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Address
by Ato Boldon at Youth Training Center, Arouca
Wednesday
12 October 2005
Ato
signing his autographs for some of the youths.
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Ato
presents Spalding Ball to Makonnen McQueen on behalf
of YTC.
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First
I’d like to say that my constant complaint about this
country is that most people sit on the side-lines and there
are few who are willing to get on the front lines.
Let me say that this visit is as a direct result of one
of your administrators and I’d like to especially acknowledge
her because I was home in Los Angeles when I got an e-mail
sent to my Web site saying, “I know it’s, not
necessarily on the schedule but we have some young men that
we would like you to come and talk to.” And when I
saw the e-mail I immediately said, “You know what,
this is not something I can pass up.”
So I’d like you all to give a round of applause to
the person that made this really possible and that is Ms
Sharon Ramsaran.
That’s the difference between talking about it and
actually getting out there and doing something, because
had she not sent the e-mail chances are this visit would
have never happened.
The thing that I think gave me the incentive to want to
come here is that I enjoy talking to young men.
I enjoy talking to young men because I believe that you
all have been given such a responsibility and so many gifts
to carry out those responsibilities but I’m a little
harder on you all, I’m a little tougher on you all
in terms of what you are required and what is expected of
you.
Most of the stories you see written about me are the Walt
Disney version, Newtown Boys’ RC, Fatima, UCLA, Olympics.
The stories that aren’t written are probably the more
important ones and I hope most of you will discover from
my experiences something you can relate to in your own life.
I left here when I was 14 years old and moved to New York,
to Jamaica, Queens. Now one of the things about moving to
New York was, well, it definitely was not Trinidad any more,
it was not Santa Cruz, wasn’t Mucurapo, it was not
Fatima.
And along with the good things that the USA had to offer,
and particularly, New York, came the temptations and the
bad things.
For someone like myself, my years in New York were filled
mainly with good memories but there were quite a few that
I would probably prefer not to remember but I can’t
forget.
The reason for that is I got myself involved with young
men who were my friends —partners, liming— they
were from my neighbourhood but at the end of the day, when
I look back, what they wanted for their lives and what I
wanted for mine were two different things.
Some of you are here because if left to your own thinking
and logic you would not be here, however, at some point
along the way you allowed someone to have such an influence
on you that you started to go their route and that’s
what happened to me.
Here’s what made the difference. One thing that I am
most grateful for is my vision and my will. I believe everybody
should have as many friends as they can possibly have. I
also believe, that if I have a friend and that friend is
involved in something or going down a road that I know is
going to lead to both of us getting into something we are
not supposed to be getting into that is a friend I don’t
need and he can be replaced; he or she can be replaced.
I was speaking yesterday and talking about attitude, attitude
I think for young men is a great thing, it’s one of
the most important things you have but rarely is it properly
channelled and let me give you my example: You turn twelve,
thirteen, fourteen years old and you get the sense “I’m
becoming a man now,” little muscles and things start
to show up, little hair on the face and you start to get
a sense of your own strength, your own character, your own
power.
As young men, sometimes what we do is we take all of that
power and attitude and new-found promise and we channel
it in all the wrong directions and what I mean by that is
you get to the point where no one can tell you anything.
“Parents,
don’t have no time for them, they don’t understand
me. This is about me. Teachers worse as a matter of fact.
Anyone in authority, I go have a problem with them, cause
I have attitude.”
Here’s the problem with that, while you have that attitude
for all these people who, whether or not you know it, are
trying to help you, here comes some friend of yours or some
partner who has a plan to go and do something or get involved
in something that you know deep down is not what you are
supposed to be doing.
Where is all that attitude now? You don’t have the
attitude for him though and you give in “yeah, let’s
go.” My point is, the reason that you’ve been
given that new-found strength, power and attitude is to
keep you out of trouble.
It’s to help you to make the proper decision, not to
rebel against everyone who is trying to help you and then
when someone comes along with something that is totally
out of line with what you have been raised and taught to
do, you have no attitude for them and you go along with
them.
All it involves is looking at things a little differently,
changing your thinking. I watched a lot of my friends in
New York die, some of them weren’t lucky enough to
go to any detention centre, they just died.
Why? ’Cause they figured, well, once again young, starting
to feel myself, feel like I’m invincible and someone
who also thought they were invincible showed them otherwise.
So what was the difference with me? What brought me from
Trinidad to New York, steered me clear of that kind of stuff
and then moved me on to what I have managed to accomplish
in my life so far. What was it?
It was a belief that my life is worth something. Everyone
in here has a life that is worth something and whether or
not you know it, it’s worth a lot.
I understand clearly, that some of us have had to deal with
things in life, all of us have had to deal with things in
life, some more harsh than others. I am a firm believer
that most of the time delinquent children are the result
of delinquent parents. So I understand for some of you it’s
not even your fault, it really is not, because the people
that were suppose to look out for you and put all their
effort into keeping you on the right path didn’t do
that and as a result maybe you went off for a little while,
but guess what you’re still alive.
So I hope none of you ever feel as though you are to be
looked down upon because you’re not. I understand clearly
the difference between me being able to leave today and
me not being able to leave today is a couple of decisions
along the way that I made that were the right decisions,
it’s just that simple.
It’s no big catastrophic difference and I went to this
better school, no. We have all had the opportunity to do
right and to do wrong. Some of us did wrong and got away
with it, some of us chose to do right at the right time
and it kept us out of more trouble.
And I’m not telling you this because I read it in any
book, I am telling you this because I have lived it, I have
seen it. It’s okay I can stand up here and talk for
three hours, the question is: At some point you have to
believe that your life is worth something.
Not only that, you have to believe also that failure or
being side-tracked is going to happen in life, it’s
going to happen, and don’t think it didn’t happen
to me, it happened to me a lot. It’s not a question
of how you fail, it’s how you get up from that failure.
If you feel as though it doesn’t get any better than
this and why bother try, then expect results in line with
that kind of thinking, however, if you believe, “you
know what, I’m still alive, I’m still young.”
Obviously, you all have people in here that care because
they would not have contacted me if the didn’t. These
people understand clearly that the way to fix what’s
going on out there is to start with young people. Because
we are not going to be around forever. Trinidad will go
on, people will move on, so it’s up to you.
So when I was in New York and these things happened and
it was a question of: “Okay, what decision am I really
going to make?” All of us are going to be tempted,
we are all going to have that one moment of truth where
you have to ask yourself, “What do I do now?”
If
at the moment you ask yourself that question, you believe
that your life is worth something, it changes how you look
at it. If you think your destiny is to be shot on a block
or to have somebody stab you while you bleed to death on
a street, then guess what, maybe those decisions come a
little easier. Is like, yeah well I can do that because
this is the best I’m ever going to be and there is
not too much out there for me, I don’t want too much
out of my life.
If you think your destiny is probably to be dead by the
time you’re 25, 26. Then I think the decisions become
a lot easier. The decision becomes difficult when you realise,
okay I’d like to grow old, maybe die in my bed when
I’m 85, I’d like to have a family, I’d like
to be around to share time with the people I love in life.
If you think in that manner all of a sudden these decisions
become a lot easier for you because now some idiot can’t
influence you to do something you don’t want to do.
Why? Because regardless of what he or she wants you to do,
you know in your own mind “no that’s not the path
I want to go down, let them go.”
Why is it that people who are about to go and do things
that are totally against what they know is right always
want company? They are never by themselves They always want
someone who maybe is not thinking straight at the time or
maybe does not think too much about themselves to accompany
them.
Young men have to start being responsible, you have to start
acting as though, you have been put here for a reason.
Last night, I was reading something by a young talented
comedian who said that, someone asked him if he knew he
was going to be a comedian when he grew up and he said,
“I didn’t know what I was going to be but I knew
what I was not going to be,” and I thought about that
for a minute and I said you know that’s really interesting
because that is the way that we have to think.
Okay, I may not know exactly today or tomorrow, exactly
what it is I want to do but here’s the thing as long
as you stay away from the things that are going to prevent
you from being able to make a choice as to what you want
to do then you’d be all right.
Say you make the wrong decisions society will try to help
you, however, you only get so many of those chances and
if you are fortunate it will happen in such a place as this
where you have people who are interested in making you better,
helping you think with more intelligence, with more forethought,
but if it happens on the streets you may not be that lucky
because there maybe no coming back from that.
I have come to realise that the most important thing you
can do as a young male is to just stop and think. We have
a beautiful hormone that floats through our body, it’s
called testosterone, all the males here have it, even some
of the females have a little bit of it, but it can lead
you to make a decision from which there is no return.
It means that you have to, at some point, say, “Let
me put brain in front of body.” It’s just that
simple, put brain in front of body because that’s the
way it’s suppose to work anyway.
You are not suppose to use your fist and then think about
the repercussion, you are not supposed to pick up a gun
and then think about what may happen or what may happen
as a result of that, you’re supposed to think before
you do any of that.
The difference for me between what could have been and what
in fact happened was because I figured out real early “I’m
not the biggest, I’m not the strongest, I’m not
the smartest but as long as I don’t allow anyone else
to influence the decisions I make that can affect my life
then I have a chance, in fact I have a very good chance.”
So when you see the things that I have been able to accomplish
at age 31, it’s not because I was born with some kind
of special ability, it’s because I figured it out early
and if I figured it out you all can figure it out.
At some point you have to realise okay, as long as I keep
myself in such a position that I am not going to take away
my options I have a really good chance because the more
you stay on the wrong side of the law the fewer options
you have and what you don’t want to be is 30, 40, 50
years old talking about what you had planned, what you wanted
to do, what you could have been, what you should have been.
You’ve been given a chance and you’ve been given
a great opportunity, question is what do you want to do
with it, seriously.
If you feel that this is as good as it gets for you, some
of us like to blame our family, “Well you know I come
from a long line of people who just made poor decisions.”
First of all, that’s a poor way to think, I’m
an athlete I know about streaks, streaks are meant to be
broken. Anybody aware of the football game that is going
on today?
Everybody is talking about 1973 against Haiti, the referees
thief and we didn’t go to the World Cup, we were unlucky,
we didn’t go to the World Cup so that’s a streak.
Then we have the other streak of “well we don’t
beat Mexico, our record against Mexico is pretty poor, we
have so many games that we have lost against them in a row”
and I don’t understand how no one has seen that all
it means is there’s a chance for a streak to be over.
Streaks are meant to end. So if you are saying I come from
a long line of people—mother, father, brother whatever—who
are known for making the wrong decisions, why can’t
it be you to stop the cycle? I don’t see any reason
why not.
When I decided that I wanted to choose what I did for a
living nobody understood it and that was fine. I say this
all the time—don’t expect that everyone is going
to see your own vision. That’s why its called your
vision.
When I decided I wanted to be a track and field athlete
that had never been done before in my family and they didn’t
want to hear that. Get a real job, I was told, basically
get something when we have to talk about it, it sounds good
in the family and being a sprinter doesn’t sound so
hot.
Young men at this stage in your life, if you have something
you want to do remember that not everyone may share your
vision for what it is you want to do, that’s why it’s
called your vision. Myself and everybody else in here can
tell you why it is you can’t accomplish what it is
you have in your own mind.
But guess what we don’t control that and that’s
the good thing. I could tell you that, you’re going
to end up in a ditch somewhere shot dead, whatever, guess
what it’s not up to me that’s up to you.
As long as you realise you do have control and you do have
your own life still right here as young people what are
you going to do with it? Throw it away? That is your prerogative,
too. But I can tell you that as someone who had the chance
to make decisions, right or wrong, and I made the right
decisions.
Even when they weren’t popular and when it made me
uncool, I can tell you being 31 and having all the things
I have available to me now are well worth it because some
of the friends I have from New York who did survive the
hard life on the streets, now they call me up and saying
“Ato we could not see it then but we realise now some
of what you were trying to show us because, you know at
this stage in my life I don’t have anything to show
for it,” and all I can say to them is well, I’m
sorry to hear that but you too can find a way to keep going
now.
They talk about getting old, consider the alternative to
getting old. What is the alternative to getting old?
Before I take your questions let me go over quickly what
I want to get across to you to day. I understand some of
you have made decisions that were not the correct decisions
at the time, some of you have made multiple decisions that
were not necessarily correct, I myself have done the same,
however, it was not the end of the world.
I fell flat on my face sometimes, I failed, I was told I
was this, I was never going to be that and I got up and
I said I don’t care what you say, I control that. I
got up and I moved on and over the years stumbled again,
fell got up, moved on but through out it all I did not let
anyone, any external forces, prevent me from going along
the path that I had for myself; that I wanted for myself
to reach my own goals.
In other words, I drive this car, I am the one in charge,
if you are sitting behind the steering wheel, and you want
to allow somebody in the back or in the passenger seat to
drive that’s at your own risk because you are the one
who is supposed to be in control and you have the control
whether or not you know it, you have the control.
The question is are you going to use it and how you going
to use it .
Thank You
The
Youth Training Center Choir tribute to Ato.
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Senior
Superintendant Nassiah, Sharon Ramsaran, communications
specialist, proudly display YTC trophies. At left,
TPCL staff.
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