As there are two sides to every coin there are two sides to every story. In one of my programs, it was drilled in our heads to “seek first to understand then to be understood”. Over the course of my life, I have been in numerous situations where this quote and phrase ring true. In conflict resolution, we tend to forget to hear the entire spectrum of a situation. We allow our emotions to cloud our judgment. We as a society have been trained to approach the world differently than my programs drilled into my head at a young age. It is fascinating to see how far we have not gone from being a small child. Let me give an example: if you have observed a 2-year-old, a child just learning to talk, if they make a mistake and called upon their mistake their first response is “no I didn’t do it”. We all get a good laugh at how cute they are and carry on with our day. Well let’s look at the same 2-year-old ten years later now at age twelve the same behavior of avoiding responsibility occurs and we wonder why? Now take an adult, for the most part when we make mistakes we always have an excuse on why we made the mistake, the same behavior that was ingrained to be ok since we were two years old. We try to be understood first then we try and understand. We are always defending ourselves even when we are not being attacked. Quick tip, another thing that was drilled into my head was this “ if a person is able to affect your emotions in any way they now have power over you, why are you giving that person your power?”
You always remember what you did for a nigga
I fall victim to this as well, it is an easy thing to do, with our daily lives it is easy to become narcissistic and only think about ourselves. When we watch old gangster movies we remember the names of Al Capone, John Gotti, Lucky Luciano, even Pablo Escobar. One thing in common with all the movies about these individuals is they are most certainly the boss. They all have a demanding presence and were all ruthless at an instance. When we grow up idolizing these people and repeatedly watching movies based on that lifestyle we begin to implement that way of life to be the reality. Now if this was only on a singular term it would be different but we are talking about a massive amount of people who are watching these movies and falling in love with these movies and video games. Now we have a massive amount of people with the ruthless “dog eat dog” mentality.
But why does this matter?
Hollywood is not giving us the full spectrum of the situation about these people, they create the story based off of one person’s rise to power. A man on an island, so to speak. In these 2 hours of entertainment, we are manipulated to think our idols actually did it on their own, with a narcissistic attitude. So in turn we have the narcissistic attitude, where we want to rape and pillage just because we saw it in the movies and we think our idols would be proud. It is easy to forget Pablo built hospitals, Lucky helped during World War 2. The only way we can survive is if we look past our selfish and narcissistic attitudes and begin to help each other, reach higher dreams and aspirations.
You always remember what you did for a nigga
This is such a regressive way of thinking, I am the first to say no one does anything from the kindness of their heart, we all have a sense of self-preservation, that is normal we are human. However, why people do things is what I am discussing. Do we only do things for narcissistic gratification? Here is an example you help a friend in need; it could be with money, relationship help, homework, anything. What was your purpose in helping your friend? Now since we have the understanding we don’t do anything from the kindness of our heart that only leaves us with a couple of alternatives. We helped our friend in a vindictive way (having or showing a strong or unreasoning desire for revenge) or in a benevolent way (well-meaning and kindly). One way of helping is the same as “crabs in a bucket” where we only wish to help as long as it does not allow the friend to progress more than ourselves.
The other way of thinking, the FYMM way of thinking is to give in a benevolent way, as Pablo was when he intended to build hospitals. We first need to take the time to become empathetic to our soundings, as opposed to having the “crabs in the bucket” mentality. If we remember no great man became great off the back of his own labor, but instead became great and built massive empires off the backs of a collective group of people. Not all of us are meant to build empires, but the one common theme is they all will remember the FYMM way of thinking and always remember what a nigga did for them.
Do you remember what a nigga did for you
Think of any great achievement you have had in your life, it might have been your achievement but you did not accomplish it alone. Learning how to crawl, walk, talk, or run. Yes, they are all your achievements but they were not accomplished without the help of others. This however is not as straightforward as one would like. We all agreed that the person we are today is a combination of different interactions with people over the course of our lives. In an unbiased way of thinking of ourselves and our past, we will begin to realize our entire personality and thought process has just been small snippets of different things we saw or encountered during our lives. This is what brings truth to the “I am a product of my environment” statement, If all you know is hell then all you have is one frame of thinking.
This past year as I have gotten older I have done just this, I looked at why I have not accomplished my life goals, I started to analyze my own interactions with different people in my life. When you do this you have to remember it is imperative to be unbiased, in that you can not use emotions. When I stopped remembering what I did for a nigga (crabs in the bucket mentality) and began thinking in a progressive FYMM manner and started remembering what a nigga did for me, it changed my outlook on many things. In one of my programs as an exercise, they would make us look our friends in the eyes and we would have to tell our friends all the ways we choose to hurt them, you would be surprised how vindictive people are. With this in mind, I was able to analyze my past encounters and formulate a solid plan to accomplish my goals and the people I want in my future.
It is very important for us to remember what a nigga has done for us, whether positive or negative. With deeper analysis, we realize we learned a lesson either way. Our life is shaped with two variables, because of and in spite of. I became a drug dealer because of the environment I was raised in or I made it out of the hood in spite of the environment I was raised in. As we take a deeper look at both phrases, we must remember we are the masters of our own destiny. We as individuals have the conscience choice to allow others to manipulate our power or to make the choice to control our own emotions and future by having a better understanding of ourselves, and what a nigga has done for you.
Because of
- Society; The Black Male is feared and depicted as an ignorant beast
- Environment; I have been another status quo and become another statistic
- Family; I have never seen the world or tried new things
- Friends; I am a certain person and expected to continue to be a certain way
In Spite of
- Society; I am intelligent and well mannered
- Environment; I have risen above the expectations of the world and become successful
- Family; I seen the world, met amazing new people and tried thousands of new things
- Friends; I have learned that people grow and friends are perfect for certain times in our life like a revolving door
In order for us to have an FYMM mentality we must, first, acknowledge the “crab in the bucket” way of thinking, “I have done this for a nigga” and transition to a “what has that nigga done for me” mentality, constantly evaluating the individuals in our life, making sure we do not allow people in our lives who have a vindictive way of helping us.