An Honest Hustler

To pursue self-mastery I am trying to push myself to the edge. I am trying to take this writing thing more seriously so I am posting blog posts every Friday and also doing a monthly article which is going to be longer format. As someone naturally reflective and self-conscious, I am always interested to see how people view me. I was struggling to find a topic to write about this month. It came to a point where it was halfway through the month and I still had not written anything for my monthly article, then it hit me. How do I view myself? I think the Honest Hustler is a better description than a reflective individual. I was thinking about what the term hustler means to me and to a broader group. I was prompted to investigate where the term hustler originated. The word hustler originated in the seventeenth-century Dutch word husselen, which translates to "shake or toss". As language evolved the term hustler for my parents is seen as someone who schemes and takes advantage. To me, I think the word has evolved to someone with determination. Someone who in the face of adversity pushes the limits of what they thought possible and tests their own limits.

As I evaluate my own life I start to question where I see myself as hustling and where I could hustle harder. I think the obvious places where I hustle are my day job which provides me a good base to try and hustle for my nighttime activities. On the weekends, I work in the back of a coffee shop brewing tea and coffee, and I am blessed to have that opportunity because it is a come-as-you-go job. I come in and get my shit done and then get out. On top of that, I force myself to write this blog and post every Friday. This blog is a way for me to have my thought to coherence pipeline more lubricated. However, I have noticed recently that I am still not writing every day, and to stoke the craft I am forcing myself to write on monthly concepts. This is something that I think will help me be more regimented and it will force me to think deeper on concepts that have been on my mind. In the end, I think this writing and reading allows me to increase the speed at which I learn about the world around me. Which in essence is hustling, hustling to increase knowledge. Over the past year, ever since I moved. It has been one of my goals to not lie. When I think back to my childhood I can say now with certainty I was a chronic liar. As someone who wants to be more honest and have my word mean something. There are some moments when keeping my word has been tough. I think that starts with keeping my word to myself and I have been bad at doing that. To understand where I have been lying to myself, we first have to understand what honesty is comprised of. Honesty is made up of four main pillars and they are truthfulness, transparency, integrity, and sincerity. I am sure there are so many more adjectives you can use to describe someone who is honest, but for the sake of simplicity let us keep these four.

Until recently I have always been dishonest. It is always the minor things that add up to big lies. Like lying on my report card saying I got a higher grade to play games with my friends online or lying to my friends about why I could not hang out because I was grounded. I remember vividly using the inspect element tool that Google Chrome has to change my grade on PowerSchool. I would go receive a C on a test or an assignment and then inspect it. I would then change it to a B+ or A- and show my parents. This would gain me gaming privileges that I would then game with my friends. They always found out, because it wasn't actually changing the grade and they would see some other time. I never really seemed to learn my lesson. The cycle would repeat itself, I would lie about something. I would get mad at them for something I did and then I would lie to my friends and say why I couldn't hang out. What is even more insane is that I never learned my lesson, I would continue to lie and think I was smarter than my parents. Spoiler alert, I am not. While I do think I am smarter than people, it took me a while to learn that my parents know better than me. I think there are some aspects of life where I do know more than my parents, namely in technology-related endeavors. They just have more experiences in life, which means they have more knowledge of it. I was always way too quick to brush off what my parents were trying to tell me. Since I moved away there have been so many moments where I have had epiphanies, and I always realize my parents were right. It is only with distance that I was able to gain perspective on how much knowledge my parents have on life.

I have started to be more transparent with my friends, family, and most importantly myself. When I was a kid I never really wanted to admit that I was wrong, evidently I probably got that from my mom. Anyway, I have always been stubborn and until recently I think it started to change. I vividly remember a time in my childhood when my stubbornness got the better of me. I was playing mini-golf with a few childhood friends at CJ Barrymore's and I insisted on going first. No matter what, I would jump to the front of the line. Even after finishing the previous hole, I couldn't wait for my friends. I would go to the next tee box, tee up my ball on the left side and when my friends would approach I would swing away. I was never smart about it, I never used that time to check out what the best route was or analyze where the pine needles had fallen. I just wanted to be first. I know this same mentality has carried through my life into my early twenties. I know I still have it. However, once I started to care for knowledge and self-development I started to notice the fastest way to learn. Is to learn from someone else. I think ultimately I am stubborn at heart but what I think other people fail to realize about me is that I will admit when I am wrong I will admit it. Case in point, I was talking to my manager Serena the other day about weightlifting. She has been giving me tips on how to gain weight and train better. She has been lifting for a lot longer than I have, so evidently she just has more knowledge. I was talking to her last Friday about what foods to add to my diet to get my protein up. She gave me some good recommendations, but the foods she was telling me about I am not a fan of. She made a comment along the lines "Why do you always argue with the things I am saying, and then proceed to do them." because Serena I know you are right.

I think integrity and honor go hand in hand with each other. Honor means sticking to your word and having integrity. That is how I try to live my life, I try my absolute hardest to not lie, and if I give my word to someone to will always try to keep it. There are times I do slip up and abandon my word which does anger me. Case in point, a couple weeks ago I was going to hang out with my friend Andy. We had already scheduled a time to hang out on Friday. Thursday night rolls around and I just know that I did not want to hang out with them. I think if you had presented me with this scenario a few years earlier, I would've lied through my teeth. I would've made some bullshit excuse to get out of going, saying something along the lines of "I have some homework to finish up" or "My mom needs me to do certain chores right now". I would absolve blame and place it on someone else. Which is the lowest level of integrity. Instead, I texted Andy the day before saying, "Hey I am going to cancel, I am just not feeling up to hanging out." Which I know may seem like a small win, but to me it shows that I am growing. I have been better at giving myself grace towards these things, but it still eats me up. I never want anyone to question my integrity, because I think when that happens you not only lose people believing in you. They start to question all the past things you talked to them about. That makes me wonder, how does this apply to modern cancel culture? I think once you start to lose your platform, people start to question the integrity of all the things you talk about. Which is why I think hypocrisy is one of the things that kills me. I have found in multiple occasions where I have been hypocritical and I try to in those moments realize that I am being hypocritical. I also look for ways to improve and learn from those moments. So even if I am wrong, I still have the opportunity to gain something.

I've been working on cultivating sincerity in my interactions, but I realize that my straightforwardness can sometimes be perceived as abrasiveness. I had a conversation with my friend Sophia, who is a Christian, and we delved into the topic of faith. During our discussion, I recognized that I can come off as judgmental, almost like I have a chip on my shoulder. While trying to express my concerns about her drug use, I found myself saying things I wasn't proud of. I was adamant that using drugs to numb pain isn't a healthy coping mechanism and emphasized that people don't turn to drugs when they're happy; they do so to escape from something deeper. I also called out the fact she was using cheap grace to get away from things God tells you not to do. My intention was to help, but my delivery was harsh, which made me reflect on how I communicate. After our conversation, I was overwhelmed by a sense of remorse. I realized I was judging her for her choices rather than understanding the struggles she faces. Although some of my observations might have been accurate, the truth can be difficult to hear, especially when it feels like criticism. This experience reinforced my belief in the importance of the delivery. I've always been open to learning from my mistakes, and this conversation reminded me that sincerity should be paired with compassion.

I am trying to push myself to the limits and sometimes it can be maddening. As I sit here writing, I struggle to conjure the motivation to stay in my routine. I skipped yesterday, as my knee has been bothering me. However, that is no excuse to break the obligations I have for myself. This is something that I am striving to get better at. Keeping obligations to myself. The whole point of this article is to analyze me. I view myself as an honest hustler, someone who wants to better themselves but also not be swayed by what people say. It is a fine balance, but I am trying to understand it. I am just doing me.