Sunday, May 29, 2011

How to Enhance your Ghetto Life (UPGRADE YOUR HOOD STATUS) Part 1

HOW TO ENHANCE YOUR GHETTO LIFE (Upgrading your hood mentality)
Enhancing your status from hood to good takes some detailed focus, trust me I know.  Growing up in the blocks of Southside Chicago has taught me 6,564,890 things about the entire hood existent life.  I've seen it all, the fighting, backstabbing, stealing, hustling, partying, cheating, killing and anything else you may think of I have seen.


LET ME EXPLAIN MY DEFINITION OF GHETTO IN THIS CONTEXT OF DISCUSSION
Wikipedia has described it as this: A ghetto is a section of a city occupied by a group who live there especially because of social, economic, or legal pressure. The term ghetto was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. A ghetto is now described as an overcrowded urban area often associated with a specific ethnic or racial population.


I agree with this definition but for this post we'll focus more on the mentality of the Ghetto individual and not the area.


YOU HAVE TO BE HONEST WITH WHO YOU ARE AND WHERE YOU ARE IN YOUR LIFE TO BEGIN TO UPGRADE YOUR STATUS FROM HOOD TO GOOD.
When I began my Hood to Good transformation it took a while to come to the honest conclusion of where I was in my life.  It is very easy to pretend your somewhere you aren't. Having $100 left over after paying your rent doesn't mean it should be spent on yourself to a trip to the beauty shop or the nail salon (uh huh, this was me).  Standing in your truth is key and is what I consider the very first step in assessing what you'll have to work through to improve your Hood to Good status.


I would suggest to stop right now and ask yourself these few questions in this order:


*How did I occupy my day today?
*Did I spend any of my day reading material that can enhance my life?
*Did I speak or have any negative thoughts today?
*What do I do for a living and can I retire doing it?
*Who is my best friend right now and what do we mainly talk about?


These questions are extremely important, urgently important, important. Did I say important?  These questions are just surface questions that you can answer quickly.  I'm not ready to take you deeper just yet but I do want to get you thinking for the 2nd part of the post.  One of the questions that stand out the most is who is your best friend and what do you discuss the most.  Normally your counselor with whom you share your deepest thoughts is an exact replica of yourself, a mirror version.


Think about the conversations you had today, yesterday and this week and total them up to see what the general discussions were about, was it about that lifetime movie, how ray ray never called back, why Melissa rolled her eyes at you in the elevator, your tired as hell, can't wait to go shopping, Beyonce's new video, how juicy Tomika booty is, how Tyrese put it down last night.  Take inventory of your conversations, especially with the people you spend the most time around.  Sitting down and answering these questions will help you become conscience of how your thoughts are formed.  You will begin to ask yourself about the reasons and outcomes of some of the conversations you have participated in this week.





"Hello, Girl Mr. Thompson just sent me home for the day, talkin about I'm 15 minutes late and dressed inappropriately...He a trip ain't he"?


Friend on the other end "Girl yea, he a trip, did you explain you had to pick up your birth control pills?


Be honest, have you ever had one of these crazy phone calls or have made one yourself?  I would hope that everyone can take the time and answer each question and happily await part 2 or upgrade from Hood to Good.


Kay Jene

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