Keep on keeping on...

After my last post, I received a mixture of responses to my mostly stream-of-consciousness ranting about victimization. It can all be summed up in this phrase: "Keep on keeping on...you’re on the path from victim to victor.” This is all good to hear, but it is kind of like walking alone in the dark with a flash light, lighting only a few feet ahead of you, but still hearing people telling you to keep going.

I have made strides towards getting myself together in terms of this blog, work, and the wealth building journey. And it just seems like every time a take a step forward I get knocked a step back. I hear echoes of my father’s voice in my head saying the same thing. His favorite saying, when he felt the world was beating him down, was, "if not for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all." Man, that is tough to get rid of.

I think I have decided to try and stick it out. I've gone to the home ownership program orientation. They said that there were no scheduled financial literacy classes in the month of March. This is a setback, least of which is because I am writing this blog about going through these programs. I needed to get a lot of paper work together. Things like the last three months pay stubs are easy, but other things like the last three years’ tax returns are a bit harder. I have finally gotten them all together. I called today to ask what the next step was, and they said that there is a workshop scheduled for tomorrow night from 7pm-9pm. Well now, that is a problem for me. I work on week nights, from 5pm-9pm. My job and my living situation are all dependent on me being at work. This is a totally new dilemma that I have to figure out in less than a day. The workshops are a four-week program, every Tuesday in April. I've got to decide what to do. These are the things that come up on the path to creating wealth.

Am I a victim?

Am I a victim of my circumstances, or am I responsible for the situations I find myself in? I was raised by a single working-class mother in an economically depressed area of Philadelphia. In my community victims can be found everywhere you turn and look. There are victims of violence, victims of drugs and alcohol, and others are victims of racism, classism, and all the other “isms” that are out there. Now, I was born into all that, I carry the communal scars in the form of stories of hardship, struggle, and pain. My family, my friends, we all have the same stuff. So the question is, am I a victim all that?

I’ve been having some problems at work. There has been miscommunication, lack of follow up and follow through, people running around trying to do a thousand things at once, and no one listening to each other. I will take full responsibility for my share, but why is it that I now feel beaten up on by my bosses. I feel victimized, thus I now don’t want to work as hard as I’m used to. I have been at my current job for three years, and I find myself grumbling and complaining about my boss’s faults in leadership and management skills. And looking back, I hear the echoes of friends and family doing the exact same thing, for the exact same reasons. Is the victim mentality so ingrained in me that it comes out at the slightest hint of annoyance in the work place? Is the victim mentality the reason why I'm thirty years old and I haven't finished college and make less than $25,000 a year? Am I a victim of society, or am I a victim of my own mediocrity? Perhaps I'm being slightly too melodramatic. My fear is that, as I go on this path of wealth building with an ultimate goal of buying a house at the end, I will screw something up, and all the work will be for nothing. Or, I will get in my own way, and not succeed. I have hope that this will not be the case, but perhaps I have reached a plateau at this level of success.

Changing Expectations

Perseverance is said to be its own reward. And on some level, I would say my
life has been a study in perseverance. Being legally blind, I have had my
share of trials were the choices were clear. I could give up and go home, or
push through.

One thing hard as a legally blind person is finding new places I have never
been to before.

I am unable to read addresses very well, and thus I have on occasion walked
past my destination several times before figuring out that it was the right
place. Some of you may ask and rightly so, "why don't you just ask someone
if this is the right address?" The answer is simple and complex all at the
same time. But, I will sum it up like this, I hate asking for help. Call it
stubborn, call it stupid, call it whatever you want, but that is how I think
about things. This is all background to tell this particular story.

As part of my internship at WID, I decided to go through the initial steps
and programs that will in the very near future allow me to own my own home.
I chose the home buyer program at Community Housing Development Corporation
of North Richmond, or (chdcnr). They provide the needed financial literacy
and first time home-buyer certificates necessary in order to access moneys
available to me. The first step is the orientation to the programs. I found
out, that you must attend the orientation in order to be allowed to go
through workshops.

So, a few weeks ago I set out on my way to this orientation. It was held at
night (this is for working people after all) at the chdcnr offices, located
in north Richmond. Some of you reading may not know this, but as of last
year Richmond California was named in the top ten of the most dangerous
cities in the United States. Since I had never been to this part of town, I
thought I would be clever and take a cab to the orientation. I jumped on a
bus headed for a BART station, where I know there are cabs waiting. Once I
was in the cab, the trouble started. I matter of factly stated my
destination, and the driver promptly said "huh where?" I repeated my
destination and got the same response. I patiently repeated myself once
again, knowing in my head that the language barrier is always a problem, but
being annoyed all the same. After several back and forth's with the driver,
we both realized that he had no idea where this address was, and
unfortunately, I had no idea where this address was, which is why I was
taking a cab in the first place. The driver told me to wait a minute and he
jumped out. After a quick conversation with a fellow driver, he got back in
and said "I'm sorry sir, I don't go to that part of Richmond."

Unfortunately, I have run into this problem in the past. In my home town of
Philadelphia, cabs had often refused to come to my neighborhood. I knew
there was no use in arguing, but I half-heartedly tried anyway, to no avail.
By this point it was 7 minutes until the orientation was suppose to start,
and though I was less than five miles away, it might as well have been 50
miles. I suppose I could have tried to find another cab, but I was
completely disheartened a the prospect. I got out of the cab, and waited for
a bus to go back home. One of my personal creeds is "giving up is way harder
than trying". I don't give up very easily, and by the next morning I had
resolved to try again. I found out that the next orientation was to be held
in another few weeks, and I decided that come hell or whatever I was going
to go. To shorten this log story, I found myself a more reliable cab
service, and made it to the next orientation.


As with most things of this nature, I had no idea what to expect. When I
walked into the office, I met a charming young woman whose name I didn't
catch, but she bid me have a seat. Wonder of wonder, I was early, I'm never
early. One of the reason's I am never early, is because I hate waiting. I
honestly would rather be a few minutes late, than wait a few minutes. As I
waited, I tried to get a since of what this place was like, but I was
interrupted by a knock on the window. This is one of the worst positions one
could find themselves in. There I was, in a strange office, 6:30 at night,
in a dangerous neighborhood and someone was knocking on the window. Maybe I
should, and maybe I shouldn't have, but I opened the door. I was confronted
by a skinny fast talking black man. I immediately was relieved. I know these
types of men, I grew up around men just like him, and so I felt reassured by
his down to earth presence. His voice was thick with years of hard drinking
and he mumbled and slurred most of his words, but I was able to discern that
his name was slick and he felt that it was a beautiful night to be alive. I
agreed and he offered to take me over to where the orientation was to be
held. We chatted amiably enough about nothing as we walked to another
building. In the lobby, there were several old women who slick seemed to
know, and he bad me wait there with the group.

Again, these women were just like some of the women in my neighborhood
growing up. They were sitting there gossiping away about the different
people in their life. The door opened again and in walked a younger woman.
She was dressed in business casual, and intuition told me that she must be
the person who would be running the orientation. I asked, and she said
"yes". I followed her in to another larger room just off the lobby which was
set up like a classroom. There were five other people in the room already.
We nodded at each other and we got started.

Again, I didn't know what to expect, the instructor introduced herself, but
none of us there were asked to introduce ourselves to one another. She got
started and away we went to the land of numbers and terms, that once I was
able to interpolate them all, would lead me to wealth building. She handed
out bunches of hand outs, that detailed all the programs that are offered,
the ways and means of becoming or verifying your eligibility to qualify for
these programs. There is a lot to all of this. She went through it all in
about 30 minutes, but I can tell that this stuff requires a lot of time and
tons of follow through. And I will be honest, I am really going to have to
push myself to get this all done. Intellectually I know, that there is a pot
of gold on the other side, which by the way is the current picture on the
Disability Wealth Creation page on Facebook.com. I know there is a pot of
gold there, but man it feels so far away, and it seems like there are tons
of barriers and obstacles that can get in the way of reaching it. My
expectation is that it's too hard, and that I am going to get bored of all
this. If I'm going to do this for real, I am going to have to come up with
some ways to get out of my own way and get it done. I gotta figure out how
to change my own expectations and get it done.