The game of life is very much like the game of chess and they both require that you make the right moves to win. How do you make the right moves to win? By using your mind, utilizing logic and strategy or with your heart meaning you base your decisions according to how you feel? I can assure you, if you play this game of life with your heart you’re going to end up in a lot of wrecks and thus a lot of heartaches simply because you’re making emotional decisions. One thing I’ve learned throughout life is that the enemy of logic is emotion and at times our greatest enemy can be our inner-me if we allow it to be! There is an old African proverb that reads: “If there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm.”
Traditional schooling teaches our youth “What to Think” and “What to Believe” nevertheless through the Skool of Hardknox, we teach them “How to Think” and ultimately how to think for themselves by planting the seeds of new ways and new beliefs in their minds and continuously water those seeds with street knowledge they won’t learn in college so we do our part in helping shape and mold their mind and their way of thinking so they flourish into the young man or woman that they’re meant to be or at least close to it.
Many of the youth we have had the privilege of serving thus far come from broken homes and unfortunately, those of us growing up fatherless and/or motherless are at greater risk of becoming a product and statistic of the system like I once was. Unfortunately, many of them are already dead in spirit aimlessly parading through life with no sense of direction let alone purpose in life. Many have already sold themselves short on the concept that they are not entitled to a much better lifestyle then that in which they’re living. In all actuality, it’s not so much of a lifestyle but much rather a deathstyle simply because we all know the end result and, in the end, there is no such thing as a successful criminal!
I no longer view life clouded with ignorance and so therefore I have developed a compassionate heart for helping our young brothers and sisters throughout this struggle we call life! As they say, to each one, teach one!
© Hard Knox Gang Prevention & Intervention
