What should I do today?

Thursday April 15,  2010

During the nearly 400 days that I served in prison, I recorded my daily activities. It was a strategy that helped me to ensure I was always productive and working toward the goals that I had set. I could use the daily journal entries to measure progress and to analyze whether my actions were consistent with my commitment to lead a values-based life.

We didn’t have access to computers in prison, so I wrote everything out with blue Bic pens that I purchased from the commissary for 38 cents each. I sent my writings home every day and my mother, Tallie, typed them for me and posted the writings on a daily blog I kept at justinpaperny.com.

When I was writing those entries, I hoped that my work would help others understand that regardless of what bad deeds a person had made in the past, individuals could always redirect their lives. At any time we could cease making decisions that led to disgrace and begin making decisions that would help us reconcile with law abiding society. Indeed, it’s possible to create a new public record that our loved ones can one day juxtapose with our criminal record. That is the only way, in my opinion, to overcome the challenges presented by a felony conviction. Michael Santos and Walt Pavlo did it. I want to be like them.

Since my return home to society I have consulted a number of defendants who have found value in my writings from prison. My clients reading my blogs are very much like me.  They were people who did not set out to scheme or rob; people who could never fathom the possibility of encountering such personal disgrace and failure. Most of them have suffered through months of despondency as they try to make sense of the tragic decisions that has taken them so far away from the lives they had aspired to lead.

I understand that people reach out to me for guidance because my postings on the Web show a day-by-day-record of growth through the adversity of confinement.  My clients need assurances that they can create meaning in their lives again.  By pleading guilty to felony charges, many of my clients feel as if they have lost their identities.  They look in the mirror and don’t recognize themselves. Depression darkens their lives, making it difficult to meet family and personal responsibilities, or even to climb out of bed.

“What should I do today?” my clients ask me.

First and foremost, I tell them, we must embody self-reliance. No one is going to save you. Michael Santos gave me hundreds of hours in prison but not without his disclosure, “JP, I will help you, but you must work–harder than you have ever imagined.” Michael Santos managed my expectations (I had to work), and that is exactly what I try to do with my clients. Self-pity, laziness, and self-loathing will only lead to more misery. I know. Stop googling your name and go for a hike. Stop blaming others for your plight in life and take your family out for the evening. YOU ARE NOT IN PRISON YET, so stop living as if you are.

Tags: , , , , ,

Post a Comment