not over ‘till you stop breathing. You never know when your last breath will be. Until then try to fulfill your purpose. Everyone has a purpose in life. You have to just find it.
We can all use Lil Pleito’s story as motivation to keep striving to accomplish all our goals in life. We all will experience hard times in our lives. We need to use those moments of adversity as motivation to excel! Everything happens for a reason. We all have our own type of struggles we have to overcome… Let’s identify our struggles and conquer them. Do not play the victim with the intentions of making people feel sorry for you. Dwelling on the past does nothing positive for the future. Counting our blessings does!
We all have so much to be thankful for… Every day we wake up we have an opportunity to be productive! Think about it, we have the power to control our future. It’s in our hands, we choose whether we want to be successful or not. Back to the time I started chugging the Jack Daniel’s Whiskey. Overnight I continued to chug the whiskey to feel numb. I didn’t want to accept the reality of my predicament. I was often so drunk or high I didn’t think about the long term consequences of my behavior
I kept drinking and stayed up throughout the night. It was early in the morning when I finally fell asleep.