FORUM
: What would do with an extra hour each day?
Nigel Alston
Motivational
Moments
"Millions long for immor
tality who don't know what to
do with themselves on a rainy
Sunday afternoon."
- Susan Ertz,
"Anger in the Sky"
The older I get, the faster
the days seem to go by. I long
for just one more hour, know
ing that every day has the same
amount of time in it and it's
how you use it that counts.
If I had just one more hour
to sleep, to finish the next task,
to relax, catch a breath and
reflect.... Sometimes I wonder
if other people feel the same
way. There just does not seem
to be enough time to do all the
things I want to do, much less
the things I need to do.
I also try - I am not always
successful - to follow the
advice my father gave me a
. long time ago: don't burn the
candle at both ends. If you do,
the candle isn't the only thing
that burns out; you do too.
Even when I don't burn the
candle at both ends, the sun
seems to rise earlier in the
morning and set much too soon
in the evening. "Where did the
day, month, year go?" I won
der. I'm missing something.
There is so much more I want
to do.
Some people are more pro
ductive with their time. They
keep track with time manage
ment planners, palm pilots and
computer assisted reminders to
get things done and measure
progress by another check
mark on a list.
A lesson can be learned
from Enzo Gugliuzza, a UPS
driver who turned his lunch
hour into a creative session to
restore his spirit and do some
thing he loved.
"Like many of us with an
over-busy life, he needed more
time in his day," wrote Joyce
Wycoff, co-founder of the
Innovation Network, sharing
the story in a newsletter to her
creative thinking network.
Gugliuzza was teaching a les
son in life management, doing
what businesses want to help
all employees do: navigate
work and life, enjoying the
journey in the process.
He realized that if tie didn't
keep practicing his trumpet
regularly his playing lost its
spirit. That's true for most any
thing isn't it? What you don't 1
use, you lose. And he didn't
want to lose the spirit of play
ing his music, so he figured it
out - lunch hour. Thai's where
he could gain an hour, actually
hours.
"I did the math: an hour a
day, five hours a week, 20
hours a month - I could do so
many things with that time," he
said. "I could learn French. I
could do anything!"
What could yo^ do with
that time? What skill could you
develop, improve or not allow
to diminish?
";VV>M v.iiantiigi.u uti
readers this way: "What could
we do with one hour a day
focused solely on something
that makes our spirits soar?"
What did Gugliuzza do? He
played his trumpet while he sat
in his UPS truck during lunch
hour. That's right. He devoted
one hour u day to playing his
trumpet and his spirit soared.
Instead of eating lunch every
day. he is getting his "groove
on" 240 hours a year. That's
the equivalent of a six-week
sabbatical, over a year's time.
It seems impossible to find
another hour in an already too
busy day. especially when the
hours seem to go by so quick
ly. Maybe it is the illusion of
busyness. Wycoff suggests we
could skip a lunch - most of us
wouldn't miss the calories - or
maybe miss an 'hour of the
nightly news, a sitcom or the
latest reality show? Our minds
would probably bless this
break. It's worth thinking
about. Perhaps it's even worth
making a commitment to try -
if only for half an hour, or even
15 minutes day.
What would make your
spirit soar, if you gave yourself
a sabbatical in small chunks of
time, over time?
Nigel Alston is a radio talk
show host, columnist and moti
vational speaker. Visit his Web
site at www.motivationalmo
ments.com.
NAACP's Confederate flag obsession
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Guest
Columnist
Two years ago, the NAACP
galvanized a horde of politicians,
college and professional athletes,
black fiats and sororities, hip-hop,
rock and movie stars to march,
rally and boycott South Carolina
for flying the Confederate flag
over the state capital dome. State
officials capitulated and agreed to
move the flag to a Confederate
monument on Statehouse
grounds.
This should have ended the
issue. But it hasn't. The NAACP
now says it will rev up the boycott
again until state officials toss the
flag into a museum back room.
At first glance, the NAACP's
Confederate flag obsession seems
comic and tiresome, and worthy
of quick dismissal. But there's a
method to its flag antics. The
Confederate flag fight is a near
textbook example of the
NAACP's strategy of elevating
peripheral issues to a life and
death struggle for African Ameri
cans in order to grab maximum
media and public visibility.
The strategy is simple: Pick
the softest target possible, make a
lot of fuss about it, and take min
imal action on the piles of crisis
issues that devastate poor and
working-class black communi
ties.
At the same moment the
NAACP saber-rattles state offi
cials over a worthless flag, it's
deafeningly silent on the black
poverty, school dropout, infant
mortality, and victim of violence
rates that are among the worst in
the nation. It also barely utters a
peep on the dreary plight of hun
dreds of black South Carolina
farmers whose farms have been
foreclosed on by bankers and
government agencies in the past
decade.
NAACP leaders employed
their get-attention-quick strategy
when they threatened boycotts
against the TV industry, lawsuits
against gun manufacturers, and
squawked about the paucity of
YOUR I
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The NAACP held this mass rally in front of the South Carolina Statehouse in 2000.
black Supreme Court clerks.
Then there's its annual over
hyped Image Awards bash, which
supposedly honors the best and
brightest of those who uphold
positive black images. Instead, it
is a cheap imitation Academyl
Award drool over foul-mouthed
rappers, comics, celebrity gad
abouts, and black Hollywood box
office showpieces.
This year was no exception.
Denzel Washington and Halle
Berry copped best actor and
actress awards, and rapper Ja
Rule's "Livin' It Up" grabbed top
hip-hop honors. But did Washing
ton's portrayal of a corrupt, foul
mouthed, rogue cop in "Training
Day" really advance the black
image? And did Berry baring her
torso in "Swordfish" provide the
wholesome image of black wom
anhood that the NAACP says it
wants to promote?
Then there's Ja Rule. Last
year he drew howls of protests
from many blacks for using the
word "nigger" in singer Jennifer
Lopez's controversial hit "I'm
Real." His NAACP award-win
ning song trashes women and
butchers the English language.
The NAACP's appalling inat
tention to the big-ticket issues that
sledgehammer the black poor is
no surprise. It spent the better part
of the 1990s in a monumental
retreat from visible cutting edge
social activism. That retreat can
be directly traced to the collapse
of legal segregation in the 1960s.
the class divisions that imploded
within black America, and the
greening of the black middle
class. This is a process that has
sped full throttle forward since
the 1960s.
The NAACP's success has
not had the remotest bearing on
the lives of the black poor, who
have become even poorer, and
more desperate. Many of them
have turned to crime, drugs, and
gangs as their only way out.
But a tilt by NAACP leaders
toward an aggressive activist
agenda carries the deep risk of
alienating the corporate donors
that they have carefully cultivated
the past few years. They depend
on them to gain more jobs, pro
motions. and contracts for black
professionals and business per
sons and to secure contributions ]
for their fund-raising campaigns. ]
dinners, banquets, scholarship
funds and programs. i
Yet. corporations such as Tex
aco, Coca Cola. American Air
lines, Seven Up/RC Bottling. <
Hyundai Semiconductor in Ore- i
gon. Toyota Motors that tout their i
contributions to black causes, the /
NAACP at the top. are some of i
the same corporations that blacks
i
have waged nasty and brutal dis
crimination battles against in
recent years. And there's a good
reason. Black managers are
grossly under-represented in top
management echelons, are paid
less, and are promoted much
more slowly, if at all. than whites
in much of corporate America.
The NAACP's Confederate flag
fight poses no threat to these cor
porations. and. more important,
no threat to their cozy relationship
with the NAACP.
With yet another boycott call
of South Carolina. NAACP lead
ers can claim that they are striking
a mortal blow against racist
oppression. And since much of
the public and much of the media
think that only rabid, unrecon
structed race baiters defend flying
the Confederate flag, they'll be
applauded. But the flag fight
won't save black farms, improve
abominable schools, stop racial
profiling, fight the crime and drug
plague, or help poor, malnour
ished mothers. The NAACP has
no obsession with these tights.
Eitrl Ofari Hutchinson is an
author and columnist. Visit his
news and opinion Web site:
a'M'ir. thehutchinsonreport. com.
He is the author of "The Crisis in
Black and Black " IMiddle Pos
tage Press).
The deadline
for
news articles
is Monday
5 p.m.
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