Aspire to Greatness

3 words which changed my life forever. It was August 2003. I sat astounded having heard Professor West in a piece he delivered to the State of the Black Union assembly. At that moment I finally understood why my life goals had been so desperate to manifest; why my plans were always so aggressive and unimaginable; why sleep had become such an un-necessitated luxury. In one moment, everything I had done since the age of 12 made since. I suddenly found myself fighting back tears with the justification that those words had brought. It was finally at that moment that I recognized the culmination of my life was to “Aspire to Greatness”.

Greatness, as described by Professor West is a two-fold characteristic of a man. It requires first that you be a critical thinker. “A life that goes without being scrutinized is a life not worth living” West explained. “Critical thinking leads you to develop as a person. Scrutinizing thoughts, decisions, opinions, attitudes and general ways of conducting life will improve choices and ones outlook. Greatness requires critical thinking”. If you are a critical thinker who constantly seeks a gain in knowledge and understanding, you will be bright, alert, observant and powerful. However, if you seek no further knowledge or understanding of your behavior or the behavior of others, you will be dim and will remain concealed from expansion. You will become less aware of the growth that is pending therefore prohibited from greatness. The critical thinker will search the very sky for his/her position in the universe and vigorously pursue it using every resource which has been at their disposal to succeed. The critical thinker has no choice but to Aspire to Greatness, mostly because nothing else will entertain them.

Secondly, it requires that you be a person conscious of the service you can provide to the people you affect. According to Professor West, “A great person is a server. He is willing to humbly render that which he recognizes others are in the need of which he has acquired”. In other words, if you become rich, you are not “great” until you help those which you have access to who are poor. There are multitudes of people who are successful but have yet to realize there potential to be “great”. In fact, many wealthy people can be described as the opposite of great, (awful, obtuse, tiny, insignificant) because they refuse to render service to anyone other than themselves. To become “great” is to become a giver. Even if there is nothing "great" that you are giving, you show "greatness" by giving. If you give, then you matter. If you serve; if you can somehow help; if you give then you ARE. If I give…then I AM… and therefore I will… Aspire to Greatness!

Writing History

If you wanted to know my writing history, I’d say that on the walls of my crib was probably written in crayon the inscription “6 more years before I can finally write with a pencil instead of this damn crayon!” Writing has been my passion for as long as I can remember. In 4th grade, I even loved the smell of fresh, blank R.U.S.D. (Richmond Unified School District) paper as it slid across my desk full of promise and possibilities. I’d grab at least three sheets and proceed to fill both sides with an epic tale of action and adventure right off the top of my head then proudly turn in the longest story in the class yet again which was my "claim to fame". My 4th grade teacher would highlight sentences such as the one I just wrote and label them “run-on”. But I, both then and now, defiantly refused to change a single word. I’d write and write until my pencil went dull; couldn’t stop to sharpen it for fear that I may loose my train of thought (so I’d just push harder).

My worst writing experience was in 6th grade. I created my master piece; a 5 page story called “Land of No Return”. My teacher, Ms. Butcher picked the story apart, pointing out my grammatical errors and inconsistencies then inserted corrections to the point where I barely recognized the story (the irony in her name was blindly obvious to 12 year old Gerard). The painful part was, I let her (I still have the piece-of-crap story which was once my greatest achievement). I didn’t write much for years after that. Finally, my Writing teachers at Laney College and Contra Costa College both swore I had a gift and that’s what got my pencil movin’ again.

Today, my life is so full there’s hardly time to breathe let alone write. However, now I’ve found a digital piece of paper which is always blank, always full of promise and has endless possibilities; plus there's an audience much larger than my 4th grade classroom. My pencil is movin’.