By Ricardo Romero, Contributing Writer

“A human being is as sensitive to outside influences and forces as a seismograph is sensitive to an earthquake which is ten thousand miles away, indicating its direction, its position, its center, and its force.” — Luther Burbank.

Early childhood is the most extensive and important period in development. It is during this time period that children are most sensitive to the influences of their external environment. Young children try to make sense of their environments by adapting to different environmental factors. As we grow up, we interact with people, places, and things around us.

We internalize and learn what will help us survive and how to meet our needs. Early environmental influences have the potential to affect how we think feel and interact with society throughout our lives. — Excerpt from Kid CAT. First Step, Module Four: Environmental Influences.

For a majority of my life, I was a violent, greedy, reckless and irresponsible criminal who was cold, callus, angry, immature, and impulsive. I cared about no one by myself. I became this way at an early age by growing up in low income, high-crime, and violent communities such as Marlborough projects in Brooklyn, New York. Trailer parks in Jacksonville, North Carolina and Fort Greene projects in Brooklyn, New York attributed to my distorted beliefs. In these communities, I witnessed fights, stabbings, shootings, robberies, drug deals, and drug use.

It was also in these environments that I developed unhealthy relationships with peers established through acts of violence, which progressed to criminal activities. Once I fought and got my expectations met, I developed the beliefs system that crime and violence were acceptable solutions to any problem I faced.

Eventually, I viewed my violence and criminal behavior as normal and became reliant on it to maintain my acceptance and meet my emotional and financial needs. As a result of my criminal activities, I developed extreme short-term thinking and poor decision-making skills. I was reckless and irresponsible.

One of my distorted beliefs was that no one cared about me. It became my belief due to a chain of events that occurred I couldn’t understand, and because I couldn’t make sense of what was happening and why, it’s what I told myself to justify my behavior and actions. I ultimately developed the mind-set that it was my way or the highway. What I want and need comes before what everyone else wants and needs, which gave way to my greed and entitlement issues.

Another distorted belief that I developed came from experiencing racism and bullying through acts of violence, belittlement, rejection and humiliation; that belief was that there was something wrong with me, which resulted in me having low self-esteem, no confidence and trust issues; I had a very poor self-image of myself.

There was nothing I wanted more than to be accepted, seen, acknowledged, and most off all respected. I became willing to do anything to maintain and even build on that acceptance by any means necessary. Building and maintaining my acceptance involved criminal activities such as violent fights, robbing people, stealing cars, breaking into and destroying property, selling drugs, and using weapons.

Through self-reflection and active participation in self-help therapy groups, I’ve come to understand that I had a choice to choose a different path and group of friends. There were a lot of people who were raised in similar environments as me, who had similar friends as me, and who experienced the very things that I experienced but didn’t rely on crime and violence to meet their need for acceptance, nor did they use crime and violence to meet their financial off any other emotional need they felt wasn’t being met.

I assure you I’m just as easily influenced today as I was in the past, the difference is who I’m influenced by, which are people who strive to be an overall good person with pure intentions. People who are dedicated to change and building healthy relationship based on mutual respect, admiration and sheer love for other human beings.