Homeless At 17, Retired At 26

As My Soul Looks Back, I Wonder

She wanted me dead. My crime: I was a “bad, motor mouth, problem child.” Momma lived in the hospital half our lives, the other half, she and I stayed in our Detroit flat with the rats and roaches. Momma’s Sickle Cell Disease ruled us. She was in and out of the hospital for years. I would stay with relatives, people -- strangers. As I got older, Momma got sicker and became clinically homicidal/paranoid.

Sometimes I’d find myself tied to the bed with rope and beaten until I passed out. I was pushed through windows, threatened with knives or locked out the house on cold winter nights. I knew I was unloved.

When I was eleven, Momma met a man – a minister. My daddy had long gone to make more babies that he couldn’t support. Momma’s Reverend Nasty turned out to be someone who had sex with children. When no one believed what he did to me, I felt betrayed. Afraid and unsupported, I ran away to live on the streets.

While preparing to live in an alley in a box, a woman found a homeless shelter for me. I lived there until graduating high school with a D grade average. With nothing to lose… no plan, one box of chicken wings and only a dream of going to college, I bought a one-way bus ticket -- packed everything I owned, and begged my way into a school that had sent me bulk mail. Alone, I worked, financed my education and learned to be academically strong. After receiving both bachelor’s and master’s degrees, I became a professional, a leader, an entrepreneur…then I retired at the age of 26.

Often I look at my life, and I think of the old song…“How I got over. How I got over my Lord. As my soul looks back I wonder, how I got over.” Why had I been so inspired? What kept me going and living beyond circumstances that could have destroyed me? I have come to one conclusion. I just didn’t know any better. I had a very poorly developed sense of fear, and I was ignorant to the odds against me. So, I did it.

Sometimes we know too much. They’re people who are good at nursing and intellectualizing their hurts. They are so knowledgeable about what’s wrong that they “educate” themselves out of having faith. Many hang on to their mistakes, regrets and fears. Far too often we nurture our wounds and wait for apologies and reparations. When it doesn’t happen for us, we allow our spirits to take a beating.

But we must become empowered by our trials and live above the bar. Look for the jewels in EVERY situation. Please become elevated in your understandings. Learn to be productive when it isn’t convenient. Be resilient and incapable of being moved by nonsense. Become a “problem-solving-resolution-making machine”! Control your emotions. If you’re quick-tempered, it will cost you. If you hold grudges, it will cost you. If you waste emotional resources on unworthy relationships…it will all cost you incredible amounts of time, energy and money!

Gather strength from your happiness and pain. Chart your journey and count it all as joy. Surrender your soul unto God as a willing volunteer for growth. These are the things that make you extraordinary. With this, you’ll always have more than enough. Believe in your greatness down to the core of your very being. And you will fall into the pathway of prosperity and you, my friend, will reach phenomenal levels of success both inside and out!

Asha Tyson, Speaker/National Best-selling Author
How I Retired at 26!
www.ashatyson.comn