This is Mr. Jenkins from Corcoran State Prison, and today’s topic is, “When do you know that you are losing yourself?” The reason why I picked this topic is because in the prison system we learn to lose ourselves, and we doesn’t know it. Out there in society, we lose ourselves, and we say, we know we are losing ourselves. Or we say, “Oh, I lost my pair of shoes, I lost my way of thinking. I lost myself. Oh, I lost my kids. I don’t know where they at. I left ’em. I told ’em to sit right here.” But in the prison system, we lose our mind. We lose our self-esteem. We lose our motivation. We we lose things that mean a lot to us, and we does not understand why until we realize and sit down and focus on “What is the reason why I’m losing myself? I’m losing myself of my mind.”
A lot of people, you know, we have some people that suicide in the prison system because they lose themselves. They doesn’t understand why they feel that everybody that they come in contact is they lost. They they have no appealing form no more. They feel that they by themselves are losing themselves. And when you lose yourself in the dark, it’s a firm way to come out and un-lose yourself in the light. You have to know when do you feel that you are losing yourself? And that means, like a smoking cigarettes or drugs or drinking alcohol, you’re losing yourself because you’re soaking yourself in stuff that’s not suitable and good for you. And when you do that, you have just lost yourself and society. “Well, I don’t want to live no more. I don’t want to think no more. I shouldn’t have to do this,” because you are losing yourself. You are making yourself lose, and you are not building yourself back up.
You are able to build yourself back up. You don’t have to lose yourself. You can be a creative person that know how to create yourself back over. It’s like you have to crawl before you walk. Re-going. That doesn’t mean that you can just you know you want to lose yourself because of what somebody say to you or how far the people feel about you. You have to be your whole mind thinking. Don’t lose yourself because of something that you don’t know the knowledge of, or don’t lose yourself because of what somebody else say. Try not to lose yourself at all. Be able to reveal yourself if you feel like you’re losing yourself. Stand up and be counted for. Be able to talk to people, the minister or the person in the neighborhood, somebody that really can share your thoughts–the same thought that you have.
So, with that, it says: always be you. Always know you, always know yourself, always know your mind. Use your mind. Be a thinker, not a stinker. Always know what coming towards you and for you. Remember, good days come that those who wait. Always turn a bad day to a good, positive day. And with that, my thing is to be loyal to people, understand people, trust people. Trust yourself. Make sure you make the right decision, 100%.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
