Having a badass mentality!

    

      The man in the window waited for me by the fence. I saw his smile from across the street. I slowed my car to a stop, he walked up, and I rolled down the window.

“There you go, beautiful lady. Good morning!” He said. He wore a blue winter jacket, blue jeans, and a hat.

      “Good morning to you too. How are you doing today?” I asked.

      “I am happy to see you this morning.” He smiled and leaned in to rest his arms on the window frame. “I was just thinking about that basketball fellow and the eight people that passed away in that helicopter crash.”

“Koby Bryant, yes.”

“He was a young man, forty-one years old. They were at the prime of their lives, especially the children, they were teenagers.” His face saddened by the thought.

“Yeah, death has no respect of age,” I added.

“Well, you never know what’s in the cards.”   

When we are young, we do not imagine ourselves dying. We believe that we are going to live to get old. Death is for our great-grandparents and not for our friends and siblings. We take stupid risks and unnecessary chances with our lives.

“When I was young, I thought that I was indestructible. I am not being literal but figuratively speaking. As I got older, I started to get little maladies, aches, and pains. Look at me now; I am walking with a cane; I recognized that I am not as strong as I thought. I saw my features changed over time; I aged.”

“How old are you now?” I asked.

“I am 74 years old,” he responded. “Do I look older?”

“No, you are as old as you feel.”

“Well, at this stage of my life, I just wanted to wake up to talk to this beautiful lady in the mornings, get my coffee, and the paper from the corner store.” He looked around as a lady passed with two children.

“Okay, that is simple enough,” I said and leaned over to turn up the heat in the car because I felt the cold air crept in.

“I do not expect a lot at my age. As I got older, I appreciated all the good things that brought me joy. What more can I say? I am having good conversations with a beautiful lady that I can only wish was,” he paused. “I couldn’t do too much anyway, even if I get it. It is all upstairs, all in my mind. Upstairs, I am a legend. Upstairs, there is nobody else; I am the star in all of my imaginations.” He pointed to his head and nodded.

“You are the star alright, and there is nothing I or anyone else can do about it,” I laughed although he was serious about it.

“While visions of sugarplums are dancing in my head,” he said and drifted off in his thoughts.

“On a different note, let me tell you something,” he continued.

Here is today’s story from the man in the window.

When the man in the window was growing up in the inner-city neighborhood, his attitude towards others wasn’t the best. He used to follow his friends and do things that were against the law. They wanted to be badasses, and if you did not fit the mold of a badass, you became an outsider. That mentality corrupted many young minds. Young people were getting locked up because of this backward thinking that they were above the law. They got this badass mentality from the streets. They got this from their friends. They got this from wanting to be accepted, so they formed gangs to create havoc in their community.

In the game of life, we play to win not to lose. Being a badass and going to jail was playing to lose. Last week, he saw a friend (John) whom he hadn’t seen for years, at the store and they started to talk. John said that he did five years in Attica prison as if it was an accomplishment. John said it as if he was proud. Was that the best he had for his life that he is an alumnus of Attica? A lot of people think backward because they wanted to be like the crowd.

      As the man in the window got older, he realized that life was more fun when he stopped following the crowd. He realized that people put more trust in him. He saw that beautiful and intelligent ladies like you stopped to talk to him.

      He said that changing his whole attitude was everything. 

Positive attitude had everything to do with how he changed his mentality from being a badass. He started to isolate himself from the crowd. He could not associate himself with their thinking anymore, so he limited the people he was around and surrounded himself with beautiful people like yourself.

      When he put the badass mentality aside, life became more fun. Good people like yourself talked to him. So many young people got locked up because of showing off to the world, but nobody gives a shit; nobody cares. People’s lives became better when you are away. You are the one whose freedom gets taken away. You are the one in jail and not the people you were trying to impress with the badass mentality.

      The lesson I learned from this story is that being a badass was not worth the effort. At the moment, you might feel satisfaction, but when the law catches up with you, there is no positive outcome in the long run.  So before you consider being a negative badass, check out the consequences and realize the hurt you are causing others, including your family.   

      Remember that you will not be the only one in prison; your loved ones suffer as well. And if death became your reality, your family suffers too.

      There are positive ways to show your badass mentality. You can become a badass athlete, a badass performer, a badass entrepreneur, a badass advocate, etc. Let your badass mentality drive you to be the best person you can be. Put that badass mentality to positive use.

Okay, I said it!