Greetings friends! Summer is upon us and our latest double issue, 27.23/24 is ready for all our friends, colleagues, associates, partners and various supporters. We are super excited about all the possibilities coming our way these next few months and beyond, as we are currently working on a very special Covid issue for Santa Clara County and one for all of our readers. There is plenty of amazing content (since March 2020) that speaks on this pandemic from so many of you. Talk about a true history book documenting the times.
Also, over the past month, we have been traveling for The Beat Within and it has been a challenge to meet our publishing deadlines, so thank you for your patience in getting this issue into your hands. You ask where we have gone, well we visited New Orleans, Louisiana, where we ran workshops with our friends at the Rivarde Juvenile Detention Center in Jefferson Parish. We also traveled to San Diego, CA., meeting with our friends at the East Mesa Juvenile Hall, as well as our new friends at the “new” YTC facility, where we helped launch The Beat at this new site in Kearny Mesa. We will do our best to keep you posted. Now without further ado, alow us to pass the keyboard to our friend and colleague, OT…
This is OT reporting live from the hot tropical and muggy, rainy, skies of Managua, Nicaragua.
It’s rainy season, and I’m getting hit with a light drizzle as we speak, as my Hot Cheeto stained fingers are slapping the keys on my Mac. First and foremost I hope that by the time this magazine lands in your hands that you are in the best of health – mentally, physically and spiritually.
When it comes to sharing my message, whether it’s you young folks, or OG’s like it or not, I always like to use my own personal life experiences as examples. ‘Cause we all go through challenges and obstacles in life. If you have a job, you know that when you have a job there are certain duties and responsibilities that you need to accomplish.
Whether you’re working for a Fortune 500 company (shout-out Merv!), or a mechanic, or flipping burgers, or painting houses, the list is endless of the many tasks you will need to perform before your shift is over. Before you rebuild the engine on a car, there’s lots of screws and pieces that need to be put together from the cylinders to the pistons, lots of nuts, screws and bolts that need to be inserted.
When you flip burgers, you have to cut the tomatoes, lettuce and onions and whatever amenities you have to put in it to complete your order.
When you paint a house or office building you have to prep first. You have to make sure the walls are washed, surface intact, if not you have to apply silicone. You need to tape up the boundaries and make sure you don’t drip paint on the ground.
So for those of you that know what it’s like to work a job whether that’s Home Depot, Grocery Store or being a cook, you know during your day there are tasks that need to be completed. Even in detention you wake up, you brush your teeth, eat breakfast, make your bed, clean your room, go to school, eat lunch, workout, read a book, go to program, etc.
Sometimes certain tasks may seem daunting at first, and then you start to notice that as the day goes on you start knocking off your tasks little by little and before you know it, your shift is over and you go home. For me, sometimes I have to type forty page documents, and when I look at a certain file, I’m like “uh, oh,” because it looks like a lot. Sounds like a lot until I tell myself, knock out ten pages, take a break and knock out ten more, and before you know it I’m done with the whole 40.
No one is expected to do more than what they can do, but when it comes to those hard-working people that take their duties and responsibilities serious, you’re always looking how to get the job done in the most effective way possible. No one likes working backwards. We all want to work smarter, not harder, but sometimes it does require a one-two combination of both. “OT where are you going with all this talk about work? Are you trying to tell us to go get a job?”
I know that’s what you’re wondering, or maybe you think I’m about to vent about how much work there is to be done and yeah matter of fact this message is about work, but I’m not necessarily talking about your normal nine to five. I’m going to take advantage and address what it means to actually work in all aspects of life. The struggle, the life that we all come to live and lead, contains many challenges and difficult tasks. To get far in life, there has to be a lot of work put in. But let’s start with the simple tasks:
If your J’s, or Lebron’s, or Cortez’s, or Timbaland’s, or Van’s get dirty we have to clean ‘em to keep them clean. When you rock your favorite sports jersey, shirt, your favorite fit, what do you do at the end of the week?
Maybe your mom still washes your clothes, but we all have to do laundry and wash our clothes. Even our guys in the adult system, they do the same, because you can get clothes off the commissary, and sometimes you get new uniforms and you want to keep those blingers. So unless you’re super rich (I would say 99% are not) and only wear your outfit one time, then that means that me, you, and we all do laundry. If you got a whip, you go to the car wash to wash it or you do it yourself. Then comes food. Maybe you don’t know how to cook, so all you do is Uber Eats and Door Dash all day. Thank God we don’t have to hunt, kill and cook our own food like the old days.
For many of you that are blessed to live with our parents or with someone who looks out and cooks for you consider that a BIG blessing. Because you have no idea how much money you save when you’re eating a nice home cooked meal by your grandma, mother, or father, and more importantly how much TIME they just saved you, because more likely than not, you didn’t do the grocery shopping.
How many of y’all go grocery shopping? I’m talking about I just got paid grocery shopping… I need milk, eggs, toilet paper, Downey, Tide, paper towels, soap, new towels, hand towels, bleach, aww here goes the vegetable section. Then you hit the meat section, buy chicken, different cuts of meat, then stand in line to check out, then drive home. It takes time to do all that.
That’s why it’s important to recognize these people, whether it be your mom, dad, grandma, uncle, etc. for every little thing they do for you because of the extra hard work they put in. They take time out of their day to cook for you, or do your laundry (on top of that work a full-time job, maybe another part-time, just to put food on the table, pay the rent, or pay the mortgage, pay the light bill, pay the internet, pay the cable) so that you can put some more time and work into other things that are important, like your education, your job, or other extracurricular activities like sports, music, or make moves for your career, not time to hang out in the streets all day.
Salutes to all you that are the ones that are working, cooking for your siblings, paying the rent, paying the mortgage paying the internet and cable, paying the light bill, doing the laundry for the household) but I know that many of you are not doing that, and I’m not saying you have to, because as you grow and mature, you will eventually step into that role one day, but I need everyone to understand something about life and the struggle.
Life is all about work and working hard to get to where you want to get. Life is all about you working hard on bettering yourself to be a better mother, better father, better brother, better sister, better uncle, better neighbor, on top of hustling legitly at your nine to five job or whatever shift you choose to work.
You have to work and earn everything.
The more time you invest on working towards your goals, the better you will feel when you finally get to rest. Think about a time where you had to bust your butt all day, maybe under the sun doing some yard work, it’s a been a couple of hours, and your thirsty like a camel in the desert of Saudi Arabia.
When you take that sip of water, or Coca-Cola doesn’t it feel good, matter of fact if feels Tony The Tiger “Greeeeaaaat!” That’s because of your hard work. Anything you drink tastes better when you’re actually thirsty, just like food tastes hella good when you’re actually hungry.
So when you actually work hard on your goals and work on your mental strength, your physical strength, your education, your job, etc. it feels good when we get something done.
Life is just starting for you all right now. If you haven’t been working hard towards your goals and you’ve just been procrastinating, it’s all good, given many of you are young. You have plenty of time. But don’t keep wasting time because I hate to say this; time is not a luxury we all will have.
We’re all gonna get old, and time zips by quicker than you think. The faster you start working towards your goals the faster you will be able to sit back and relax. But right now while many of you are doing your program away from home, and not having to worry where your next three meals are coming from, or paying your phone bill, or worrying about hustling for your loved ones, this is your chance to reflect and prepare and focus on yourself. What do you want to accomplish when you get out? How are you gonna do it? Some of y’all don’t think school is an option, hey I get it, it’s not for everyone, but get your high school diploma at least. There are plenty of hustles and jobs that you can get after that, construction, electrician, store manager, whatever.
Once, you return back to your community you are back to working towards your goals, working towards improving yourself, and your life. There are no short-cuts in life. Matter of fact, when you do decide to cheat and take short-cuts you find yourselves in places like where you are right now, watching time pass you by, feeling like you need to get out and take another short-cut to make up for lost time.
You can’t cheat time. You will only end up cheating yourself and your loved ones, missing all those birthdays and holidays. So work hard, and don’t forget to have fun while you do! One love to everybody going through the struggle, stay focused and work hard! The Beat keeps going and going…because of the hard work that’s put in!