Having grown up on Chicago’s south side, inner city… a girl learned to get pretty scrappy in finding mentors who actualized living examples of who I knew wanted to be like as I evolved and would slowly begin to fit into the shoes of my own destiny.
I’m sure most, if not all, know of @WillSmith; as a successful actor and mega star. While I too, appreciate the excellence of how he’s mastered his craft as a performance artist, admittedly I’m most grateful for the philosophies he’s shared with the world on- life, overcoming adversity and resilience.
In an interview a few years back, Will shared the story of how his father, an electrician had he and his younger brother work every summer on building projects for his business. One summer in particular, Will’s father tore down the front wall of his shop and tasked the boys with the seemingly impossible rebuild. Will Smith shared his account of how the boys mixed concrete by hand, and dug a 6ft hole in front of their father’s shop; and they registered the notion the hole “would be there forever”.
For the next year and half, the boys laid one perfect brick at a time…until they had completed the rebuilding of the entire 16 x 30 wall. Their father iterated the lesson to them…”ya’ll, don’t ever tell me there is anything you can’t do.”
Life is hard…In full candor, I’m not very certain that it shouldn’t be.
What I mean by that, is like most things; it is all the more delicious once we’ve worked to attain, achieve, overcome, accomplish…the holes life inevitably presents us with~ or that we dig on our own.
Alternately, how disposable and under-acknowledged are the myriad of everyday miracles we’ve learned to take for granted in this life…the very breath we’re breathing in and out in this moment, that we are alive, that we can feel; love, pain, joy, suffering…that we’ve been granted 24 hours today to try our very best, to fail forward and learn, to lay our bricks, to be here… now.
Perhaps like me, your life or circumstance has presented you with gaping holes sometimes; injustices, inequities, unfair starting points, victimization’s, atrocities, griefs and frustrations both valid and inexplicable…keep going!
Today, I’m grateful for the reminder of the direction towards my Due North…that I can fill the holes if I so choose. That with time, intent and persistence…
Brick by heavy, fucking wonderful brick…
I can reframe the walls of my own life & destiny. Yes, the road is long…but “we don’t have to see the entire staircase”; remember, we only need to take the very next step. Upward & Onward we go…towards the life creations of our wildest and most brilliant visions.