Me or Him

 “He wasn’t listening now. He didn’t care what that woman thought. She wasn’t his real mom any ways so why the hell should he. This treatment was no different than any other time he’d made a mistake.  He had heard the same words and phrases she was now screaming at him from the teachers, the principals, even his own friends so many times before that by now they had lost their meaning. He didn’t care any more; he couldn’t do anything to make her or anyone else happy so why the hell even try.”

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The frozen December air whipped through his “Tap Out” t-shirt as if he were wearing a paper bag. Everything felt numb, his feet, his legs, chest, ears; everything. Mikey reached down and brushed some of the snow off of his chest from where had tripped over a root hidden invisibly by the dusting of snow that covered the cattle pastures surrounding the cabin. The cabin. It had been a place of so much fun and joy and a place where he and the rest of the group had had the times of their lives. Where Mikey had finally been treated as one of the gang, where he had been the head honcho. There the group could be themselves, cut loose, and have fun. Now, as it stood there before him, the blue and red lights shimmering against the frost covered windows, it seemed to have shifted to a symbol of yet another mistake in a long line of screw-ups and failures that marked his life.

            He could feel his buzz starting to wear off as the biggest of the cops grabbed him by the scruff of the shirt and drug him up the drive to where his grandpa was sitting in the Cadillac. As he approached his grandpa, another transformation took place. The man that had taught him how to fish; the man who he and many of the rest of the group had worked for on the farms; the man who offered him a place to stay when that wicked bitch of a step-mother had kicked him out of the house on some trumped up bullshit she new wasn’t true; that man now seemed to be the messenger of death. He stood there silently, somber rage building behind a calm façade.

            The cops grilled him for what seemed like hours. An endless barrage of who all was there, where did everyone else go, whose idea was it to break into the cabin. By the time they had finished, he felt as though he’d been beaten to a pulp. Exhausted and frozen to the bone, he sank down into the cool leather seats of the Cadillac. He could see the cops giving Shaun the same kind of hell he had just been through, and off in the distance he could see another cop carrying a near frostbitten Elizabeth out of the woods. The ride home would be a long one.

            Now it was time to face the music. The words “stupid”, “moron”, and “retard” replayed over and over out of Tracy’s mouth. His dad sat idly by, letting the woman who had replaced Beth, his mom, rip his son to shreds. With each word, Mikey sank deeper and deeper into the Laz-Boy against the wall, where they now had him cornered.

            We’re tired of your dumbass Mikey! We’re sick of you! Are you listening to me?! I swear, it’s like talking to a damn brick wall!

 He wasn’t listening now. He didn’t care what that woman thought. She wasn’t his real mom any ways so why the hell should he care. This treatment was no different than any other time he’d made a mistake.  He had heard the same words and phrases she was now screaming at him from teachers, principals, even his own friends so many times before that by now the words had lost their meaning. He didn’t care any more. He couldn’t do anything to make her or anyone else happy, so why the hell even try.

            Now he found himself at the bottom of that long winding driveway, wearing only a Nike hoodie and a cheap pair of sweatpants to protect him from the frost and snow that was now falling over the valley. He saw headlights in the distance and a glimmer of hope arose inside of him. Here was his savior, his golden chariot. That maroon Avalanche with his mom in the front seat meant a warm bed and something hot to eat at his grandma’s house. Sure he was bound to get a scolding there too, but after the hell he’d endured listening to from Tracy, this one would be a walk in the park. 

 

            Growing up, there were about 5 or 6 of us boys that were all thick as thieves. We were all fairly smart, all of us except for Mikey, that is. To us, Mikey was like a slower little brother. We all used to joke around with him about how dim he was. With the slow draw he had when he spoke, and the way his eyes used to wander while he was talking to you, you would swear that he was mental. If one of us dropped a pass in football, it was because the quarterback overthrew it. If he dropped a pass though, it was because he was too stupid to catch it. If one of us missed an easy lay-up in basketball, we’d call a foul on the person nearest to us. If Mikey missed it, we said it was because he was retarded.

            The same treatment carried over to school as well. If we were to fail a test, we never took the blame, and claimed the teacher hadn’t properly taught us. But if Mikey failed the same test, it was because he was an idiot. The treatment wasn’t just limited to our close group of friends. Now, teachers would chime in, constantly belittling him and treating him as if he were a waste of space in their class. To the principals, Mikey was a hoodlum and a young punk who was always up to no good. He always got the blame for anything that went wrong inside the school. Regardless if was even remotely close to the action, Mikey was always the first suspect in the minds of the administration.

            His home life wasn’t any better either. When Mikey was 5, his mom and dad divorced. About 3 years later, his dad got re-married to a woman named Tracy. Her two sons were the golden boys. They could do no wrong in her eyes. Good grades, great athletic ability, these kids had it all. It came as quite a shock to her when Mikey didn’t live up to those expectations. He became the black sheep of the family thanks to Tracy. He just didn’t seem to fit in or live up to the reputation of his new stepbrothers, and it seemed unlikely that he ever would.

 

            It was a cold December night. Alabama had just embarrassed themselves on national television in their loss to the Florida Gators. As I walked to the fridge to get another soda to try and drown my sorrows, Run DMC’s song, “It’s Tricky”, boomed from across the kitchen, signaling a phone call. All I could do was shake my head as AJ, another friend from the group, hurriedly explained to me that the cops had gotten called out to the cabin and that Mikey, Shaun, and Elizabeth had gotten busted while everyone else had somehow managed to escape. Just another stupid mistake to add to the list.  To be honest, I kind of expected it to happen. Not two weeks earlier, I’d told him he was going to get busted. I told him that it was going to happen. I had that feeling deep in my gut. But he wouldn’t listen. In typical Mikey fashion, he just shrugged it off and kept on doing what he was doing. I called his phone time and time again, each time hoping beyond hope that he’d answer the phone so I could check on him and make sure he was alright. But try as I may, I got the same recording every time, “Hey, this is Mikey, leave me a message.”

            As I walked through the halls the next Monday at school, I couldn’t help but notice that almost everyone was talking about the cabin. Groups of people huddling around lockers sat and speculated about what had actually happened out there that night. I heard everything from the cabin almost burned to the ground to everyone up there had gotten arrested. Since I hadn’t talked to him at all since that night, I didn’t know for sure what all had happened. Sitting down in the lunchroom, I scanned the faces around me, looking for any sign of him. As he came lumbering out of the lunch line, I flagged him down and grabbed a spot at a table where he could tell the tale without interruption.

           

Well we were just hanging out and having a good time man. Nothin’ too crazy. Had the radio goin’ and all that, watchin’ some TV,  you know, just hangin’ out. I was sittin’ there and all of a sudden these lights start shinin’ all around the walls and that. Hell man, I didn’t know what to do. I ran. I ran like hell into the woods. Shaun and Liz did the same thing, but we split up. They started yellin’ at us to come outta the woods and to get on the ground and all that shit, but I just kept runnin’. I started dartin’ through the woods but tripped over a rock or tree root or somethin’ and I just kinda laid there a second. I started thinkin’, and after a few minutes I figured the thing to do would be to go down there and just give it up. No sense in puttin’ off the inevitable.

 It was a stupid idea I know. I really fucked up this time. I wasn’t too worried about the cops, grandpas the one that had me scared. God man, I was shakin’ like a leaf on a tree. I could tell he was pissed too. Like, he wouldn’t even look at me on the way home, just kept shakin’ his head. All he said was he was tired of me and tired of taking care of my mistakes and mess ups and all that. But I owned up, I took responsibility for it. It was my dumbass fault we were up there, and my fault everyone else was there. I came clean about it all to him and the cops.

 

            This  part took me by surprise. Mikey being responsible for once? I was more likely to win the lottery or get struck by lightening three times in a row than that. But I heard it, plain as day. Mikey had owned up for what had happened. This was the last thing I ever would have expected out of him. As I sat their stunned, Mikey picked at the stale roll that the came with his lunch, trying to find any portion of his meal that was edible. Was it possible that he was turning over a new leaf, maturing into a responsible, respectable young adult? As the weeks and months went by, I started noticing small subtle changes in his behavior. He no longer sat idly by while those around him took control over his life and pushed and prodded him into what they wanted him to be. He began working harder in school, and from that day on, rarely did we see him without a book working on homework or studying for a test. He seemed to do everything with a sense of purpose too. It was as if someone had a lit a fire inside of him, and he was now bound and determined to make a change in his life, a change for the better.

            I got a text from Mikey one day a few months later asking if I would come down to visit him at his mom’s house to celebrate his birthday that weekend. Over the summer, he, his mother and little sister had all moved into a small farmhouse just outside of Brooksville, Kentucky. Of course I said yes, and that Saturday afternoon a group of us piled into my mother’s car and headed out on the Double A to meet up with our long lost buddy. It was just like old times, all of us sitting around, watching football and talking back and forth about this and that. In a brief pause amidst all the commotion, I pulled him aside and asked him how he was doing down there and what all he had been up to.

 

            School’s nothin’ like it was back home. Like I actually enjoy goin’ now and I’m doin’ really good too. I’ve got straight A’s and the way they’re talkin’, I should be able to graduate next year too. I really like it down here man. Everyone’s so different and they don’t treat me like I’m retarded or like I’m stupid or somethin’. You remember how they used to act. Hell, the teachers coulda given two shits about me up home and didn’t care if I graduated or not. I’ve gotten involved in all kinds of things down here at school too. I tried out for football, and now they’ve got me playin’ two ways, startin’ receiver and cornerback. They’ve even been talking about havin’ me play quarterback for em’ too! Basketball coach has already been on me about tryin’ out down here too and said he sure would be blessed to have me playin’ for him this winter. And guess who’s datin’ one of the head cheerleaders? That’s right, this guy! I feel like I belong down here man, like they’ve accepted me down here. And guess what, been doin’ a lot of thinkin’ and that lately, and if I can keep my grades and that up, I think I’m gonna try the whole college thing. What have I got to lose, right?

 

            Oftentimes in today’s society, we form ideas and opinions about people based on what we see from the outside. We set them to a certain stereotype without regard as to who they really are or what they can become. These prejudices and preconceived notions hold an individual down and limit what they can achieve. Oftentimes as a society, we don’t give people a chance to prove themselves. We don’t see individuals as who they are, but rather how we want to see them. As we wound our way down that back country road heading for home that night, a smile crept across my face as I thought about how much Mikey had changed and how he had finally gotten his life straightened out. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that it wasn’t Mikey who had changed so much. It was me. He had the potential inside of him all along, but we never really saw it. We never saw the drive and the desire he had. We only saw a kid who was borderline retarded and about as lazy as it got. He had never been given a chance to succeed or a chance to prove everyone wrong because, for so many years, he’d been written off and discounted. Mikey wasn’t the one who changed, I had.

            

My Life, My Choice

“Your life is the sum result of all the choices you make, both consciously and unconsciously. If you can control the process of choosing, you can take control of all aspects of your life. You can find the freedom that comes from being in charge of yourself.” – Robert F. Bennett

Growing up as kids, we have all been influenced by society and community surrounding us. Some of us wanted to play basketball like Michael Jordan. Some wanted to be President of the United States. Some of us wanted to play guitar in a band, traveling across the world playing to sold out arenas just like our favorite musicians. We all had role models, whether they were a sports star, an actor, or even our parents. We all wanted to follow in their footsteps and become successful just like them. While it’s good to have heroes and role models to look up to, we each have to make out own way in the world. While we may wish to be just like our childhood heroes, we have to make our own name in the world, and learn from our individual experiences, just like those who came before us did. While we should follow the advice and learn from the experiences of others, we have to form our own judgments and make our own choices based on what we have experienced in our lives.

As children, our parents drilled countless words of wisdom into our brains that more often than not we let go in one ear and out the other. “Yeah, whatever dad,” was a response that I used quite often after my father would finish one of his many stories about growing up and living life. “Boy I was just like you when I was younger,” he’d say. My dad had advice for everything, literally everything. Cars, sports, girls, farming, music, racing. You name it, he knew it. But I never really took his words to heart. I always thought I knew best. As time went on, I began to realize something, his words of advice started to really hit home. I found myself kicking my own ass for not following his advice. “Guess dad wasn’t so dumb after all,” I’d think to myself. But time and again, I’d make the decisions for myself; failing to heed the advice my father had given. Why do we do this? Why do we carelessly throw aside the words of wisdom that only come from experience? So often, we cast aside beneficial guidance only to realize that we were wrong. This is because we have to learn from our experiences and mistakes so that we know to make the right choice further down the road. We have to find out for ourselves what will happen if we make the wrong decision. We must learn from our own personal experiences, just as our parents did before us and their parents  before them.

How then does one draw the line between advice and control by an outside party? How do you know when to stand up and choose for yourself and go against the advice of another? We determine this by what feels right for us and by what we believe is the possible choice in a given situation. We as individuals chose to do what makes us happy, based upon our beliefs, our ideologies, and our values. For instance, if a person gives you advice on taking a high paying job that forces you to sacrifice the time spent with your family, they’re basing their advice off of what they themselves believe to be important in life. While it is important for us to listen to and consider the advice given to us, we must ultimately make the decisions. It comes down to us making our own choices. Not our parents, not our grandparents and not our friends. This is how an individual creates his or her identity and in turn become an individual.

I was exposed to this kind of advice while growing up. When I was younger, I would listen to my grandfather tell stories about his days in the Army. He would tell me fantastic stories of the time he spent as an MP in Germany and how he and his friends would race their motorcycles up and down the streets of town. He even told me the story of how he had met my grandmother in a small laundry over there. All of these stories made the Army seem so glorious, so exciting. I thought to myself, “Now there’s a life for me”. He was able to parlay his military career into a successful life back home, working as a pilot for the airlines. He lived the “American Dream”, rising from a poverty-stricken childhood in Hazard, Kentucky, to become a successful businessman and a powerful influence in Boone County and Northern Kentucky as a whole.

From an early age, I was groomed for the military academy. On Saturdays, we would go to the airport and go flying, and we would make our rounds to all of the different air shows and museums across the country. Needless to say, when I told him I’d decided that the military wasn’t for me, he was taken aback. All the time and energy we had put in to preparing me for the academy now seemed like I waste. I felt as though I was letting him down and that I was a disappointment in his eyes because of my choice. Then I realized something; I had been heading for the military for all the wrong reasons. It wasn’t something that I wanted to do, but rather something that I was doing to please him because I felt that I owed it to him somehow. I had allowed someone else to shape my life and make the decisions for me, instead of taking control myself. Because I hadn’t experienced the things that he had while growing up and  hadn’t been exposed to the same opportunities (or lack there of) that he had, the military was not the best choice for me. His advice was a source of great inspiration and information, but I had to learn for myself and make my own choices. I had to create my own identity and not relinquish this responsibility to someone else.

This is the point the Appiah stresses in his essay, The Ethics of Individuality. Appiah stresses that one’s identity should be created by that person alone and that no one else can choose who we are or who we become. Each and everyday we are pushed and pressured by our family, our friends, and the society in which we live. We are forced to conform to the different roles and expectations that  each has set out for us, but in the end it is up to us as individuals to make our choices. In his essay, Appiah referenced John Stuart Mill who, as a child, was molded by his father into his own image. He tried to plan his son’s life out for him, instead of giving his son the choices necessary to become a true individual. Mill then took control of his life, completely breaking the chains his father had used to bind and control his future. Appiah stressed that outside interference is the enemy of individualism. This, however, is only partly true. While it is important for us to make the decisions shaping our lives ourselves, we should consider the outside guidance and advice given to us by those with experience. We should learn from their mistakes, learn from their previous failures in order to help us grow and succeed. We should strive to make our own mark on society and leave our own print upon the world instead of completely modeling our lives off of another.

In today’s society, we are poked and prodded and molded by many different factors around us. We are continuously bombarded by outside influences trying to shape us into what they see fit. Robert F. Bennett said it best with his quote “If you can control the process of choosing, you can take control of all the aspects of life.”  If we take control of  our futures and assume the responsibility of making our life choices, we can  control our lives as a whole. Appiah too believed in this ideology. He believed that it should be left up to the individual to choose what path they will go down in life and that outside interference works against this process. While it is important for the individual to make their own decisions, we should all consider the advice given to us by our elders. More often than not, they have made the same mistakes that we are bound to make  and we can learn from these failures. We should, however, be cautious and not follow this advice blindly and therefore fail in our duty to take control of our own lives. In short, while it is important for us to make our own life decisions based off of our ideas, values, and experiences, we should consider the advice of those around us as both a source of guidance and inspiration.