21 Life Lessons From Neglected But Undefeated
Jonathan Anthony Burkett was born in Miami in 1987, raised with love by his grandparents in Westmoreland, Jamaica, and brought back to South Florida at six to a mother who neglected and abused him. By his teens he was sleeping in parks and on friends’ couches, fighting seizures, and wondering if anyone besides his grandparents would ever love him. In 2012 he told that story in his memoir, Neglected But Undefeated.
The book is honest about the hard parts, but it is also full of lessons he earned along the way. Here are 21 of them, in his own words wherever possible, with a few thoughts on how you can use them.
21 lessons from his story
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Be thankful for your people. His grandmother taught him “to be thankful for what I have and for those I have in my life who are there for me every day.” Gratitude starts with the people who show up.
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Face problems one at a time. His grandfather told him not to run from problems, because running only brings more. Pick the one in front of you and deal with that.
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Let it out. As a boy he discovered that “Writing began helping me to release and express how I was feeling, instead of holding everything inside.” A notebook, a friend or a counselor can all be that release.
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Nobody has it perfect. By middle school he saw that “no one lives a perfect life.” Comparing your inside to someone else’s outside is never a fair fight.
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Lean on faith. “Faith doesn’t get you around problems in life and relationships; it gets you through them.”
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You are tougher than you think. After years of hard nights he wrote, “Yes, I realized I was a survivor.” Surviving does not mean you were never hurt. It means you are still here.
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Choose not to follow. He was often around drugs and kept saying no “because I never wanted to be a follower.” Strength sometimes looks like one quiet word.
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Keep your circle small and true. “It’s better to have a few faithful friends than numerous shallow friendships.”
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Value who, not what. He believes “it should be who we have beside us through our lives that really matters.”
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Judge character, not possessions. “Look for the heart in a man before you look at what he has.”
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Give love time. “Real love takes time to grow, just like how it takes time to grow from children to adults.”
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Speak up. After he went back to apologize to a girlfriend’s mother and was welcomed, he wrote that “speaking up really does help out in life.”
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See trials as tests. In jail, he came to understand that hard seasons “are all just tests.” A test can be passed.
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Remember that you still have options. Walking home at dawn after his release, he decided that here “I’d have options and opportunities for making my life better.”
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Be a lover, not a fighter. His one wish was to “become a total lover, not a fighter.” Anger is easy; gentleness takes courage.
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Try anyway. He holds on to the idea that “it’s better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all.”
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Look forward. After brain surgery in 2006, he promised himself he would “focus on success and not on the past.”
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Let forgiveness grow you. As he puts it in one of his quotes, “Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond who you were.” He decided he had to forgive his mother so the past would not hold him back.
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Learn from mistakes, then keep moving. He wrote that we have to look past our mistakes and trials, “learn from them, and live each day like it’s our last.”
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Build together. His message to anyone struggling: “Give more, so that we can build more.” People who stand together hold each other up.
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Enjoy the ride. After everything, he can say, “Today, I believe that life is an adventure to be enjoyed.”
How to put these lessons to work
A list like this is easy to read and easy to forget. Try choosing just one lesson for this week. Write it somewhere you will see it every morning, then look for one moment each day to practice it. If you picked speak up, that might mean finally making the phone call you have been avoiding. If you picked keep your circle small and true, it might mean texting the one friend who always checks on you.
Jonathan did not learn these lessons all at once. Many of them came years apart, from his grandparents, teachers, counselors, friends’ parents and even strangers. That is good news for you. You do not have to have everything figured out today. You only have to keep learning.
If home is not safe
Jonathan’s story began with a child who needed help and did not always get it. If you are a young person being hurt or neglected, or you are worried about a child, please reach out. If a child is in immediate danger, call 911. In the U.S., the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline is 1-800-422-4453.
Read the whole story
These 21 lessons are only a small part of Neglected But Undefeated. If one of them spoke to you, you can find the full book on the books page, and more of his words on the quotes page. Pick your lesson, and start with it today.
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