Why I Chose to Be a Lover, Not a Fighter

For a long time, fighting was the only language I trusted. I grew up being taught not to let anyone put hands on me, and the streets and schools I lived in only made that lesson louder. But after everything I went through, I came out of a jail cell with one wish: “to change my life so I could become a total lover, not a fighter.” This is the story of that choice, and why I still make it every day.

Where my fighting spirit came from

At school in Westmoreland, Jamaica, I lived by that lesson and fought back, and I got in trouble for it. People on the streets even started calling me “Bad Boy Johnny.”

When I got to H. D. Perry Middle School in South Florida, the unspoken rule was “either you fight or you get beat up.” Perry grew a fighting spirit inside me. I loved fighting so much that I started thinking about becoming a boxer. Later, my friends called me “Crazy John.”

That spirit kept me alive in some places. It also came close to costing me everything.

The lines I promised never to cross

Even when I was angry, there were lines my grandfather, Arnold Burkett, drew for me. Holding me on his lap, he told me never to put my hands on a woman in violence. When a girl slapped me in class during an argument, I did not hit her back. I told myself I would “take this one, but never again.”

I had also promised my grandparents that I would never kill anyone. When my mother beat me and later taunted me to hit her so I would be locked up, I kept that promise, even when I was furious.

And there is one thing I am still proud of: I never took my anger out on someone innocent. I always told myself that doing that would make me weak.

What fighting cost me

Holding everything inside does not make it go away. By 2003, my anger was spilling into everything. I ended up in court, and the judge told me, “You need some serious help, Jonathan.” The judge ordered therapy and anger-management classes. I tell that story in another post, but it was the start of learning that asking for help is not weakness.

On the streets I was around fights and illegal activity. I had guns pointed at me. One day I stood next to someone who fired at a crowd, and afterward I told myself, “I have to get out of this life.” An older friend from the streets, who regretted the way he had lived, gave me advice I never forgot: “change before it’s too late.”

Giving up my street pride for a better fight

People sometimes ask me what I sacrificed to change. My answer is my “street pride.” I began to see it as the one thing that would get me locked up or dead, so I knew I had to let it go if I wanted to be successful.

A guard told me something in jail that helped me do it: “Forget what the crowd says about you, because they will not be there for you in the end.” She was right. The crowd that cheers you into a fight will not visit you in a hospital or a cell.

When I walked out of jail in the middle of the night, two weeks before my brain surgery, I knew I had to become immune to all the voices trying to discourage me. Being a lover, not a fighter, meant I would have to figure out how to change, one choice at a time.

I did not stop fighting. I changed what I was fighting for. My grandfather taught me not to run from any man or problem, but to “face them all, one at a time.” As a teenager, I told my therapists that Tupac Shakur’s “words inspire me to fight for what I want out of life and to change my ways.”

That is the fight I choose now: for my goals, for my brothers, for a better future. One line of mine sums it up:

“I live to inspire, not start the fire.”

— Jonathan Anthony Burkett

If you are carrying a fighter’s anger

If you see yourself in my story, here are a few things that helped me, and may help you:

• Name your lines. Decide now what you will never do, no matter how angry you get, so you are not deciding in the heat of the moment.
• Protect the innocent. Your anger may be real, but the people around you did not cause it.
• Watch your company. I learned that “it was all about who you hung around with and whether they allowed you to become a follower, a leader, or just yourself.”
• Let it out safely. Writing poems, talking to a counselor and anger-management classes all helped me more than holding it in.
• Fight for something. Put that energy into a goal you can be proud of.

If you are a young person being hurt at home, please tell someone. If a child is in immediate danger, call 911. In the U.S., the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline is 1-800-422-4453.

Choosing love, again and again

Becoming a lover, not a fighter, was not a single moment. It is a choice I keep making. I still have mountains to climb, but I climb them now without the pride that almost buried me.

If you want the whole story, from Jamaica to the streets of South Florida, you can find my memoir Neglected But Undefeated on my Books page, and more of my words on the Quotes page.

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