When I got on the scale at the doctor’s office as a prelude to a routine checkup, my feelings were hurt. I wasn’t surprised at what it read but I was amazed that my weight had gotten to an all new level. Like a planet, my mass had expanded to where I could have enough gravity to attract satellites. And it was a damn shame.

I’d struggled with the growing girth around my midsection since my mid-twenties. This time, it was going to cost me money; being as swollen as a blimp, I was ineligible for a rather lucrative hu$tle.

Bitch and moan as I might be apt to do, the choice to have gotten so big was ultimately my own. Oh, I could easily point a rather chubby, accusatory finger at several factors but I needed to take responsibility. Additives, preservatives, and starchy, sugary junk food aside, I was the one who’d decided to put it into my mouth.

If you’re reading this blog, I can assume that you are in part of what is considered the “free world,” where having internet access is a standard expectation. After all, impoverished people whose daily lives consist of walking for miles just to collect clean water have little use for access to online luxuries. As such, you generally have not been relegated to a police state and have the power of free movement on your side. Laws and mores aside, that means you likely have the ability to make choices.

I chuckle when folks whine about the predictable result of their decisions. By this time, you’ve seen the effects that addictive drugs like crack cocaine and methamphetamines have on its users. It should be no surprise that their mental and physical health take serious nosedives and most familial relationships are destroyed in the process. That said, we can’t feign doe-eyed ignorance if we decide to light the pipe or inject ourselves with poison.

Though we have no choice as to where and to what station we are born, it is highly likely that we have control over how high we can ascend from there. I was born and raised in the rather rough-and-tumble Chicago community of Englewood. By the time I was 15, I’d been mugged at least three times (it may be four; shit, I lost count), knew that grilled government cheese made for one helluva sandwich, and had seen a murdered corpse taking up temporary residence on a stairwell. We’d been evicted from an apartment that had once contained an upstairs heroin spot, used food stamps as currency, and were teased for having to purchase generic brands. I’d even watched many of my neighborhood friends fall to the traps of gang violence, drug use, and the like.

It was great that my grandmothers prayed for me and my mother kept my siblings and I in church but the decision to live differently was mine alone to make. Not that I’ve fully arrived or think that I am better that anyone else–far from it. I just realized that, despite whatever my parents and mentors wanted for me, the choice on how I lived as an adult was completely up to me.

Consider that every relationship and transaction you’ve been part of has one key ingredient: you. We are learning machines. If we refuse to be open enough to identify negative patterns and learn how to avoid them, then we deserve what the hell we get. Understand that, though you may be born a pawn, applying thought and strategy gives you the chance to transform yourself into something more.

That striving to get across the board to the other side and not just accepting your assigned lot in life is the very essence of Hu$tle Logic. However, you are the one who gets to decide. Do you want to relegate yourself to a life of poverty or wealth? Realizing your health is key to your wealth, do you make maintaining and improving it a daily priority?

Choose wisely and invest in yourself first and foremost. I wish you all the best but the decision to define and achieve it is completely up to you.