Op Ed
Are You An Emotional Nimrod?
I’m often amazed at the responses I get when I tell people that they don’t have to worry. That sentiment is typically met with “That’s ridiculous!” or “Impossible!” If I told you that you could eat ice cream all day and not get fat however, your response would be “How?” So how come when an opportunity is presented to eliminate stress from your existence, that notion is not met with the same “How?” When I follow up with “Do you know what the practice of not worrying looks like? Have you ever even tried?” Although the answer is most often “No”, the resistance to make any strides toward emotional growth remains intact. Maybe the real question should be “Do you secretly enjoy stunting your emotional growth because it adds drama and excitement to your life?”
“Do you secretly enjoy stunting your emotional growth because it adds drama and excitement to your life?”
Now that you’ve amassed your degrees and life experiences, maybe it’s time to embark on a new journey to seek a higher 
understanding. Not of the world around you but of the world inside your head and the council of emotions that govern your decision making. Maybe it’s time to vote that council out and appoint some new emotional leadership.
Fear (your emotional President) has convinced you that in order to protect yourself, you need to be selfish. President Fear is negligent of the fact that acceptance/community is a far greater self-preservation mechanism than rejection/isolationism. President Fear wants you to embrace the million of times you were disappointed but disregard the billions of times things actually worked out in your favor. But if you know this, why then is it so difficult to impeach President Fear? Well I’m glad you asked.
Part of the reason you can’t impeach the president (yet) is because he has been governing you for a large portion of your life. If you even consider tossing him out, he will call you names like “hypocrite” for changing your beliefs. He will convince you that things are OK and will be worse if you try alternative approaches. President Fear is a very charismatic and persuasive guy after all.
You have to find the courage to impeach President Fear and, quite frankly, grow up! Just as you borrow on countless of examples to embrace him, there are waaaaaaaaaaaay more examples of hope to toss him out on his keester.
You cannot grow if you can’t disagree with yourself so conflict and change should not be perceived as conflict nor hypocrisy. That’s President Fear talking again. “Conflict”, both internal and external are simply growth opportunities, both emotionally and intellectually. Do not let President Fear render you emotionally dysfunctional by only taking on the intellectual challenges. It’s what he wants you to believe so he can remain in power. Fight the power!!
Sidebar: How do you learn to fly if you don’t believe you can? Sidebar Complete.
Sidebar 2: Fear is holding you back from emotional maturity. Sidebar 2 Complete.
Almost every year for the past 6 years and on the same day, I’ve posted the same pic of me in the hospital during my temporary and untimely demise in 2015. A few weeks after I was back to “normal”, I asked Eric “Why’d you take the pics?” And he said, “I knew you would want to write about it if you lived.” Eric was right. Eric was often right and Eric always had my best interest at heart. I am going to miss my friend.
You ever meet someone and become friends immediately?! Well this was not the case with Eric. Before he was my manager at Morgan Stanley, I would often see this 6’4″, giant white guy walk up to the only black woman at work, say something then walk away without any hint of human emotion. Naturally I thought he was a jerk until I asked her “Yo, is that dude bothering you?” She laughed and proceeded to tell me he was a great person, which I ultimately got to experience first hand. Little did I know this Italian from Staten Island was more Brooklyn than most Brooklynites.
Eric was not with the shits!! If there were ever someone who lived their life in direct, honest and no uncertain terms, that would be Eric. He would ask me questions at work like “Why are the other consultants making more money than you?” I knew the answer to that question and so did he. Eric then proceeded to increase my salary by 15K. After arguing with all our managers that “You need to hire Alfred!”, they eventually did 1 year prior to the 2015 incident. In the hospital, one of my friends asked me, “What if you didn’t have health insurance when this happened?” I would be in debt for the rest of my life is the obvious answer. I still am in debt for the rest of my life but at least, it is to those who made sure I had a more enjoyable life and for that, I will gladly repay.
My mom loved to tell me the story of how she met Eric. After they told her I was going to be in the ICU for some time, she told the doctor “Well I’m not going anywhere.” She then hears a voice from that back of the room that says “Well I’m not going anywhere either!” That was Eric and in true form, he was at that hospital every single day until I was discharged.
Eric passed away in December 2021 of stage 4 cancer. After feeling faint on his way to my bbq, he went to get checked out and was diagnosed. During the past 5 years, Eric lost his mom, twin brother and dad. I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have felt like but I’m glad that pain he was feeling is no more.
From being my manager to my business partner, writer, book editor, artistic director, and most importantly, my friend, I am going to miss you MC Krispy E a.k.a “Enrique Pollazo!” And although you told me Enrique means Henry in Spanish and not Eric, it was too late!
Sidebar. The day I was discharged, while everyone was deciding what was best for me, no one had remembered that I would need clothes in order to leave the hospital. Eric shows up (unasked) with all the clothes I had on the day I coded, laundered and ready to go. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve friends like this but i need to keep doing it! Sidebar complete.
Rest in Peace Eric. “Be Good.”
