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I still cannot believe how blessed and grateful I am at this moment of my life. I have gone through so many transitions in my life and have learned to trust the process during the difficult life challenges. I am more than grateful for this life that I have been given and want to offer others the opportunity to live their lives to their full potential. I firmly believe that anything is possible with a little faith, discipline, and consistency. It has been a fun and crazy journey during the year 2018. I have learned so many lessons as a fiance and now husband and extremely grateful for my beautiful wife for supporting me and consulting me during my dark and difficult times. It is great to have someone help me stay in the moment when I tend to focus on my future goals. I have been fortunate enough also to have had the opportunity to close on our home the week after we got married. My wife has been the bedrock support for everything that I have done this year, she has been a fantastic partner, phenomenal best friend, and the best business partner anyone could ever ask to have. She is my favorite person in this world, and I am blessed that she came into my life at the worst moment of my life.
I am beyond grateful to God for placing such an amazing and beautiful human being in my life. I have seen her grow in such a short amount of time. She has always been passionate about people and loves to create meaningful and long-lasting relationships. I often think to myself “how did I get so lucky to meet a girl like this?”. She has helped me elevate and step my game up this year in my finances and my business. Earlier this year I also had the privilege to work alongside my wife (then fiancé) as well as terrific friend and owner of a local marketing digital consulting agency called basement ghost media. She put her studies on hold and helped independently lead a massive digital media campaign during the local CT democratic primary and general elections as the digital media and web design manager. Her hard work and efforts on this website will forever be archived into the library of Congress. Her work is being memorialized and recognized for the work that she accomplished. It was indeed a unique and rewarding experience for both of us, and we both learned so much from each other during this challenging time. Her type of work ethic and compassion for others gives me hope for humanity.
This may upset a few people, friends, and family alike but I have to be honest. I used to have my doubts about humanity while I was actively participating in Church. I had suicidal tendencies while I was actively participating in that environment, some people were not fair and just to each other and people lied and mistreated each other, there were people that dishonored each other, talked behind their friend's backs, were gossipers, envious, prideful, and lustful. Yes, I know that these are all human discrepancies but these people held themselves to a holy standard yet were more evil than some killers I have met. I used to think to myself "these are supposed to be the people of God, and they can't follow their doctrine but judge me as evil for doing or saying certain things." More than anything I felt more judgment and not enough acceptance towards others that think or look different from the majority of people. At the time I was attending Church there were only a handful of people that were genuinely great people that actually cared for others, so I am grateful to have met them. As a born-again Christian I often thought of life as nothing more than a journey and learning experience that I have to go through to reach the pearly gates and as long as I was a good person, give back, and accept the Lord as my savior I would make it too heaven. I suffered more depression, stress, and anxiety while I was actively participating in the "fake" concept of Church that was thaught to me from an early age. This experience caused me even more significant mental health problems. I can genuinely compare my Church experience with the trauma I suffered from being active duty in Iraq.
Not many people know that I was kicked out of the Marine Corps during my second enlistment for positive results in my urinalysis test for THC. At that time I was not passionate about the Marine Corps or my life. I wanted to end everything; I was dealing with PTSD, depression, still going through the grieving process for brothers lost in Iraq as well as a divorce and death in the family. Almost 15 years later and I find myself dealing with just some of these same feelings throughout my 7 year journey participating and detaching myself from the Church. Certain people and family members that used to support me no longer do because I am not part of the Church. Shortly after my wife and I started dating, we both decided that the Church was no longer feeding our soul or teaching us how to create a better relationship with God but instead confusing and misleading us with mixed messages filled with prosperity gospel and anecdotal statements blended to look like God's perspective. It tore us away from our God-given purpose. This year we both chose to walk in our purpose and started to feel the friction immediately after we decided to step forward into our dream. For me The conflict came from through my family and my business venture, you see me and my brother are business partners in a non-profit we both helped establish while I was an active participant of the Church. He is still an active member, and I am not. Certain conflicts of interest have been identified and needed to be addressed in a thoughtful yet stern manner while keeping all parties accountable for their actions. These issues are not easy to resolve but are required to maintain the integrity and vision of the organization.
My biggest personal challenge is trying to figure out how to make the most significant impact in my community without being emotionally connected on the external circumstances that occur on a daily basis. Bills need to get paid; emergencies arise, we get sick, we dislocate our shoulders and have to pay an expensive bill two years later....sorry for being so specific there. Throughout all the struggles this year I have tried to remain optimistic and positive by being utterly focused on networking and building with individuals that are motivated and dedicated to empowering their local communities. I have had the privilege of watching members of Brass City Gamers Tournament step up and take control in areas where they are passionate about working. Of course, we have collectively experienced difficult times and challenges just like every other organization faces. We also had to deal with difficult decisions that had to be made, but we remain driven towards the mission of the organization which is to empower and educate our community. As a team we have been able to implement a successful free coding program designed to serve the underpriveldged youth of our community with access to STEM related learning opportunities.
I have to be honest that I love adversity and conflict. I tend to learn the most lessons from it and often rethink my perspective and become a better master at hacking my life which essentially develops excellent leadership. Ego has been my worse enemy, I have learned to look at my ugly pride and understand that I am not always right and my perspective is not the best way. I have learned to look at other solutions and other views and quickly noticed how easy life can be if we collaborate with understanding. I have allowed myself to get out of my way and allow others to operate in their desired field. This has been one of my greatest learning lessons for me this year. I can be a little aggressive, detail oriented, and a bit of a micromanager as well and I have learned that because my team has told me so. I have learned to listen more, speak less, and do more. I can freely express this now. However it has been an exciting journey to get me to that level of self-awareness, and I still struggle with my pride so don't get it twisted, I am just honest with mines, and that's fine because I'm still a work in progress.