Who I “was”, Who I “am”, and Who I want to “become”

This is the passage I tried to bold and italicize..LOL. guess I havent learned how: but I wanted to highlight it.
..."I don’t think that people who grew up comfortable have any idea how hard it is to change your life when you don’t have financial resources. You make a wrong turn somewhere and find yourself living a way that fills you with anxiety. You know you need to change, and so you try. But there’s no support net to catch you, nobody in your family that can pitch in for rent or groceries as you find your way, nobody to buy you those dress clothes you need for that job interview. You have to reinvent your life out of nothing, and it’s a gargantuan effort. There’s always that transition period between what you’ve been and what you want to be—a time of weeks or months or years when your back is up against the wall and you feel hopeless and helpless."

It's getting impossible to climb out. We're all going to be stuck in the gutters one day.

I'm feeling you. Thanks for this entry.

"There’s always that transition period between what you’ve been and what you want to be—a time of weeks or months or years when your back is up against the wall and you feel hopeless and helpless. I’m guessing most rappers know a little something about that scenario."

This is what I had in mind with the "duality of man" comment. lol Sometimes you may find saint and sinner up in the same frame. Maybe this will bring my previous comment full circle: If I were the CEO of a non-profit and Imus, Jadakiss, Haley Barbour (who compared some Head Start parents homes to brothels) and David Banner wanted to host a fundraiser --- hey --- show me the money (or show it to the kids)! lol

I was not aware of this situation with Tru Life. I remember picking up a mixtape in NY early last year of his. I was disappointed to hear about the 'thuggery' in it because I had envisioned him as one of those cats who had made that change. This thought came from viewing the premier "Beef" DVD. This opinion of mine had been spread upon quite a few artists who I felt were above the need to conform to the mass rapacity of urban music, yourself included Kaze.

Just as you say, though, wanting to make that change and actually going through that change are a world apart. I recognized the judgments that I was making for what they were. Over the course of the past year I was forced to recognize what MY contribution to the "struggle" and my contribution to overcome the same said struggle has been. It is always humbling to know where you fall short.

I mention this because I feel that often times we do best by being an example. Not that people should want to mimick our lives, but why not inspire folk to do what they can with the little that they have?

What I've seen as more a reality than anything else is the need to recognize that God is providing all things to all people and not the people themselves. To every 'thing' [job, car, home, etc] that we can rely on we know the source is from above. It does us no good to chase after these 'things' because we hold ourselves accountable....or our families, communities, government, etc.

When an individual realizes this and truly accepts this reality, then they find comfort in sticking to what they know to be true and not allowing the pressures of life to influence them to do otherwise. Life IS life, though, don't get me wrong. We're bound to do whatever it is that we want to do. And then we can look back and see what becomes of the decisions that we've made. Based on this knowledge, we can make our present and future decisions.

Because nobody really wants to make choices that leads them to look over their shoulder for the rest of time. Although I don't know all of the facts of Soulja Slim's life, that is one of the things that haunts me with his music. He was working to make a new reality and alluded to living a life different from what he had known. Even though his demise [and countless others whose memories we respect] was brought about by the same violence that he spoke of, more people are picking up the same torch and carrying it on, apparently oblivious to what could be coming around the corner.

Change is a continual process. As long as we are living, we are learning. As long as we are learning, we are investigating the need for change. My words I speak for myself and hope that they are of some benefit to others.

Amen, Revern, Doctor Lilsoulja.