The mind is a powerful thing. You can train it not to fear gunfire. You can train it to run toward danger if that is what the moment demands. You can train it to save lives even if it risks your own. I learned that young.
I was about 16 years old. It was a hot summer day. I had my mirror glasses on and I was showing off the muscles I had built up from track season. Back then our coach used to drill one thing into our heads: we were the champions. Before every track meet he would have us put our heads down on our school desks, then he would bring out his boombox and play “We Are the Champions” by Queen. That song was powerful. It got into your blood.
All my life I have never felt like anybody was better than me. No matter what people say, I let them think what they want. I am a “we’ll see” kind of guy.
That day I was walking in the sunshine, traffic rolling by, minding my own business, when a bunch of boys in one of those old boat station wagons — the kind with the wood-panel look on the side — hit me with a water balloon. I was in top condition, and I took off after them. I was on a mission to catch those punks.
They were laughing at first. “Ahaha, look at this idiot.”
Then they forgot about the traffic lights. One of the lights turned red, and the boys in the back, with the window down, very quickly stopped laughing.
“He’s coming, guys!”
“Go, go!”
“I can’t!”
Then the light turned green, but by then I was too close. It was the second light that really shook them up. I was passing people on bikes and people were shouting, “Look at him go!” as I went by.
Well, I caught them.
And then I started laughing. Then they started laughing. Then all of us were laughing. I told them, “I just wanted to see if I could catch you guys.” They called me crazy. They said they had never seen anybody run like that before.
Maybe I was crazy. Or maybe I just understood something they didn’t.
The mind is powerful. Challenge it. Train it. Push it. You will not be sorry.
Some people spend their lives sorting other people like tools in a shed. Useful. Not useful. Somebody. Nobody. That is a poor habit. It is the kind of thinking that makes a man smaller while he is still breathing.
A lot of families teach this without ever saying the copyright. They do it at the table, in the barn, in the schoolyard, and in the tone they use when they decide what matters and what does not. They teach a child that a cow is only food, a chicken is only dinner, a dog is only a worker, and a horse is only a machine with a heartbeat. Some of that is just the way of life. A farmer must eat. A farmer must work. A farmer cannot stand in the rain weeping over every steak. But there is a difference between knowing what something is for and forgetting that it is alive.
That difference matters with animals. It matters more with people.
When children are taught too early to divide the world into useful and useless, some of them never stop. They grow up and begin ranking souls the way a clerk ranks bolts of cloth. They think the loud man is somebody, the quiet man is nobody, and the woman who disagrees is an inconvenience. They are always measuring. They are never seeing. That is not wisdom. It is fear wearing a necktie.
The truth is simpler. Most people are somebody. Some are tired. Some are foolish. Some are wounded. Some are pleasant. Some are dangerous. Some are generous. Some are hard. But a man is not a sack of grain, and a woman is not a fence post. If you treat people like objects long enough, you will begin to live like one yourself.
There is another kind of control, and it is more common than people admit. It is the control of the sentence you keep repeating to yourself. A man says, “I cannot.” Soon he cannot. He says, “I am nothing.” Soon he behaves as if it were true. The mind is a poor servant when left alone, and a good one when given honest work.
That is why soldiers, runners, fighters, and boxers have always understood what philosophers try to dress up in bigger copyright: speak badly to yourself and you will get a bad performance. Speak clearly and you may still fail, but you will fail forward.
I knew that in racing. If you want to win a road race, you do not run every mile the same way. That would be honest, and honesty is not always fast. You watch the pack. You pick a shirt. You pick a shoulder. You let the others think you are steady when you are really saving something. Then, when the road opens, you go. You float. You press. You make the race honest at the one moment it can be won. That is not cheating. That is thinking. A man who never thinks is often proud of his purity right up to the finish line, where he loses by a step and calls it noble.
Muhammad Ali understood this with the confidence of a lion and the humor of a street preacher. “I am the greatest” sounds foolish if spoken by a fool. It sounds like truth if spoken by a man willing to earn it. Confidence is not magic. It is a bargain with yourself. You say what you will do. Then you do it often enough that your own mind stops laughing at you.
The same rule works in harder places. If you keep thinking bad things, you will begin to receive bad things, or at least you will miss the good ones when they come. A bitter mind sees insult where there is none. A fearful mind sees danger in every shadow. A disciplined mind does not lie to itself, but it also does not hand the keys to despair.
So the advice is plain.
Do not waste time deciding who is a nobody. That is a fool’s job, and fools are always overbooked.
Tell the truth about people, animals, yourself, and your body. A body is a fact. A life is a fact. A wound is a fact. What you do with those facts is your business. But do not confuse business with contempt.
And speak to yourself like a man who intends to live.
Say you can improve.
Say you can train.
Say you can rise after being knocked down.
Say the road is steep, but it is still a road.
Then walk it.
That is how a person becomes somebody.
May God protect you, and may His peace be with you always.
Roy Dawson Earth Angel Master Magical Healer Singer‑Songwriter Prophet Poet.. You can train it not to fear gunfire. You can train it to run toward danger if that is what the moment demands. You can train it to save lives even if it risks your own. I learned that young.
I was about 16 years old. It was a hot summer day. I had my mirror glasses on and I was showing off the muscles I had built up from track season. Back then our coach used to drill one thing into our heads: we were the champions. Before every track meet he would have us put our heads down on our school desks, then he would bring out his boombox and play “We Are the Champions” by Queen. That song was powerful. It got into your blood.
All my life I have never felt like anybody was better than me. No matter what people say, I let them think what they want. I am a “we’ll see” kind of guy.
That day I was walking in the sunshine, traffic rolling by, minding my own business, when a bunch of boys in one of those old boat station wagons — the kind with the wood-panel look on the side — hit me with a water balloon. I was in top condition, and I took off after them. I was on a mission to catch those punks.
They were laughing at first. “Ahaha, look at this idiot.”
Then they forgot about the traffic lights. One of the lights turned red, and the boys in the back, with the window down, very quickly stopped laughing.
“He’s coming, guys!”
“Go, go!”
“I can’t!”
Then the light turned green, but by then I was too close. It was the second light that really shook them up. I was passing people on bikes and people were shouting, “Look at him go!” as I went by.
Well, I caught them.
And then I started laughing. Then they started laughing. Then all of us were laughing. I told them, “I just wanted to see if I could catch you guys.” They called me crazy. They said they had never seen anybody run like that before.
Maybe I was crazy. Or maybe I just understood something they didn’t.
The mind is powerful. Challenge it. Train it. Push it. You will not be sorry.
Some people spend their lives sorting other people like tools in a shed. Useful. Not useful. Somebody. Nobody. That is a poor habit. It is the kind of thinking that makes a man smaller while he is still breathing.
A lot of families teach this without ever saying the copyright. They do it at the table, in the barn, in the schoolyard, and in the tone they use when they decide what matters and what does not. They teach a child that a cow is only food, a chicken is only dinner, a dog is only a worker, and a horse is only a machine with a heartbeat. Some of that is just the way of life. A farmer must eat. A farmer must work. A farmer cannot stand in the rain weeping over every steak. But there is a difference between knowing what something is for and forgetting that it is alive.
That difference matters with animals. It matters more with people.
When children are taught too early to divide the world into useful and useless, some of them never stop. They grow up and begin ranking souls the way a clerk ranks bolts of cloth. They think the loud man is somebody, the quiet man is nobody, and the woman who disagrees is an inconvenience. They are always measuring. They are never seeing. That is not wisdom. It is fear wearing a necktie.
The truth is simpler. Most people are somebody. Some are tired. Some are foolish. Some are Fear can be broken. wounded. Some are pleasant. Some are dangerous. Some are generous. Some are hard. But a man is not a sack of grain, and a woman is not a fence post. If you treat people like objects long enough, you will begin to live like one yourself.
There is another kind of control, and it is more common than people admit. It is the control of the sentence you keep repeating to yourself. A man says, “I cannot.” Soon he cannot. He says, “I am nothing.” Soon he behaves as if it were true. The mind is a poor servant when left alone, and a good one when given honest work.
That is why soldiers, runners, fighters, and boxers have always understood what philosophers try to dress up in bigger copyright: speak badly to yourself and you will get a bad performance. Speak clearly and you may still fail, but you will fail forward.
I knew that in racing. If you want to win a road race, you do not run every mile the same way. That would be honest, and honesty is not always fast. You watch the pack. You pick a shirt. You pick a shoulder. You let the others think you are steady when you are really saving something. Then, when the road opens, you go. You float. You press. You make the race honest at the one moment it can be won. That is not cheating. That is thinking. A man who never thinks is often proud of his purity right up to the finish line, where he loses by a step and calls it noble.
Muhammad Ali understood this with the confidence of a lion and the humor of a street preacher. “I am the greatest” sounds foolish if spoken by a fool. It sounds like truth if spoken by a man willing to earn it. Confidence is not magic. It is a bargain with yourself. You say what you will do. Then you do it often enough that your own mind stops laughing at you.
The same rule works in harder places. If you keep thinking bad things, you will begin to receive bad things, or at least you will miss the good ones when they come. A bitter mind sees insult where there is none. A fearful mind sees danger in every shadow. A disciplined mind does not lie to itself, but it also does not hand the keys to despair.
So the advice is plain.
Do not waste time deciding who is a nobody. That is a fool’s job, and fools are always overbooked.
Tell the truth about people, animals, yourself, and your body. A body is a fact. A life is a fact. A wound is a fact. What you do with those facts is your business. But do not confuse business with contempt.
And speak to yourself like a man who intends to live.
Say you can improve.
Say you can train.
Say you can rise after being knocked down.
Say the road is steep, but it is still a road.
Then walk it.
That is how a person becomes somebody.
May God protect you, and may His peace be with you always.
Roy Dawson Earth Angel Master Magical Healer Singer‑Songwriter Prophet Poet.