Who have we touched??????

HELLO TO ALL,
I have realized that i don't blog often enough, my friends ask me all the time when am i going to put up another post. With my current schedule sometimes life is so crazy that i don't have the appropriate time or subject matter. Every once in a while something will really hit me that i feel the need to write about, and this time it came out of tragedy, but hopefully this post can help me and others get through.

Just recently i had a young man in one of my programs die, it really hurt me, because I was just becoming really close with him and saw a great future for him based on the changes he was making in his life. As usual, when someone we know dies we usually think about our own lives. Whether we like it or not, after we pass life will continue to go on, and the world will not stop spinning.
Yeah, people will grieve and cry for a while, but above those close to us, what impact have we left on others in the world?



"It is not enough to prepare our children for the world, we also must prepare the world for our children. by Luis J. Rodriguez".

My supervisor and mentor Jose Rivera has that posted on his wall, I love that quote, because it tells me that i have not done enough and encourages me to do more for the world larger than just my own immediate family. I always said that if i was able to raise my kids in a way that was conducive to them living great and productive lives, then that was enough for me. As i reflect on that approach, i truly believe now, that it is not enough. Of course my priority is for all my brats, biological and adopted, Kadijah, Koran, Jose, Ive and Yaji, to know how much i LOVE them and understand the messages i have tried to instill in them. More importantly, that they use these messages to make life better for themselves as well as others.

Watching all the kids in my family grow up so rapidly, i realize that i have not fully had the impact i have need to have. I haven't been able to spend the kind of time that i would like to with all my nieces, nephews and little cousins. I feel like we have really lost a sense of who we are as a family and need to get back on task. This family has lost so much in terms of the battles with substance use and abuse, incarceration, and lack of guidance that we have a generation that doesn't fully understand our struggles. Our job as leaders in this family is to make sure they have the tools they will need to be successful, and thus far we have dropped the ball. We need to refocus and get back on course so our kids don't make the mistakes we made and suffer the consequences of our failure.




"Our backgrounds and circumstances may define who we are, but only We are responsible for who we become".

I love my parents and all the gifts they gave me, but that wasn't always the case. When i was a teenager i harbored a lot of anger and pain about things i felt that i missed in my youth.
Of course i loved them, but at the same time i resented them for me not having a COSBY SHOW upbringing. Now i realize that living that life has made me the man i am today, and would not change it for the world. GOD has been abundant with the blessings that he has given me. So many people have influenced me to do positive things with my life and for that i am eternally grateful, so i feel it is my obligation to do the same for someone else. If we all take this approach and reach out to someone and influence them in a positive way our world could be so much different. We never know who is in need of a hug, kind word or smile.

In closing, i want to mention, one of my other outlets for helping people through tough times is my blog and i appreciate you taking your time to read it, and hope that is some way it resonates with you. Also if you have any suggestions for me making it better please tell me. Feel free to click on the comments tab as well and have your say.

Thanks for giving me your time,

Sean Michael Harris



"Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking." H. Jackson Brown, Jr



follow me on twitter @ www. twitter.com/seanmharris