To my young Thugs
“Once a motherf&*ker get an understanding on the game and what the levels and the rules of the game is Then the world ain’t no trick no more The world is a game to be played” –Tupac[Staring thru my rearview]
Life is fairly simple [but not easy]. I’m going to try to outline some of the levels of life and their corresponding rule.
Level 1 — Don’t go to Jail
For a lot of young black males, this is a very difficult level to pass. Even if you decide you are going to live honestly, you might live in an environment that wants to force you into a life of crime. My best advice for surviving this level is to avoid known criminals in your community, and if you see them ,still hail them, just don’t get too close. If you are 30 and haven’t gone to jail, congrats you have successfully pass this level.
Level 2 — No Kids until you’re 36
It was the age Obama had his first kid. Look at jay-z he has his first one in his 40s. I’m not telling you to abstain[studies say that don’t work]; I’m saying use a condom, or have her use birth control pills or if all that fails, use a morning after pill. By delaying having kids this grants you an enormous amount of freedom as to what you can do. You can go to university or start a business or travel the world. No kids, you only have yourself to look after. With only yourself to look after, you can live on the cheap. By the time you get around to having kids, your pockets will be full of cash, and you will be able to teach the kid a thing or two about life. This is not a hard level to pass, as a guy I’m sure you don’t feel an intrinsic need to have kids, either that or I’m very weird.
Level 3 — Keep Healthy
This involves exercising at 75% of your maximum heart rate for 30mins every day. Consider this level passed when you do 300 days in a row, but the level is life long.
Level 4 — Select an Excellent Queen
Turn on my pattern matcher. I find couples that are in the same career tend to fair better than other couples. See Michelle and Barack, Hilary and Bill, Jada and Will[I heard rumors] or Beyonce and Jay-z. I think it makes conversations easier and also you can build things together[cool right?]. Another way of approaching this is to marry your best friend[female that is]. Oh yea, you can only have one Queen at a time.
Level 5 — Get a degree
Can I suggest a degree in computer science? If not, do anything you feel, just once it makes money. You should try to get this as soon as possible and finish as quick as possible. This is like a safety net that somewhat guarantees what sort of life you will be living. Welcome to the middle to upper middle class lifestyle. I suggest getting a degree before 25. This stage is skippable if you have musical, athletic or artistic talent that is paying you a significant amount of money. Still, I don’t recommend skipping it given that 60% of basketball players eventually go bankrupt and that figure more than likely rings true for other endeavours, so it is good to have something to fall back on. If somehow you do skip this stage please go right along to level 11.
Level 6 — Get a job for at least 3 years
Well you are going to need money to sustain yourself. Three years is enough experience so that if you left that you are still valuable in your career path.
Level 7 — Save 8 months of living expenses
This is in case of emergency and somehow you lose your job. It gives you a certain amount of leeway to get back on track before you have to access funds from friends and family. This is absolutely not skippable.
Level 8 — Be in the know
This involves reading news at least 30mins a day and another 30mins of reading something in your field or some other material. Being knowledgeable makes you an interesting person. To be well read means you have a vast base from which to talk to strangers. You can talk about HipHop or you can talk about the works of David Humes or Wittgenstein. Additionally, it also makes humor easier since you have such a wide base from which to draw the humor. Being in the know also involves knowing social graph of persons of interest. This level ends when you die, but you can say you have passed it if you did it for 5 years.
Level 9 — Add at least 12 people to your rolodex a year
One of the complaints of educated people is that they aren’t being compensated fairly. They will mention how some people climb ladders because of their connections. Frankly, you aren’t here to change the game; you are here to play it. If that means getting to know people, such is life. The point here being that people make decisions concerning who to hire or who to promote. Consider the scenario, someone introducing you to a CEO and mentions “This guy is a Boss, a Beast at xxx” compared this to you handing in your resume with a distinction. First of all, people don’t seem to trust schools; either that or they think theoretical people don’t perform well in the real world. There will be static if you went the resume route, it is like recommendations on Amazon, sometimes they can be good other times phony; you don’t know what you are getting. Going the personal recommendation route is like a friend recommending a book, you will put more trust in that recommendation. This is another level that terminates on death, but you can say you have passed it if you did it for 5 years.
Level 10 — Generate Value outside of your normal working hours
This is for you to decide but create some form of business. The objective here is to go full time on this venture and earn enough money to sustain yourself indefinitely without having to go to work. Right now, this is about the $4 million dollar mark. It would be wise at level 8 to study finance, in particular bonds.
Level 11 — Welcome to the new Black Elite
To confirm that you have attained this level, you must have the following:
- You must be in good health.
- You can survive indefinitely based on your investments without working
- You have a soulmate
If you can confirm this, expect your Black Elite club card in the mail.
Level 12 — Multiply
This stage involves giving back and creating others with the same mind state as you. Personally, if I make it to this stage I would be giving black kids two grand for every year they stayed out of jail and a grand for every year they don’t have kids until they are 36. I would even pay university tuition. Obviously, I can’t do it for everyone but I think every bit counts.
I might have left some levels out, but this is mainly the game. If you fall off, get back on track quickly. There is only one actual level, level 11. Every other level makes level 11 easier
