I used to wear Breathe Right strips at night because I couldn’t breathe. Makes sense right? I had, how you say…, debris in my nostrils constantly. Sick or not sick Kleenex was on hand everywhere –  in the car, in the classroom on my night stand. I wanted relief, I suppose, but figured Breathe Right strips are the way to go. But then I noticed myself catching colds often and struggling to breathe during basketball games. It wasn’t asthmatic status but enough to get my attention more than some of the time. Then my wife said, “You should see an ENT” (Ear, Nose and Throat specialist).  In my infinite procrastinating nature, I finally made an appointment last week after 6 months of advisory from her.

I saw the Doc, said “AAAAH” and got a prescription for a 3-day antibiotic and Fluticasone Propio…something rather. No joke! I can freakin’ breathe man. No more boogies and I don’t need the Kleenex every five seconds. I had no idea people have nasal passages this clear. I didn’t know you could breathe like this. I thought my situation prior to the ENT visit wasn’t that bad. I was right. It was horrible. Who knows the ideas I’ll have now because more oxygen is traveling to my brain. Actually, it my be too late for my brain but here’s the lesson:

6ixthman Lesson: At the FIRST sign of abnormality, sickness, dysfunction, anger, depression etc. look for a diagnosis

How????

* Listen to those with a healthy outsiders’ perspective (spouse, pastor, coach…) They can see what you cannot.

* Act immediately on the good advice before you forget why you asked for it.

* Admit that a change could improve your health, attitude, your game, etc.

So far my sinuses are clear and it’s just one more reminder that it’s the relief you don’t know you need that is the hardest to attain.

WATCH: My Sinuses Cleared Video

They say the term “shotgun” started with old Westerns on TV as a reference to the dude on the left of the stagecoach driver. He was the armed guard ready to regulate on bad guys trying to rob the transport.

Last night I rode shotgun and didn’t even have to call it. I was on a ride-along with a friend who’s a police officer in a local city. Only one rule, try not to touch anything unless something goes down. In that case, touch everything that will save a life. Got it. Let’s roll out.

Seven hours never went by so quickly, swervin’ and servin’. If you’re not careful you start to feel like a cop then you pat your chest for Teflon and reality sets back in. But why is the front passenger seat so coveted? Maybe it’s because you have access to the driver. Drivers determine where you end up and how fast you get there. Shotgun is the next best thing to being “the man”. Often times you end up being the navigator or the eyes and ears to track potential danger.

Last night I was by no means a policeman. I updated followers on Twitter all night to let people see some of the color involved with a typical night on the beat. I was an embedded reporter at best. Shotgun is great but when you call “Shotty” what you really want is to call “Driver”. Shotgun is driver envy. But the value of being the “scrub” on the passenger seat is that you are free to observe, free to learn and free to absorb. The questions I kept asking myself were: Where are we, How fast are we going, Are we endangering the public, Is this family going to mob us because my buddy just arrested their relative, Will we need those weapons on the rack in the center of the vehicle, etc. That’s color I don’t get as a driver.

I can’t help but see the analogy this way. LIFE IS SHOTGUN and God is driving. He’s seen everything I’m seeing right now and has given me the passenger seat so I can embrace the journey and document its progression. My cop buddy doesn’t need my seat anymore because he’s in the think of police work everyday. In fact, last night kind of bored him but not me. Just being in the car with an assault rifle was exhilirating. We talked to “gangstas”, prostitutes, felons and the like. I beheld a mother’s pain of sudden separation as we drove off with her son. The truth that life on earth can be utterly destroyed by the choices we make was apparent last night and all because I rode shotgun. I grew up in South Los Angeles so I’d seen many of the episodes we encountered on the ride-along. But somehow this was different because I felt like I was involved in the work of one man doing his part to serve a community. That’s real. People complain about the cop just like they claim God is a farce. But everybody wants protection and when tragedy strikes people get down on those knees don’t they.

The 6ixthman lesson from last night was simple. Be vigilant while riding shotgun. The driver is excited and the world desperate for you.

VIDEO: I Call Shotgun

My mom is one of those heroines people allude to on the news. You know the types that when spoken of make you say, “How’d she traverse those badlands to produce such good children.” (Lol Backdoor compliment of myself)

Yesterday I referenced Lapu-lapu the Filipino chieftain who resisted occupation by Spain and other underdogs both fictional and real. If I’ve learned my warrior spirit from anyone, it was the ultimate underdog – my mom. Born in Arkansas, raised by cousins, and unfairly treated by family mom persisted without the college education so coveted by today’s standards.

She drove a school bus for 30+ years and only recently retired to Arizona. I remember her drinking coffee around 4 a.m. in the morning, getting me out of bed and taking me to the sitter. To me she’s the pride of the Los Angeles Unified School District and she inhaled diesel fumes, put up with rowdy kids from the second largest school district in the nation and worked the “Late Buses” (overtime) to give my sister and I a chance.

There’s that archetype again – The heroine. The underdog warriors understand that they live for something greater than themselves which is why I had to learn not to live FOR basketball. My mother endured unspeakable things as a child and surely didn’t understand any of them. What kid does? Nevertheless, she matured and one day made a decision to do her best for her children – (echo) for her children.

You might say, we owe her a warrior’s resistance to the oppression the world administers. In other words, the least my sister and I could do is fight as she fought. Becoming an entreprenuer, writer, consultant, etc. will require the warrior spirit because there are Explorers out there who are driven by avarice to claim what isn’t theirs. They’ll take your passion and replace it with a job you do just to get by. They’ll tell you to waste your life seeking pleasure in the form of entertainment and sexual addiction. The Imperialists are for real. But everybody has inspiration and it ought to propel purpose.

I tried to just be a teacher, an admirable profession. I worked on church staff, an opportunity I still cherish. But if there’s a sliver of warrior-heart embedded in my chest, I know as you do that we live to serve that which is greater than ourselves. It’s never about me. If it was, “it” wouldn’t be worth fighting for.

I’m on the left. On the right? That’s Lapu-lapu, a 16th century chieftain who is  credited with leading a battle that killed Ferdinand Magellan and the majority of his men. Magellan was the Spaniard that some say first circumnavigated the Earth. The famous battle of Mactan, as it is now referenced, occurred on April 27, 1521 when Lapu-lapu led the first resistance against Spanish colonization. Various sources say that within 40 years of the battle, “Las Islas de Filipinas” were established in honor of King Phillip, the Spanish Monarch of the time.

I’m gonna tell you now that I knew none of this when i stood next to the statue and asked a stranger to take my picture. This was my first trip away from American soil, 7-8,000 miles away and 13 hours time difference. I wasn’t supposed to even be on the island of Cebu. My flight had to land there because the airport in Manila had a problem on the runway that caused us to land elsewhere. So enter the scenario in the summer of 1999.

I have arrived to “Las Islas Filipinas” to tryout for Pop-Cola, a professional basketball team affiliated with the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA). If it works out, I stay and play. If it doesn’t, I go home. It’s that simple. The other reason I’m in the South Pacific is to work with a Missionary organization to do God-Knows-What. I was 22 years old man and I didn’t care about the Missionary part as much as I did the other.

I had sent video ahead to an agent and planned to make contact upon arrival. But now I’m on an island miles from my target with no clue as to how to place a call on public payphones. This is pre-cell phone if you can believe that was only 10 years ago. I’m stuck on Cebu in an airport for about four hours before it is determined that we won’t be able to fly out until morning. Okay, so now I’m ready to take on a new identity, get a job in the Philippines and start all over as a black man in Southeast Asia. I’ll need to learn to speak Tagolog and other dialects. No, that’s my imagination running away with me. I boarded a plane the next day for Manila  but not before taking the picture and when I rediscovered it in a shoe box recently it made me curious about the statue.

The story is like Leonitas’ band of 300 outnumbered, outarmored and sentenced to death. Lapu-lapu and his men fought bravely against the invaders from Spain but the islands eventually fell as did Leonitas’ valiant brotherhood of warriors. In school we learn about IMPERIALISM and how countries staked their claim in other regions of the world by force. They planted their flags and often resistance by natives was the result. Blood was shed…lots of it but consider the motivation. Lapu-lapu, Leonitas, Luke Skywalker, Gideon, David (of David and Goliath), Martin Luther, William Wallace and the like defended the very core of who they were in the face of opposition. The explorer, I’m sorry to say, is driven by something else…maybe greed, maybe nationalistic pride that is overblown. Live or die, however, the underdog warriors fight.

That’s all I’m impressed with I suppose. The underdogs fight and without knowing it, I was about to do just that. Professional pursuits of basketball ended for me in Asia and didn’t resume again for about 7 more years. The trip didn’t go as planned but it went as planned if you know what I mean. The Missionary stuff I didn’t care about changed my life as I spent afternoons with kid in the “Squats” (shanty towns where people lived in barely inhabitable conditions and ate rotten meat). Poverty and pollution abounded but happiness was not in shortage. Some of the nicest and most generous people I ever met live in the Philippines. The explorer in me traveled away from home to find a form of riches. I left dejected in one sense (Explorer) and transformed in another (Warrior). The warrior in me was awakened to compete for my soul and the real purpose I was put on the planet. Yeah, it was a trip. More to come on this subject…