From boys to men

My wife, my friend......MY reason to change.

In the black community, and maybe in every other community as well, I always hear women say that you cannot change a man. "He is going to do whatever he wants to do", "all men have their minds made up", and "let a man be a man".  As correct as these all sound, they are all wrong. Belief, confidence, understanding, support, negligence, stubbornness, and just flat out not knowing better are just SOME of the things that a lot of us men suffer from. A lot of people choose religions and careers based on what was good to or for them, what worked out better for them and what made "ME" (them) a better person. So is  the same for ways of life and women.

Whatever you see a man doing with himself or in his life, whether it is right or wrong, has been good to him.  Now keep in mind this is all from my point of view. But hear me out. Where I come from there was and still is a lot of drug dealing and petty and major crimes. The one thing those people all have in common is that they all didn't always do what they are doing today. At some point in their lives they did something else..... or should I say tried something else. Some of them worked full time jobs but after it didn't work out or pay enough eventually went to drug dealing.  Or some lived straight and honest lives but after being a victim of a crime they became the criminal. EITHER WAY!! What they do today is not what they've always done. They were all influenced by something negative. So why can't the same go for positivity you ask? It can. All of these men will, hopefully, change one day. Some sooner than others. And the common denominator in all of their pictures will be women. YES women.

See, some of us only know what we have grown up to see and the environments we live(d) in. Women, even if they are brought up in these same environments, aren't exposed to the same things we are exposed to. So a lot of times what you have are things we lack.  We are far more receptive to the things women try to employ. Maybe even more than women think. I was fortunate enough to meet a good woman.  Someone who exposed me to a different way of thinking. See I was accustomed to doing things the way that I have been doing them my entire life. And a lot of them were wrong. But she loved me when I didn't know I loved her, she taught me how to struggle without resorting to crime, and she believed in me. She believed in me. That was something that I never had in my life. Someone smarter than me telling me I was smart, someone who had accomplished sooo much more than me telling me that I could, or someone saying "baby you don't have to do that.....try this".  And as simple as that may sound it changed me. Changed the way I thought, changed the say I lived, and even changed the things I wanted out of life.  Now I don't know for a fact that it was her that changed me but what I can't deny is this simple equation of my life. 

Me - her = bad decisions, crime and under-achieving

and

Me+ her= Success. 

You be the judge.

So women don't give up. My mother had a bad relationship when I was growing up and when I would ask her why she wouldn't just leave him she never had an answer. But in 2002 after almost 15 years he walked away from the streets and drugs never to return. And still hasn't to this day. Today he is a full time worker, has an associates degree in computer programming, he is a deacon, he is a Mason, AND he is my step-father. I asked my mom in 2006 when they became married what she thought  it was that changed him and she simply said, "Every night I would pray for God to bring a good man into my life. But instead of God bringing me a different man he made the one I had the man I prayed for.  I never stopped believing in Jeffery (my step father)". They dated for almost 18 or 19 years before they were married. Change CAN come.