The Ninja and Me

It’s clear there are a lot of people in my life who have impacted me, my father and friends, and of course, my Grandmother.

In a way, it feels wrong to have left out talking about my brother for so long, a man who gets me on so many levels, and since Great Things Take Time is about more than the surface level, let’s dive in. Just make sure you stick around for the end for Moments With Maurice.

If you need something a bit lighter and haven’t already checked out Monday’s content, you can do so here.

My older brother Jason, the “Muscles” to my “Speedboat,” known to me as “Lamar" or “Ninja,” is not only, in my opinion, the male embodiment of my grandmother, but he is also an example of how I would like to live my life. He is gentle, assertive, knowledgeable, a great man, a great father, a great husband, a great friend, a great brother, a great son, and is probably going to have this paragraph printed out and framed because it’s making his head so big.

The thought of losing him drives me crazy. I try not to dwell on it, but it’s only natural for our bodies to mentally go through hypothetical situations of great loss as a survival tactic to prepare us for what could come.

Just like any younger brother, I’d constantly get on his nerves, taking his toys and provoking him so that any fight ended in wrestling each other. He was a ripped little kid, lean and mean, with a nickname “Ninja” after he started martial arts training. But there came a point after my brother began learning Kyokushin in his teens, a Japanese style of karate, that I came to think twice about inciting him. 

A Vicious Lover

My brother is like my dad and childhood friends. They are warm and welcoming but care so deeply about their loved ones that they will step up and become a new type of person if protection or defending is needed. While always living by the martial arts ethos, much of the premise is to be mindful of how and when you use your training, knowing that you have trained hard to become an efficient and deadly weapon. However, that didn’t stop my brother from occasionally putting out firm warnings.

One day, as my brother and I exited the bus, a man made a comment directed at us. His comment is now so small and insignificant that I can’t recall what exactly was said, but it caused my brother to pound on the windows where the man was seated, tousling with the bus and demanding with colorful language that he exit. The man stayed frozen, petrified until the bus drove off.

At that moment, I realized, oooh, yeahhh. Maybe my brother is a bit dangerous. 

I rarely saw this side of my brother; he never used it unless he needed to, and he must have sensed that I was in danger. To this day, he still practices martial arts and has competed and won tournaments, a testament to his hard work and an example of the work ethic he brings to everything he does.

Charting The Course

My brother is very much why I continue to want to build and elevate my life. Like him, I want to stay young while trying to do crazy things. He does not believe in things like aging or timelines, and he especially does not believe in limits. He jokes about how much life is like the Matrix, saying that once you understand how to control it, you have no limits. Once you figure out the keys to your success, there is no limit on your health, livelihood, or what you can do with your life. It’s only the blocks you place on yourself. He’d say,

“Hard work is always going to pay off even if it doesn't at first because hard work teaches you a lot about oneself in the process.”

My brother was the first in our family to graduate college after going through all four years consecutively. After college, his life was rough, and he immediately started working 18-hour days of pure hustle, sleeping on my mom’s couch in between. I’d wonder why he was coming back so late, assuming he was just partying, but he was just working. He had no time for anything else.

It got bleak for him. At one point, he told me, 

“I might have to change industries. I don’t think production is it.” 

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