Can you imagine being incarcerated for nearly 20 years of your life for a crime that you did not commit..well that's exactly what has happened to me.when the judge sentenced me to 32 years I could not see my life continuing..everything seemed to be in slow motion like an instant replay.. my first five years were a complete blur to me & were filled with dysfunctional patterns of behavior & lots of violence,until a situation came about where I had severely beaten a guy & truly thought that I had taken his life,but fortunately he lived & his life gave me life. I realized that I needed to change & wake up or would not even make back to society. furthermore I vowed to myself that not only would I not allow this(prison) to define me but also I wouldn't allow being here to break my spirit because I refuse to be counted as one of the broken.. With this awakening it seemed as if the struggles magnified because boundaries, principles, structure, & directing my energies thoughtfully & constructively was a foreign process & approach for me whereas before I was solely a reactionary & accustomed to responding without thinking.though extremely challenging I have learned to see the beauty in struggle & the freedom on so many levels that it exposes me to. Struggle itself is defined by most as something negative when in all reality it holds the potential to produce both negative & positive outcomes.I,through experience of trials & tribulations no longer see the negative aspect. What I've come to understand is that misfortunes can be blessings..which means every difficulty can transformed into a building block.this can only be a reality to those who've destroyed within themselves the defeatism mentality & desire self improvement & realize that difficulties do not define them but rather strengthens their ability to overcome. I now realize that everything, I mean everything in life can be used to transform misfortunes or difficulties into building blocks to enhance our progression.struggle is what introduced me to the beauty of freedom. how so? because it forced me to truly look into my mental & physical powers & see the magnitude of my strengths & weaknesses & as a result motivated me to dig into the core of my being & nurture the better version of my humanity. There are times & moments when our books have to be pushed to the side & yourself is all you will have to rise to the challenge & your strengths at their best or your weaknesses at their best will be revealed to you & that to me is a reflection of freedom.. I have been blessed to have had to endure such a position because every bit of adversity has only made me that much more greater,stronger,beautiful, alert,aware,balanced, insightful, original, & FREE!! In closing, when one wants more for his or herself things that you didn't know about self as well as things about self that you may have been hiding from,you are forced to face.these type of circumstances are the process of seeking to refine one's self, & this entire process is FREEDOM & rewarding on so many levels. Life wouldn't be life without struggles...with that I say embrace struggle rather than to run from it because it's in every aspect of existence it cannot be avoided,we must strive to pull the best parts or building blocks from struggle. Peace.
Russell Banks