30 for 30 // Wishes

Today is my 30th birthday and I’ve been reflecting quite a bit on the previous 30 years of my life. As what many would refer to as an “overthinker”, I spend considerable amounts of time contemplating the future, and the last couple of months have been no different – What will the next 30 years look like? What do I want for myself? What do I want for others? What do I want for us? For me, thinking about the future wasn’t so much about trying to figure it all out. Rather, it was about envisioning the kind of world I aim to be a part of, and setting the framework for the spiritual, mental, and emotional space I feel I need to occupy to live my best life. Here are 30 for 30…

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I wish for sustained evolution. Today, I am not the same man I was a year ago. A year from now, I will not be the same man I am today.

I wish for reconciliation.

I wish to engage in more self-care activities and better tend to my spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical health.

I wish to do more with the time that has been given to me.

I wish to be proactive and purposeful in retaining positive people and positive energy in my life.

I wish for self-actualization, not as a thing to be attained, but as a mark that I continuously press towards.

I wish for more of the little things that keep us going when everything tries to hold us back and press us down.

I wish for self-love.

I wish for self-forgiveness.

I wish for community-driven, community-focused policing. I wish for engagement over enforcement.

I wish for empathy.

I wish for justice.

I wish that our children are allowed to be children. I wish for their innocence and dreams to be protected at all costs.

I wish for peace.

I wish for disruption.

I wish we would collectively champion the humanization of all peoples.

I wish that each one of us would discover our own voice and be given the agency and the platform to speak our truths and our stories.

I wish that community building and community development would be more than ideological or theoretical practices. I wish they would be actionable, values-based, and purpose-driven.

I wish that we would take better care of our planet.

I wish that we would take better care of ourselves and each other. I wish that we would be less selfish and less reckless.

I wish we would all step out of the ignorance and mistrust that enshrouds us, and into the light of love, trust, and acceptance.

I wish to love freely, openly, without hesitation or reservation. I wish to be loved freely, openly, without hesitation or reservation.

I wish to know and to live in my purpose.

I wish that people would hurt less. We all deserve so much more than this world often gives us.

I wish that we would all ask, seek, and find the questions that go beneath the surface of the issue and down to the heart of the matter.

I wish that we would all strive to listen to understand, rather than simply listen to respond.

I wish that I would have no fear. I aim to be untouchable.

I wish that the next generation of Black Men will learn from my (our) mistakes. I wish for cycles and chains to be broken.

I wish for the humanization of everyone that has been dehumanized. I wish that we would, each of us, be made whole.

I wish that every single one of us would come to terms with and accept our inherent and indisputable pricelessness by virtue of our being.

wen.i.am