Controlling one’s ego is the central part of orchestrating change. Who really knows the truth of why we are living? The ability to adapt and overcome is the most essential component for humanity. To change shows you understand other’s viewpoints and can incorporate it into your life. The common dog inspired change in myself in an unlikely way. The day I learned dog breeds and their respective temperaments are not remotely accurate, and in fact parallel the eugenics movement, changed my perspective on racism. Discrimination in the modern world comes from multiple directions, but skin tone, gender, and religion dominate attitudes. Society widely accepts, in the western world, that everyone born has the mental and physical capacity to be successful. Our environment (money, community, family, etcetera) into which we are born, are the driving forces for stereotypes that could impact success or failure. Are African Americans and pit bulls born prone to violence? Are Asians and border collie’s predisposed for intelligence? Do women and yorkies require protection from others? All these stereotypes are offensive and circumstantially incorrect. All types of humans, similarly every dog breed are the exact same species. Discrimination is an environmental factor created to fuel individual egotism inside identical species. People do not look to other species to inspire change in themselves, but when I learned about discrimination in dog breeds, it strengthened my internal fortitude. I am capable of anything, self-doubt should never be an issue, it will always be if I am able to maneuver the environmental obstacles safely and strategically!

Uncontrollable wildfires, annual polar vortexes, and most recently the Andover, Kansas tornado. Extreme weather is affecting major metropolitan centers increasingly often. Are these disasters occurring naturally, and our technology modernized to the point we observe more events? Are human practices a direct contributing factor to severe weather? Individuals are losing property, or worse, lives! Understanding how environmental processes occur is the best way we can heal our planet. The leading contributor to climate crisis, is the devastating extraction methods used to obtain valuable natural resources and energy conversion. The key to reducing pollution is to reduce the demand. Reducing the demand is not simple because we as humans are reluctant to change. Modifications I have incorporated to my own lifestyle include walking and riding my bike to the store, rather than driving my vehicle. If everyone does something this simple, it will lower the demand for fossil fuels, reduce the overall supply, and in turn reduce the speed at which sea surface temperatures are increasing from greenhouse gases. I maintain my own vegetable garden and plan to experiment with sustainable options to reduce garbage waste and diminish my carbon footprint. I wish my children could experience a green natural world, but that seems futile. The goal is to allow for my kid’s children in the future, not to see an increasingly barren landscape. Organisms go extinct every day! Blame humans or call it a natural bottleneck currently occurring in our planetary history, but this is a human crisis, not an Earth dilemma. If we make no changes, we as a human species will go extinct, and the world will keep spinning and create itself a whole new richness in diversity. The Earth as we know it is evolving; the question is will we be here to see the final product?

The concept of money is quite possibly the largest continuous fraud executed on humankind. What’s unfortunate is sustainable life is extremely difficult to accomplish without it. The wealthiest individuals struggle to achieve fulfillment, even when his or her wealth is not at the root of their problems. I have always wondered when did a person’s face, on paper, become valuable? Did they take all the treasures and hand out a tax exemption paper, like Goodwill? This is a hypothetical world I dabble in sometimes; wondering what if money did not rule our world. I am not naïve, one thousand dollars, though is a small amount for maintaining life, it is incredibly beneficial for mitigating obstacles that happen day to day. A grand of money will reduce medical bills that we postponed, because they are non-essential on our life-sustaining hierarchical needs. With that amount of money, I can repair my vehicle’s air conditioner, so I am not worried about my hygiene while in class. As the streets say, a stack, provides luxuries that allow me to complete schoolwork at the highest level! I will not worry about minor unpleasantries that effect my family. I do not care about materialistic items in life, I strive to be independent of money. One thousand dollars will allow me to focus on strengthening my family unit short term and long term!

My name is David Earl James Jr, it is linguistically basic, nor eye catching, but most notably non-racially identifiable. LeBron James unintentionally found a way to diversify this surname, never-the-less I received my name from Black parents systematically discriminated from birth. My father has humble beginnings, and tirelessly focused on having successful children unhindered by obstacles generated by America’s cultural insecurities. Growing with a “common name” benefitted me but I always wanted a unique name. Why couldn’t I have a “traditionally Black” name? We all know the cliché statement, “Kid’s say the darndest things,” but children do not always speak comedy! “Your name isn’t even Black, you aren’t welcome at our table, you’re not allowed to play with them!” As an adult I find these statements trivial, but to a teenager these words were like arrows that stabbed painfully. Why doesn’t anyone accept me? This insecurity made me go by nicknames. I wanted to prove I was enough; I wanted acceptance from everyone who was Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color. My struggle changed when I lost my biggest inspiration. David Earl James Sr left this earth on January 17, 2007. He spent 30 years of life serving in the Marine Corps and 52 years of his life serving his family. When he passed, I realized life was not about others acceptance. I needed to reframe what was important. My father grew up in a one room shack in the deep south. In his early life, he had eight other hungry siblings fighting off parasites, humbly accepting any work for money, and a single parent with a mental illness. He had to escape the cycle, so he joined the military, and selflessly helped his family escape such squalor. He always told me “Our name was necessary because America will pass judgement on you before it even has a chance to meet you; so, let’s not give them fodder.” I never truly internalized the significance of that statement until I no longer had him as a crutch to lean on. After I graduated, I searched for mental stability and direction, so I joined the military to follow in my father’s footsteps. It is widespread practice, in the armed forces, to research a new individual prior to his or her arrival at assignments. My name and appearance incited offensive statements when I would arrive on new deployments like “I didn’t know you would be black, you act nothing how I thought you would, or wow you are so well spoken.” During my ten years in the military, I picked and chose my battles and I decided to smile my way through the underlying racism, and attempt understanding. The years serving my country, inspired me to embrace my name and family’s struggles to provide the most opportunities in life. I am no longer reticent around my name and write Junior with no hesitation. Who knew that a family not far removed from slavery, attending inadequate public schooling, and statistically futureless; could produce a college graduate? Does my name define me? Is it purely a title my parents created to continue to provide chances so that I could obtain success? I do not know the answer to those questions. The only thing I know is David Earl James Jr. is my permanent birth name and I have thankfully made it this far into life. I am proud of it, and all its simplicity. If I have a son he will acquire the suffix of “III,” and hopefully I could be halfway as inspirational for him as my own father was for me.