Disconnected — How to Make America Great (for the First Time)

This “think piece” comes a couple weeks after more horrific headlines that highlight the United States of America’s blatant lack of respect, rights, and humanity towards a portion of its citizens. The feelings and thoughts here are still definitely true and stated a bit more soberly to encourage dialogue around solutions for communities, especially Black communities, around the country.

There’s a HUGE disconnect in American (US) society and citizens of color. Culturally and economically, every day I learn that yet another of many things that I’ve been taught growing up, are invalid.

The Economic Disconnect

Education + Training = Economic Success

In good times, people can access the proper education and training they need to make a living. In current day America, you’re not likely to be able to support yourself or your household that easily. Obstacles like student debt, a cultural focus on individualism, and wages that don’t keep pace with the cost of living make it more difficult for many people to do more than struggle paycheck to paycheck.

We see proof of this disconnect in the rapid shifts in our economy with the successful individuals all having a startling similarity in that they don’t follow the “path to success”, but instead, learn and master the tools of the day to fill a need. Actually, many modern businesses simply satisfy frivolous wants and make us feel that we need them. The typical K-12 -> College -> More College system won’t net you success anymore. We need to better prepare our young people during the K-12 process so that they can WISELY DECIDE how to go forward in their life.
There is NO NEED OR REASON to funnel kids into any college of any sort without prior proper preparation of the to navigate and choose their own path. Especially since we have schooling that they are bound to endure for 12-ish years. Many of our youth aren’t properly taught about

• Finances, Taxes, Budgeting
• How to Run a Business
• How the Government Works, How to Vote, Our Rights

These things that are VITAL parts of adulting (being a responsible adult) and having a functional and responsible people, but we’re expected to navigate in the real world after succumbing to the relentless onslaught of obedience and conformity into an un-natural system of education that has very little basis or relevance to culture and life outside of it. You can’t afford to focus on school to lead you to happiness or success, it has to be YOU guiding yourself or else you’re likely to reach mediocrity at best or crash into despair and debt at worst.

To solve this, we must continue to reform education and disrupt industries, but we also need to apply these methods to our communites, explained in more detail below. There is so much lacking in our communities because we drain them by constantly leading our best and brightest to desire something “better” out in the big cities. When this happens, we lose the value of family, youthful energy, and masses of talent that communities NEEDS to thrive. You can’t send cohort after cohort of your youth out into the world every year for them to never return and expect things to keep going well for your little American town or neighborhood. We need to have a cycle that draws in skillful and passionate youth to continue building up the community.

The Situation — Culture / Community / Individual Involvement

Individual +Community =Culture

We also have proof of the disconnect within our culture. Social media has been ablaze amidst the failings of our justice system and blatant disregard for human rights. Our OWN government system doesn’t respect our lives. This has lead to many conversations (within the Black community) on becoming self sustained and self-sufficient like other community groups. Note that a major reason that our communities have lacked this “cohesiveness” and sustainment is due to the fact that we’ve historically been denied it. White peoples and other immigrant groups arrived in this nation with their past and their culture in tact. They knew who they were and had a group and a baseline to live up to, support, and carry on. Many of our communities feel disparaged and discouraged, plagued by poverty and lack knowledge or resources to improve themselves. These calls to be self-sufficient are valid and need to be implemented. Not solely based on race, however. Especially if you’re in a community that is a mixture, as many of us are in areas that include non-Black peoples. Some of us may even have the numbers in our town or county, but have ceded our local government to other (usually white) people who may have other concerns and plans of action that won’t address changes that our people need. We need to be active in local community and government to affect change.

Community building is the starting point for our growth and survival as a nation. We all need to work on bringing our communities TOGETHER. If you happen to be somewhere that you hate, dislike, or you’re just not happy about where you are, GO to be apart of the community that you need. Hateration will only beat back progress, so being your best self and helping the cause will lead to better results for us all.

Being involved in your community isn’t hard. It may be scary or daunting, but it isn’t hard. Every community of some sort has basic things, or if your community of choice needs more help, you can assist in bringing these things to life. Now enough of describing problems as I see them. The remainder of the post will highlight key things that should happen to strengthen our nation by reinforcing and supporting ourselves at the local and individual levels.

Community Solutions

• Engagement— The people must support and reinforce any changes. Working within (or creating) your towns and organizations will lead to progress towards unity and freedom for all. Local elections MATTER. Websites like VoteSmart and USA.gov provide info for when elections happen, who is running, what is being voted on as well as information on how to run yourself.
  We all have opinions and care about what’s going on, but we refuse to do anything. Why?
• Education — We need to get out of the way and leave opportunities for kids to learn how to live, build and discover.
  Here are some great videos to understand what better education systems look like and how to achieve education and passionate learning in your own circles:
  1. Brief overview on Finland’s successful (and HAPPY!) education system by The Young Turks.
  2. Finland’s priority of a happy, functional populace (A dad said he feels his daughter spends TOO much time on school work) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB4fiHfaKts
  3–4. Two BRILLIANT talks from Sir Ken Robinson on Creativity and Passion. Thank me later
• “Entrepreneurship” — Not solely in the *Unicorn/Silicon Valley* sense; we need to empower ourselves to solve issues around us. There is no reason to sit back and wait for people to employ us. Help each other, solve issues in our community, or develop your own talents and interests. If you’re good enough and prove useful, people will pay you to do it.
• Evolve — The only thing that is constant in this life is change. We must always strive to be our best and do our best. This goal, while ubiquitous, is often derailed by our love of money and glory. We trap ourselves in debt to achieve meaningless worldly things while yearning for a retirement on a sunny beach for over 40 years. The beach doesn’t have to wait and the money you need to get there doesn’t take a lifetime to acquire. Understand what you really want out of life and go for it and retain your freedom. Evolving to have a community mindset instead of a competitive one and focusing on people more than things will aid our efforts to succeed as a people.

Individual Solutions

• THINK — Stop and think. Think about your current situation in life, how you got there, and where you’ll end up if you keep doing what you’re doing. This skill of self-reflection will help in achieving goals and success in life.
• Research — Find out more about your passions and interests. That will lead to learning and mastery which leads to success. If you used to have passion, but feel that it’s worthless, this is LIKELY to be from outside forces and usually is a true interest that you should pursue. Money can even be a byproduct of your interest, but it SHOULD NOT be the goal. That is the old and WRONG way to think about life.
• Act — Do it. Practice the future. Get in touch with likeminded people. Learn and improve what you do
• Communicate — Put your ideas out there. Find like minds. Collaborate!
• Travel — For educational and relaxational purposes. Travel aids in the the thinking process because you are lifted from your own situation and able to be in a new situation. Possibly somewhere that is a little slower paced than life in the US. There is a wisdom in how they manage to live and run their nation, that you can take to improve your life. Learn from other humans and adapt

My Path

In accordance with all of the above, I’m leading my life quite differently than I used to. I’m actually the one leading my life, for starters! I’ve prioritized my needs and desires over over society’s rules for success. This means that I’m spending my time investing in my talents and passions while finding ways to help and educate my community.

What steps are YOU going to implement to start tackling to improve?

Let me know in a response below.

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