Finding My Frequency: Why and How I Paused in My Upward Mobility and Embraced Austerity

© 2013 by Saye Z. B. Zonen. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/14/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-2128-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-2129-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013917412

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Contents

Acknowledgement

Author’s Note

Chapter 1      The Invisible Rope

Chapter 2      I just can’t do it.

Chapter 3      Outside Influence

Chapter 4      The Cost

Chapter 5      Finding My Frequency

Chapter 6      ST011590-State of Tennessee vs. Saye Zonen

Chapter 7      That’s Irresponsible

Chapter 8      Harnessing Hope

Chapter 9      No Finale

Chapter 10     Ownnoahkeh

About the Author

This book is dedicated to the memory of:

Sgt. Maxwell Robert Dorley

384

Acknowledgement

I was about 12 years old when I took to reading the book of Proverbs. Its repetitive use of the word Wisdom and the phrase My son, encouraged me to seek life’s true meaning. My prayers since then have always been to ask God for wisdom. I am grateful to God for enabling me to know myself.

I would like to acknowledge my children: Wonwyne, Bryce, Sayeta and Eustand for their support. During my absence, you carried on where I left off. Age and degrees are very important, but overrated. Know thyself, kids.

I would like to thank my wife, Waade, for her understandable skepticism. I needed it to push me and keep me focus. Thank you, honey.

My mother, Esther Paye, and my sister, Kou Dorley, for their unflinching love and all around support. You sustained and lifted me up when I needed it the most. Thank you. Love you both!!!!

Weade ‘Dechontee (Dee)’ Bennah-Lolin. You are indeed a mother. I am who I am becoming because you took interest. Thank you. Love you!

Ruth Yei Mantor-Lablah. You were there from the very beginning. Sister, E-zuo E-mama

Nya and Juna Bontemp-Sendolo. The respect, love and support you give me are highly appreciated. I am learning a lot from the both of you. Thank you.

Vivian Wright-Allison and Sweetie Wright-Clinton, along with their husbands (Abraham and Phillip), thank you for the love, respect and belief. You are indeed sisters and brothers.

I migrated often, so, to all the family members and friends in Sanniquellie, Gbarnga, Kakata, and Monrovia, who had a hand in molding me, who helped shaped me into the man I am becoming, I want to say, thank you.

To all the friends I made in Danane, La Cote D’Ivoire, love you all. Those were rough days, but the lessons of patience and hope learned there were priceless.

Eric B. Sirleaf. Bobbie, you are indeed an awesome brother!!! Thanks for everything.

Author’s Note

T his book is about change. From the day we are born, until the day we return to our source, we are radically changing. Our unawareness of this basic truth stands as the single most deterrent in our desire to try something new. Usually, this deterrent is fuel by our fear of perceptions, obligations and failures. We all harbor desires to change ourselves or the world at large, but we find it darn near impossible to do so. Some of the things impeding our desire to change are what this book considers, and hopes to inspire you to assume.

Before I took the decision to embrace my inner voice, I struggled with letting go of external chatters. The philosophies of why, how, where and when to live our life are insurmountable. In every aspect of our lives, opinions are in abundance, foisting on us what is cool, hip, or current. All this is designed to sell the ideology that happiness is external. The crux, therefore, of this book is to sell the truth that happiness is an inside job.

There is one thing I do not want this book to be, and that is to be seen as an accomplishment of something grand that I have done. I say this not out of self-deprecation, but because am cognizant of how perception plays a pivotal role in our labeling of one another. I am of the belief that not many people perceive me to be an author, and I am afraid that the grandiosity that is falsely ascribed to authorship may dilute the message of change I want to echo on these pages. I came to the conclusion to write not because I wanted fame, but because I SINCERELY hope my story would entice you to do what masters you. While writing this book, I constantly reminded myself that any iota of pomposity found in my presentation of it, will take away from its true intention to inspire change in you. I was reminded because the audacity, more than the effort it took to write the book, truly exemplified change.

The personal stories told in each chapter were rendered as a result of complete and utter embrace of the desire to change my life. It is therefore, my sincere hope that you read not just for entertainment, but that those of you who have known me over the years, muster the courage to challenge your fears and do what you wish. And for every one else, those of you who have no perception of who I am, use the stories told here to find in yourself the buried abilities that when unearth will bring you alive like the valuable gem you are. If you have ever considered altering your life or an ill in our world you believe deserves to change, it is my hope the stories in this book nudge you off the cliff to fly. Like Guillaume Apollinaire, I am urging you to, Come to the edge…

The goal therefore is to amplify that the human potential is of infinite capacity. To experience the beauty of the enormousness of your spirit, you must develop the ability to listen to yourself. Everything you ought to be, whispers gently in your solitude. To act on these convictions, you must drown out all external chatters that come to make you conform to the norm, the standard. This endless capacity lies dormant in each and every living soul, and it sleeps because fear makes it so. Fear of the unknown and unfamiliar, and our alliance with the established dogmas, couple with comfort and security, keep us from changing ourselves.

Change is the elixir of life because the need for growth makes it so. The natural order of things inhabits change. For an example, we grow from infants to adults, and that process sees change of many varieties—physical, psychological, emotional and etc. But our ability to harness the intangibles—will, drive, courage, dedication, etc, which is clearly in our purview, remains dormant. It is the objective of this book to excite this powerful force of internal drive that slumbers quietly within you, so that you can find your frequency and transmit clearly to the world at large.

Before you can inspire with emotions, you must be swamped

with it, before you can move their tears your own must flow;

to convince them, you must yourself believe

—Winston Churchill

Chapter 1

The Invisible Rope

To be lassoed by the unseen is to be whipped in the mind.

W hen I boarded the bus leaving Kakata headed for Gbarnga, I was certain I have seen the last of rotten human corpse and broad day abduction of little boys and men for the gunfight in Monrovia. The anger associated with the week of waiting to board the bus instantly vanished when I climbed onto the bus with much effort. We received news that Coca Cola Factory, a community named after the Coca Cola bottling plant on the outskirt of Monrovia, was the frontline of the fight; so, going far away from anyplace near there was priority number one. Being far away from the frontline increased my chance of survival, of never getting abducted and trucked to Coca Cola Factory to fight. Since the war had long passed the hinterland, I was convinced life had returned to normal in those parts. When I get to Gbarnga I will meet my mother and old buddies. Things are calmer up there. This hunger and possibility of being abducted that constantly worry me will be ancient history, I thought to myself.

Little did I know I was moving head-on into an entrapment that quietly awaited me. As the bus struggled along, and moved deeper inside the country, I sat seized, looking at lifeless towns and villages. The mud huts sitting alongside the road that once had evening smoke coming from their thatched roofs, (as big bellies, barefooted, and shirtless kids, either stood looking at the cars, or ran around playing) were now bare, cold and abandoned. The once well-kept grounds in the villages, where the pigs, chickens, goats and sheep laid for their warmth at night, were now covered in grass. The emptiness chilled my soul. My heart ached for normalcy. As each curve wind and bend and tightened from town to town, I was heading into an entrapment I never envisioned was there.

When the bus finally reached Gbarnga, and I disembarked, the astonishment and fear that gripped me, held me so tight that it instantly enticed my urinary organs. I quickly ran to the tall grass nearby to ease myself. The total emptiness of the once vibrant town broke my heart, and for the first time I felt the quiet pain of the civil war. The abandoned city now being roamed by little boys toting AK-47 assault rifles, dressed in slippers, wigs, dresses and masks, along with their commanding officers, totally ruled the place. I felt as if the carnage before me was physically squeezing my neck. I felt lassoed. My heart sank when the bus peeled off and left me standing there, shaking uncontrollably. In that January heat, my legs wobbled, and my teeth rattled as if malaria had brought her evening chills.

The dreams I carried of reuniting with my mother and friends abruptly evaporated. I, for the first time since the war, was alone and naked. This invisible force that roped me had to be untied. The wayward boys manning the checkpoint would smear fear and conclude it was deceit. The charge of being a spy was the first and most famous allegation levied against anyone who was new to an area. To not sternly refute a charge of reconnaissance could have had dire consequences. The courage to stand up to a child, or an adult with a loaded gun could not be feeble; it had to be resolute, it had to be definite. When a man is afflicted with pain, anger or sorrow, he acts on impulse in spite of any loaming danger. What was afflicting me in the spirit was soon to manifest in the physical if I didn’t act. I had to perk up. In that instant I transformed from a scared boy to a wayward young man.

Our ability to change our state of mind, and therefore our life, is one we do not efficiently employ. The reasons we do not aspire to our dreams are not of external causes. The complexities of our lives beg for a variety of intuitive solutions, but we rope ourselves in fear and mediocrity, and repeat the same patterns over and over in hope that the man, the system, will make good on its promise. But time and time again, we see that promise and practice never align. If we deliberately choose to run the deep inner circuitry of our God given ability, quieting all external expectations and obligations, we can alter circumstances or conditions in our lives, and thereby change them for the better.

When how we envision ourselves against the reality of our prevailing status do not align, we usually give up hope and quickly scramble for a fix external to ourselves. But whether we are faced with life threatening experiences or frustrating events, reverting to a solution outside our own influence is unwise. Whatever we desire to own or achieve, must first take roots in our heart and never give credence to external opinions or threats.

And so it was, emboldened by this instant audacious emotion, I was able to transform my fear and anxiety into faith and action to save my own life. I had faith that my life would not culminate at that place, and in that time and fashion. I was going to survive the war.

Have you ever before, in your life, wanted something beautiful, good or expensive, but dismiss the thought because you felt it was far from your reach? Have you ever coveted people with position and power? Is there anything out of your grasp you desire—husband, wife, education, respect, money, love, house, car, significance? Do you want to see yourself someday in a gown and a sash graduating from school? Have you ever before face fear and buckled?

For any dream of yours to come true—make your thoughts flesh—you must embrace three basic principles: You must imagine it, believe it and act on it.

To keep from being labeled a spy, which carried severe punishment from whipping, up to being tied up and executed, I had to imagine myself as they were, believe that I could instantly morph into who they were, and act as they did. But because the habits that engineered me were not of violence, I took their colors for a moment only to get pass them.

IMAGINATION

Albert Einstein said, Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attraction. And I believe Imagination is indeed the ability to see through the spirit, and its pupil rests on the heart. To distance myself from the lawlessness that had gripped the country, I had to adopt a child-like mentality to maneuver through the madness.

Children dream about creating things that are inconceivable, never giving in to fears and limitations. Whatever they envision, they never question. Impossible isn’t a word in their diction. Children allow their imagination to take them places, and they willingly go without restraint. I imagine babies flying down from the skies and coming down to take over the world, my then 8yrs old son would say. His older sister, Sayeta, would get annoyed and rebuttal, Gosh! Eustand, you are so weird, stop saying that. In my bid to educate her and encourage him to continuously think wild, I would ask my daughter, to the delight of my son, What if these are not actual babies, but mechanical devices that were designed to look like babies? My endless view of what is possible creates an impatience of irresolution in her, and so she walks away shaking her head at my insanity.

As children, our abilities and desire to imagine the possibilities were maliciously murdered the minute we got here. This is the case because even before the birth of a child, most parents often have already decided what the child is going to do, and so they start early on, carving their masterpiece of a sculpture before age 1.

Because conformity is valued over diversity, imagination is rarely embraced. Most people choose the road that is worn, settling for comfort over control and security over adventure. When we give up and settle for the easy things in life, we stifle our imagination. Without imagination we are immobile and stagnant, and our horizon is shortened by the limits of our sight; therefore, we cannot see beyond ourselves. We then settle for mediocrity. This acceptance leaves us miserable.

For instance, the middle class in the United States of America is characterized generally by anyone’s ability to own a home, finance a car and afford other basic luxurious necessities. While that is all good and well, there exists an income class structure within the middle class. Sadly, this is where the bulk of us sit. We park ourselves in the middle, gripe and complain about how hard things are, but never muster the courage to engage our own agency. I believe this is so because the culture and environment that shaped us, never encouraged us to imagine, believe and act on our convictions, but rather it dangles comfort and security in our face and ties it to a false hope that our current height is as high as we will ever reach. When we pause in our climb and settle, we kill the vital human need of growth. If a particular height is the extent of our reach, as we see ourselves, than it is up to us, but when we force our children to follow suit, we stifle their creativity. When we hoard our children and scorn them for imagining, we kill their growth.

Dr. Brene Brown, an accomplished social worker and researcher, in her TED Talk, argued that our children are wired for struggle when they are born. Our job as parents is not to perfect them, but to make them understand that they are worthy of love and belonging. If we as parents will allow our children to roam and know themselves through the interaction of the people and things in their physical environment, it will help them grow with understanding and appreciation. I understand the concern that we live in a perilous world, that the best thing to do is protect our children from predators and scammers. While this is a valid argument, I am left with a question. How many of us live