Transcript
Working title: Cell Block Society Post Release Master Plan 1st yr re-evaluation, 2nd yr re-evaluation and 3rd yr re-evaluation of master plan .... Table of Contents: Regular evaluations of my progress, will be scheduled for readjustments to be considered, change of plans and or whatever necessary modifications need to be made. It would be foolheartedly of me to advance any further along in these plans, that were created while inside a cell. Without ever re-evaluating, re-assessing and re-adjusting my plans wherever needed. In order to know when and where to make necessary changes ..... Periodic re-evaluations will be my most reliable tool for tracking progress, monitoring challenging obstacles ahead, and helping me to determine what appropriate preparations should be taken before proceeding on to the next phase ... Create relationships with experts in several proffessions, build a personal network of specialized skills and disciplines, to have proffessional, expert insights and guidence tips at my disposal.... substance abuse counselor/motivational speaker: personal fitness trainer/masseuse/physical therapy expert: Computer programer/software writer/ IT technician: Certified gourmet chef: T.V. film production assistant: Commercial long haul truck driver: Paralegal clerk/legal investigator: Home inspector/appraiser/investor scout: Further research is required. Its been one full calendar year that I've been liberated from prison. And more likely than not, navigating my way through society, around obstacles and coping with difficult challenges has not been easy. However, if I've managed to keep myself motivated this entire year, stay thinking, figuring out what it takes to overcome the challenges of this past year, not supriseingly, it should be enough to give me some better insight into what I can expect, for the next coming year. The main lesson learned was that I was not alone. Each and every person outside of prison also had their own fair share of obstacles, difficulties, and personal struggles also. I wasn't the only one to face pushback. Resistance and challenges along my journey. It's not something ex-felons alone have to deal with. As an ex-felon, I'm not the only one who had to face an uphill battle in my personal life, this past year. As I tried to make it work for myself in society. Alot of other people have difficulties and challenges too. Many people lose balance, stumble and sometimes even fall down. Some manage to get back up again to continue on, other's never do. This is what separates us all from each other. How we decide to cope with our obstacles and challenges. Do we dust ourselves off and try again? Or do we succumb to the knock down? Like military soldiers, veterans from Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria who are returning to society without all of their units for one example, or badly traumatized from PTSD, do they have to get themselves resocialized back into civilized society again also, or do they throw in the towel and give up? Or just your everyday working class, blue collar Amerikan citizen, who's in between job's, going through financial difficulties, fighting to save their home from foreclosure. Even those citizens out there who struggle with their own alcohol or drug dependencies. Many many others out there, besides me alone have to cope with their own share of difficulties, and problems, not just ex-felons alone. I've come to realize over the past year, I was not the only person in society, who had to face an uphill challenge without much help, resources, or support. Ex felons alone don't have an exclusive claim to difficult social readjustment, or complicated social circumstances. How I decide to cope with my difficult social readjustment, and navigate my complicated social circumstances now that's how, I distinguish myself from other's who are also in similar difficult circumstances. The way I choose to handle my personal challenges, how I decide to manage myself during these social-conflicts, will make me a distinctly unique person. Not everyone has studied equal amounts of time, or read equal amounts of literature, nor have we all developed equal levels of patience, with equal amounts of self-discipline. Which is why, we won't have the same equal outcomes. Not everyone think's equally clear, or make equally smart, equally informed decisions. Therefor not everyone will respond to the problems. Our problems in life won't stop coming, so our brains should never become too tired or exhausted enough that it stops 'thinking' we can all increase our amount of knowledge and information about life's problems, each of us can double the size of our lung capacity in order to increase our breathing, which would then increase the amount of oxygen carried to our brains. How we do this is through creating and developing our own daily rituals that motivate us to pursue education that helps our decision making process, ritual's that motivate us to do something physical, a cardiovascular related exercise everyday doing something, leads to doing something else, an object in-motion, stays in-motion. Rituals are short cuts to motivations. Problems are a normal part of daily life, for everyone in our society, not just those who are being released from prison. Difficulties aren't something that only ex felons have to face. Solutions for them have to come from smart, clear thinking, and creative people's mind's. It doesn't matter, who's clear thinking, smart, creative mind the solution's are coming from, the only failure is not trying. Being unsuccessful isn't failure at all, it's simply learning. Whether we're an ex felon or not, it doesn't matter who or what our social-class might be. The only thing that does matter are the solutions we come up with for our difficulties and our problems, the decisions we make, and the outcome. Sometimes it takes us longer than other's to figure all of this out. Now that it's been one full year cycle for me, living as a contributing civilized member of society. Over the course of this passing year, I'm hoping to have already established myself enough sense of security and stability that now would be the ideal time for some upgrade to be considered, weighed-out, and implemented in to action. Everything- from my housing, employment, revenue streams, transportation, even my dietary needs and exercise ritual's. Well researched, documented, and pre-planned options have been coordinated to fit into this cycle of my master plan. If my assessment and yearly re-evaluation of plans reveal no obvious signs of 'conflicts' or foreseeable static coming from these upgrades being made. Changes to my daily structured living arrangements can be made, to improve quality of life. Making sure to keep my lifestyle humbled and living within my means. For one year I've learned how to accept housing conditions that I wasn't happy or comfortable with just to have shelter over head, I've learned how to accept low skilled, low-paying menial labor jobs just to have an immediate, temporary revenue source to support myself with. I've used public transportation to commute and even had to shop at thrift stores to buy clothes a couple of times, during the year. Because of my very limited income, I've had to settle for an otherwise degraded 'dietary' rituals and 'eating' habits than what I've planned for, and expect to practice. With all of the rapid, unexpected, sporadic changes and shifting time schedules from one thing to the next, throughout this past year of trying to find my sense of balance and stability, my exercise ritual's have taken a backseat to alot of other priorities aging. Depending on them both, to keep me functioning at peak health and potential, giving myself the greatest mental advantage possible as I'm tackling these day to day problems and formulating decisions. For one, I've sacrificed all of these desires and comforts in order to learn about patience and then how to endure difficulties for a payoff. Later-on, oppose to the instant gratification that I've grown use to. For this 1st year I've kept my focus and delayed my reward in order that, I'm able to create a firm enough foundation for myself to stand on, for years to come. Ive resisted all form's of illegal activities and stay away from the temptations of fast-money. Learning what it takes for me to protect my freedom. Avoiding all things which could be a possible threat to my liberty in-any way, shape, or form. Something I plan to keep doing into these coming years. I'm now going to be [easng?] back into my health and wellness, lifestyle, slowly but surely clearing more time for running, exercise and setting aside more budged for dietary/nutritional requirements. Something I've planned-out and organized into this master plan already, along with charts and optional schedules dependable ways for me to protect my health, tried, tested, and proven formulas for effectively maintaining my personal health and wellbeing, by consistently following a strict ritual of dietary and exercise habits everyday, rituals that often times, I don't want to follow, but need to do so. Even forcing myself to do so, will eventually strengthen my self-disciple and will power. Protecting my own life, is my own responsibility. Just as protecting my own liberty is up to me and me alone. Although I've had very few choices of dietary options this past year, I've done my best to keep myself healthy with a limited, mismatched, assortment of different exercise rituals and schedules, because of constantly shifting jobs and work hours trying to find a steady, consistent, income stream to handle my most basic living expenses. My dietary and nutritional requirements have been neglected in the course of trying to focus on my transition into a stable civilian-life, with a foundation for longterm. Having a whole year to establish this foundation. I now plan to use this 2nd calendar year as my time to upgrade my health and wellness to a priority activity, demanding my careful attention and focus. Although it's definitely awkward and a little unusual for me to elaborate about, write about, and even make serious accommodations for, there's a reality I must face. I'm no longer a young man anymore. I've aged alot sitting inside prison cells for the past 18 years straight. How do I get around this? I don't, those years are gone now. I can't recover them. But, I can make the most of the years that I've got left here. Time never stops 'ticking', neither does our age, until we expire. We all, have the poser to either slow down our expiration date or speed it up, it's completely up to us. The choices we make, to either sit around and do nothing, slowly deteriorating away. Watching our health degrade and becoming dependent upon any number of medications to stay alive? Or we can choose instead to continue staying active, exercising on a regular basis, expanding our lung capacity to carry more oxygen to our brains, exercising our cardiovascular, and pumping blood cells throughout our bodies our muscles, replacing and repairing newer cells, naturally. I've invested many years studying the subject of age progression. On our health. As I watched many other prisoners age along with me, as I sat inside prison. I learned that from the age of 20 thru age 40 blood cells naturally grow, constantly replacing and repairing themselves, however after we pass 40 years old, our body chemicals go thru a natural change that slows down our blood cells or even stops them completely from their repairing and replacement process. After turning 40, it is only through our own continuous physical activity. Regular exercise and constant use of our muscles, keeping up our cardio and following regular workout or running ritual's, will our bodies continue to go on after 40, to make newer blood cells. Repairing and replacing them. Once we no longer do any exercising or running, to renew our blood cells, past 40 years old. Atrophy will begin to take over our bodies. It's something I've seen first hand with other aging prisoner's who have lost their willpower to stay active and health conscious, as they are aging. Atrophy starts when our cell's nolonger repair or replace themselves, our bodies nolonger replace or repair our dying or already dead cells. Then we start to have signs of poor posture, slumping. Eventually our muscle tissue starts to deteriorate and decay. Leading to a gradual loss of flexibility and gaining a stiffness of our joints. Sooner or later, if not addressed it takes a permanant toll on our bodies and it becomes irreversible. So, I became committed to defeating this age-related affliction very early. Becoming an actively involved self-motivated, health-conscious prisoner. Keeping myself functioning at my peak potential of health potential of health and fitness, during my entire 18 years of incarceration. Those of us inside. Fenced in cellblocks who sought out ways to utilize our time in constructive ways, besides just counting down our days til release, we began to create healthy daily rituals for ourselves to fight the effects of atrophy. Ritual's that I have every intent and determination to follow outside of prison also, in. a way that I've never done before. Starting with the way I eat, and what I eat daily. Being in my early fifties at the time of my release will put me at the eligible age to qualify for several senior government subsidies/benefits. I'll be approaching the the age of 55, at the age of legal eligibility to qualify for senior assisted living/housing, medical-benefits, and various other senior citizen-benefits as well. I plan to apply for all of these senior benefits once I reach the legal eligibility age, criteria. Which would in face help to ease some of the pressures trying to re-assimilate back into society again. These benefits will offer me a variety of discounts and saving's on multiple products, goods and serves, dramatically reducing my cost of living, shrinking my overall expenses, something I'll be welcoming and looking forward to, taking advantage of. By this time, I'm hoping to have already been enrolled, or approaching the completion date for graduations, for one of the eight carefully selected, meticulously researched and well-matched 'skilled' vocations that I've listed as a career, goal, of 'short-term' professional training course. Which would get me the skilled-level pay, revenue increase that I'm gonna need at the shortest amount of time necessary. I've got the life [experience?] and years of self-education needed inorder to easily pass through many formal education/training school program's with flying colors. Armed with my own well established background education in several disciplines and schools of thought, it wouldn't take me any time at all, to complete any one of at least eight specific relatively short-term, training courses inorder to be officially-licensed or certified at any of these eight professions. 1)substance abuse counselor, 2)personal fitness trainer, 3)software-writer, 4)certified chef, 5)T.V. Film production assistant, 6)commercial long haul truck driver, 7)paralegal clerk legal investigator, 8)home inspector/appraiser. Each of which requires 18 months or less of school attendance, inorder to receive a certification. Making a new life for myself, this time, will be done amongst a new completely different circle of friends and associates. I'll be kipping company, moving about amongst some much older, much more mature group's of people. Being in the company of retirees, professionals, and most senior community people. I'll be perfectly positioned to market myself to this audience, where much of what I practice will be in-demand. I'll be able to use what I know, taking my expertise and skill's, creating opportunity for other streams of revenue/income, to be generated from marketing any one of my certifications in the personal trainer field, physical therapist, or massage therapy, or perhaps certified gourmet chef/nutritionist, maybe even their own go to home inspector/appraiser overall real-estate concierge consultant. During my first calendar year outside of prison fences, I've come to learn my way around the terrain and become very aquainted with the surrounding environment, navigating the unforgivable, inhospitable landscapes, adapting to the climates and avoiding the snake pits, and deadly traps, as I learned to become a problem-solver along the way. All of which will serve me well going into my 2nd calendar year. I'll be starting my 2nd year, following these plans as I go. Paying careful and close attention to the details, referencing my notes and self-motivational tools. For guidance and verification whenever needed, fact checking and supporting research. Through this master plan I've had some very productive and positive results so far. Giving myself a source of help that I can depend on, where all of the research has been thoroughly vetted and verified by a trusted authority, about every source of info contained within it. It's tough me the real importance of planning ahead of myself. Giving myself a meaningful purpose in life.
