I woke up planning to go to the gym. I tend to work out in my contacts, but I discovered they were ripped. So I had to wear my glasses. One of the coolest aspects about wearing glasses is that if I take them off, I can’t see a thing. For various reasons, I don’t want to see anything especially in the gym.
Women wearing too tight clothing. Strange-looking people staring at me. The ominous reflection in the wall-sized mirror depicting me in full workout mode. I don’t want to see these things. So when I get on the treadmill or elliptical, I take off my glasses. Why? I just want to run. I don’t want to be distracted by my environment. I don’t want to be distracted by overly exposed cleavages or jiggling bellies. I just want to focus. The greatest inventions of our time came from concentrated periods of extreme focus (e.g. Apple Inc.).
One my favorite books of all-time is Ron Suskind’s A Hope in the Unseen. The main character is Cedric. Cedric goes to a predominately Black public high school in a rough Washington D.C. neighborhood. Cedric is ahead of his peers, but he quickly recognizes that his high school accomplishments mean nothing. Why? Because Cedric knows who he’s really competing against, despite his academic excellence, the rigor of the curriculum he has learned is not congruent to the education that the wealthier students across town receive. With his eyes set on M.I.T., Cedric has a lot of mathematical and science basics to learn. During a summer program hosted by M.I.T., he realizes just how far he is behind.
Throughout the book, his mother encourages him to maintain hope. She quotes Hebrews 11:1, which, reads as “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” The psychology behind why I take my glasses off is because I want to build the confidence in what I hope for. What do I hope for? I hope for self-actualization and for becoming the type of husband, father, Christian, writer, and teacher that I have potential to be. I don’t want to die without leaving behind a legacy. I don’t want to die without becoming everything that I could have and should have become.
I argue that too many of us lack the faith necessary to reach our apex. Having faith is having a deep inner belief that what you belief exists. Your dreams can be realized. But because you and I are easily distracted by the social networks, news, reality television programs, irresponsible messages contained in music, the American Dream, and more that we may never realized our true purpose.
I challenge you to turn off the television for five hours. Disconnect from the Internet for a day. Talk a long walk. Go for a run. Pray. Meditate. Get your mind clear. Get your mind focused. Write down your true goals. Dig into them. What do they look like? How are you going to reach them? Who is going to hold you accountable to reach them? How will you track your progress? Why did you choose these particular goals?
If you want to be a (fill in the blank), what are you doing today to become that? What are you going to do tomorrow? What about the next day? And the day after that? Take yourself, your present, and your future seriously. But don’t be distracted by your environment, take off those glasses. You can see better without them. Trust me.
Follow me on Twitter: @BlackScholarONL. Email me at Leonard.Wilson.Jr@gmail.com.
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