Measuring Progress

Maybe through social conditioning or my own yearning for gratification, I grew up heavily invested in having my own progress evaluated by the diagnosis of others. I found comfort in the lines that demarcated the difference between five specific letters of the alphabet and their plus or minus companions. Aside from genuinely wanting to do well for my own sake, I enjoyed the pats on the back; the “Hey, great job!” and the occasional “Keep up the good work!” Addicted? Perhaps. There was just this undeniably irresistible attraction to knowing that people had great admiration for me.

From grade school up until I graduated college, I swam in recognition that on the one hand  recognized merit, and on the other carried no weight. Completely absorbed and arrogant by the attention I received, I couldn’t see past the fact that I was doing everything to appease those that coddled my ego. Upon graduating and entering into the “real world,” those that shelled out awards for best this, that and the other, had vanished. No one to hold your hand or inflate your eager, no reports to give evaluation on your progress, just you left wondering if you were still good enough.

I initially developed resentment for the idea of any form of recognition; I had grown weary of compliments and was annoyed by any form of flattery, I saw them as empty ways to impress one another. Thus, I detested bloating the ego of many young kids and leading them to believe that they are invincible, instead of realistically giving them the treatment they would face once leaving the confines of the academic world. I thought here stands my generation that has been coddled so much that once faced with a sharp edge, we simply crumble under pressure, essentially leaving resilience hiding at the back door.

I continued to think about my dissatisfaction with my inability to concretely evaluate my progress post-grad, I attributed it to empty flattery that I had indulged while in school. After mulling it over several times, I realized that I might have not achieved as much if good work hadn’t been acknowledged. I figured it’s ok to accept merit-based recognition and respond to a genuine compliment with a thank you. The past two years I’ve been attempting to determine a way to evaluate my life’s progress, conditions that I have acknowledged as valid parameters are: alphabetical grading systems carry only the weight that one gives them and paychecks carry no validation, as long as you are working towards your ultimate end goal in life.

Lessoned Learned- Happy Father's Day!

As I made my way down the driveway towards my father’s gardening truck, my nostrils were bombarded by the odor of burned gasoline from the dated leaf blower and the sharp tart like aroma from the freshly cutgrass. On my back, I carried a large grey garbage can that no longer displayed the luster of its former life on aisle four of Home Depot. Instead its exterior was decorated with deep scrapes, holes and a loose handle exhibiting the signs of a life lived. Inside it held 15 pounds of leaves, weeds and the remnants of unwanted debris.

Upon reaching the truck, I lifted the can above my head and dumped the waste on to the bed of the truck, letting out a loud sigh and wiping the beads of sweat that had been produced from the physically demanding labor and the angry sun that sizzled at a lofty 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

I walked over to my father’s orange colored cooler that sat nestled on the side on his trailer and poured myself a cup of water. I embraced the feeling of the chilled water as it touched my lips and traveled down my throat. As I proceeded to drink the water, I looked onward and saw the street as it did its best magic trick attempting to dislodge from its solidified form. I refilled my cup with water, took off my base cap and poured out the cups contents letting the water droplets race down my face.

At 18, I was spending my last summer before leaving to college helping my father with his gardening service. It wasn’t quite out of the ordinary for me to be doing this. I had been helping my father since I could remember and I had my father’s clients remembering for me before I could claim any of those memories as my own.

By the time I was nine years old, I was constantly hearing: “Wow! Look how you’ve grown." Angela would say as I stared in awe that I was personally hearing a British Accent. I remember when you where this tall and you would stand next to your father digging the little holes so you could plant the flowers. You must have been five or so.”

 Stubby Kay, her husband, would quickly interject, “He’s paying you well, right? If not I’ll tell your mom and she’ll take care of him.” I simply smiled and nodded my head.

As I grew older, I started to become more and more possessive with my time. I remember telling my father not to speak so long with his clients “on my time” because apparently it was my time that he was wasting and not his time earning the money that would put food on our table. Instead of reprimanding me for my brazen attitude towards him, he shrugged it off and teased me occasionally with his clients.

I selfishly thought gardening was my father’s form of cruel and usual punishment that I had to endure as some sort of right of passage. So summer after summer, winter vacation after winter vacation and spring break after spring break, I was pulling weeds, trimming trees, picking leaves, cutting roses, mowing lawns and washing down drive ways. Although I didn’t immediately see the purpose beyond earning extra cash while I was 10 or 13 years old, as I got older I started to realize my dad’s lesson was beyond the concept of fiscal responsibility and even beyond the value of hard work.

At summer’s end, I was extremely eager to leave the hot summer sun behind and find refuge from the physically demanding labor. Thus, every fall I would find that refuge in the form of four decorated walls, 30 desks, textbooks and an instructor to guide my peers and I. While my friends talked about their summer vacations, I would change topics when it came for me to rehash the summer that I thought I had missed out on.

Contrary to my selfish mentality, the concepts of hard work, patience and focus that my dad reminded me of every summer had transcended into my nine months of academic success. My father instilled in me the importance of education by displaying the arduousness that is manual labor and the consequences of taking education lightly.

Gradually I began to take note that there was a method to my father’s madness. At 17,  I was accepted into Berkeley, the University of California, Los Angeles and a few other schools. I graduated valedictorian of my senior class, I was senior class president, captain of my track and field and cross-country teams. All these accomplishments were are traced back to the summers I spent sweating under the desert sun.

Each summer, I was enrolled in summer school and my father was the teacher. There were no books, no homework and no classmates. The only form of grading or validation was through my own evaluation on how much effort I put in that day. On my last summer, my dad gave me a history lesson telling me that he started working when he was nine years old. When he was 11, he had stopped going to school and started working full time. The first male of his family, the second child of a growing family, he no longer had the privilege to attend school. He was a child in Mexico working to partially contribute to a family that continued to increase in size until the family reached maximum capacity at 18 children.

Although my father had never gone into detail about his upbringing, it all made sense to me. The reasons as to why I was there summer after summer was he’s indirect way of having me choose the words in books over a lawnmower and a rake. As a teenager, I never gave him the credit that was due, he was one of my greatest teachers and it took me awhile but I had been given the best lecture that anyone could ever give a student by a man that had never studied beyond the fifth grade.

“Don’t look back, always look ahead.”

We give certain moments in our life more favorable reviews. Our audience and the critics reach a consensus,” two thumbs way up!” And during award season, you are there to receive the accolades for “The Best Actor,” “Best film,” “Best Original Screenplay;” much deserved recognition for the person sitting behind the pen that writes and behind the lens that films, you. Calculating what would be most entertaining, what would be the most fulfilling next step? Constantly yearning for excitement, living fast and without inhibitions. And then, at some point that thirst for excitement seems to fade and you sit embracing your yesterday’s as if that feeling that they gave you can never be replicated. So you hold fast and hold tight not wanting to relinquish those memories, as those were the absolute “best times of your life.”

Sometimes my brain gets wrapped around this idea, in particular, when days become increasingly routine and the various roles we play leaves little time for your dreams and aspirations. I know this has been a constant theme of my entries but it gets tiring taking a back seat to my yesterday’s especially since I’m only 24 years old. I don’t want to be prematurely rehashing my memories without making any new ones, I’d prefer the story telling to begin when I’m ninety and I have a grand daughter or son listening to the things I’ve seen, the places I’ve been, the people I’ve met and then in turn inspire them to live each day as they would achieve everything and anything.

It’s funny how one fortune cookie can help put you back in the driver’s seat.

Certainly Uncertain

I can’t help but think of the train I missed back in August 2008. Like a projector repeating the same sequence of a black and white film, my mind is still standing on West 116th and Broadway with my hands holding on to pieces of paper with information for apartments and potential living arrangements. There I stare at the front gates of Columbia University, my head starts to set sail thinking of the new life about to manifest. I smile and begin to walk down the sidewalk towards 115th street.

Twenty months later, those wide eyes that once had their sites set for exploring the concrete jungle have nearly extinguished. Plans to move up to New York after my DC excursions never materialized and the one way plane ticket to the East, never lived up to it’s conceptual romantic inspiration. Rather, I placed my New York life on hold because of a call; a meeting I was promised that never occurred. I entrusted my future in the hands of a stranger who came knocking on a door that didn’t have a doorframe, hinges or walls to support it. Maybe I should’ve known better? After all, this wasn’t the first time I blindly believed promises made to me by a virtual stranger but it was certainly the last.

With mishaps and misadventures of the last year and a half, I watched as all my certainties and concrete beliefs became my uncertainties. I figured that maybe I needed to lose sight of myself in order to get back on track.

Although I haven’t yet reclaimed all the puzzle pieces or started traveling back on the track I was on, I’m establishing new rules for the pieces I choose to be apart of my final picture. As I sift through all my thoughts of uncertainties, I’ve discovered pieces of me that I thought had been sacrificed for good. Fortunately for me, these pieces are just the start I need. To some- less social, to myself-more selective of who I’m more willing to hangout with. To others- more reserved, to myself- less inclined to share my energy with those who could care less about me.