It's in Your Blood! "Genetics or Excuses?": Making the Transformation from a Boy to a Man...

By Johnta Knight

Making the full transformation from a boy to a man can be confusing and quite diffi cult. We spend most of our lives trying to become a man; I say this because the truth is most so called men are only grown boys. It starts with early childhood development. Most of the time we receive bad information, from guys that received bad information themselves. This is how learned behavior results in a lot of bad habits. But there is hope for this madness, lifes order of operation. Take some time for yourself and read this book, I guarantee youll pass it on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456760052

Book preview

PART 1

Love Built on a Flawed Foundation

Chapter 1

Seven Important Questions to Ask Yourself

I began to write this book with hopes of finding myself. It all started with seven questions. Before you ask yourself these seven questions, I would like you to start by doing this: take the time to think way outside of the box. In order to begin this exercise I need you to get a piece of fruit at this time. What I’m trying to accomplish here may appear to be a little crazy, but it’s necessary to reach the point that I’m trying to make. Okay! Are you ready? I’ll assume you have an orange in your hand. Remember you have to give yourself your undivided attention! I want you to concentrate on that piece of fruit for as long as it takes to make your mind believe that the orange you are now looking at is yellow. Your response is probably, What? Am I right? Well that’s what your reflection says to you every time you look into the mirror. It’s impossible to lie to yourself! You can fool a lot of people, but at no time will you ever be able to fool yourself. I’ve tried to fool myself for years, but I’m not buying it! Therefore I came up with an exercise for myself, sort of a checklist. You have to ask yourself one question a day. I would advise you to do this only when there are no distractions. Regardless of whether you are single or married, with or without children, the best time to do this is after taking a shower. I find myself to be more relaxed and focused. If you care to try this, please be my guest. Keep in mind that this isn’t a quick exercise. After you get out of the shower or bath, I want you to look that person in the mirror dead in the eye. I want you to ask that person the first question on the list. Remember! You must be able to answer the question not just honestly, but your answer has to be more than satisfying to you. It might take you a lot longer than some, depending on your goals and the height of the success bar that you’ve set for yourself. If any of your answers are not satisfying to you, make time to work on those areas of displeasure.

Do I Love Myself?

If I were to answer this question based from my actions, I would probably say no! Why is this? When you respect yourself and others, you may also love yourself. I never gave myself a real shot at life. I thought I was the man at one point, receiving worthless praises from friends for sleeping with countless women. I was a womanizer, a master at misleading women! What exactly did I get from this? I’ll tell you what I got from this: three kids, crabs, and gonorrhea. That’s right, sexually transmitted diseases! In the twelfth grade, I was sitting on a friend’s porch, having a general conversation about girls. One of my friends started talking about how dirty some of the girls who attended our school were, as if we were any better! He then went on to say that one of the females who attended our school had given him crabs. What’s that? I thought. He then went on to explain how he discovered them. I never said anything, but I decided to go home that night and look myself over thoroughly. What did I discover? Crabs! I started itching instantly. I was scared to death. A bottle of crab lice shampoo resolved the problem, but this was just the beginning of my self-inflicted pain, the beginning of the I can’t possibly love myself phase. Crabs didn’t mean I was irresponsible, I decided. It had nothing to do with unprotected sex. After telling myself this, I decided to stay in the race. My next prize would be—drum roll please—Gonorrhea! I was told to take fourteen pills: two pills a day for seven days. You think this stopped me? Not a chance. I loved myself too much to take precautions at this point. I continued my quest to greatness, asking myself, Who will I sleep with next? With a little persistence, I just might have been able to win genital herpes. I might even have had a shot for higher stakes: HIV. Although there’s no cure for herpes, I figured I could control it. Since I loved myself to death, I figured I’d roll the dice until I was diagnosed with AIDS.

Does this sound like the type of game anyone who loves himself would play? I don’t think so! But believe it or not, this is the type of game we play with our lives. The stakes are high, and the grand prize is life. Every time you gamble with your life, you’re putting someone else’s at risk, as well. I had no idea that I was setting the pitch for the rest of my life. I was becoming the same grown boy who had broken my mother’s heart countless times. Although my father was not in the picture during a critical phase of my life, it would seem I inherited his bad habits. I began getting women pregnant without a clue of how I was going to take care of them. I loved myself so much I would spend all my teenage years and most of my adulthood risking everything. If you don’t love yourself, how can you possibly love anyone else? You can’t! I was dating the woman who is now my wife. I was reckless! My only concern was me, me, and me! I took numerous chances of contracting and passing on sexually transmitted diseases to my girlfriend. If I didn’t care about myself, why would I be concerned about anyone else’s health? It’s by the grace of God that my girlfriend during this time later became my wife. She never contracted anything from me, but I most definitely put her in harm’s way. I can truly say that I love myself now! What I did then has affected not only me, but my relationship with my wife as well. She has to share me with women whom I wouldn’t have anything to do with had I loved myself enough to protect myself. As a result of what I did in the past, those terrible decisions have a negative impact on every aspect of my life. Having to make decisions for my children outside of my marriage has definitely affected my relationship with my wife. Those poor choices that I made as a kid set me up for many years of emotional distress as an adult. How different my life would be if I had only loved myself. Every journey begins with a step. Only you will be held accountable whether you take that step in the right or wrong direction.

Am I Happy at This Point in My Life?

That’s a good question! Happiness starts with you! If you’re totally unhappy, how is it possible to make someone else happy? This is such a broad question, because no one is always happy, right? I guess that depends on what a person considers being happy. I can say I’m happy when I’m with my wife. She sets the mood for the rest of my day. I’m only unhappy with some of the decisions I have made. Life isn’t exactly peaches and cream, but at the same time, you should have more sunny days than cloudy days. Have you ever heard anyone say, If you fail to prepare, then you are preparing for failure? That is a very true statement! I’ve never given myself any real options. I never made arrangements for life after high school. That’s how much I prepared myself. I obtained the blueprint for failure even before I became a teenager. As a result, I carried those bad habits into adulthood. There is so much I want to accomplish in life, but a lack of education and determination will not allow me to leave the lobby floor. Sometimes I feel as if I don’t have all of the necessary tools to bring success within reach, but I have no one to blame for this but myself. I have so many regrets! It almost feels as if I’m a perplexed archaeologist. Instead of digging for artifacts in the ground, I often feel like I’m in the ground upside down, digging for the sun. Every day above ground is supposed to be a good day. As boys, we make a lot of bad choices, but as men, we live them. Life should be played out like the game of chess and never like the game of checkers. At no time should you make a move without