Controlling belief, Impressions, and Self-Control

With the preceding blogs I attempted to put one real thing in perspective, and that is that we can change our own lives and the lives of others by controlling our own beliefs. I can say today that anything is possible, and it is possible through our action, choices, and the passion that hold up those choices.




Prison

I have talked about my long 13 and a half year stay in prison. What was more difficult to convey were the feelings that I had, and the challenges that were imposed in that state, and still perpetuate throughout my life labeled as an "ex-felon." Imagine a world in which you were not only legally, factually, and systematically judged by those around you and the greater population. That was the real taking away of freedom, because when I was a 15 year old boy ages ago, I made a bad decision to follow a crowd. (I followed that crowd because I believed in them.) Every Correctional Officer, Teacher, and Counselor I had did not see me as Vouthynar Sovann. They saw me as an inmate - a convicted felon. I was not a person; I was a number, a stain, and ultimately, something that had an eventual negative fate.



What they believed about me was something I did not, and at this moment at April 19th 2010, do not feel and think about myself. What I learned through this struggle was that I had to change people's minds. I had to change the world about me. The performance of this magic effect was not a lie, it was real life. In my time in prison, I took over 3 accounting jobs in the Dietary department at age 17 when I scored a 304 on my GED. A position that was filled by three adults were held and worked by one sole teenager. I then made a choice never to join a prison gang or religion as that same Asian American Teen. I then was a part of a team the tutored GED students that were struggling and helped 5 people gain their diploma. I then moved on to changing College Survival Team and created fundraisers within the prison that benefited the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship fund by 10k dollars. I was the first of 20 chosen inmates to gain an Associate’s Degree in that prison. I then moved on to be the College tutor, and taught myself how to network computers to save the college program. A year after that I helped create two college courses under the American Council of Education to continue the college program within for less of a cost. The college program went from 20 students to 275 students all together. While doing all that, I became a member of Reasoned Straight which counseled troubled teens and children throughout the state in halfway houses, foster homes, group homes, in jail, and juvenile programs for police departments throughout Maryland.



After all that, it took 13 years for the people who had power over me to realize that the part I had in my crime was the most minimal out the bunch, and from that, that God...I received a 5 year reduction from my sentence.

The point here is to have you guys realize that anything is possible. Even when those around you will attempt to limit you, you can outshine those limits throughout your own view about yourself and beyond. It was not easy, and essentially, I made many sacrifices and went through a lot of heartache, but I did it.





Magic

It was through the art of Magic which I learned more about impressions, suggestions and performance. Be sure to know that it has nothing to do with reputation, because a reputation for a convict is just of that. The best advice that I read coming from a paper magic pamphlet was that as a performer, you play a character. The best character would be just a small exaggerated version of you. What I got from that paraphrase was that being yourself is the best performance you can give to the people around you. In essence, this idea spread to all the points of my life. If magic is the ability to will the world around you, then the best way to do it is to give all of yourself to others as best you can at any moment.




Philosophy


What I learned from philosophy is this. We can believe an anything, and that we can make life, its purpose, and the direction you take - in anyway also. This belief allows me my own belief, while at the same time, recognized the beliefs of others. What I choose to live by are Truth, Freedom, and then Love. Those are my fundamentals because I questioned who I was because people already had an opinion of me; no one else was going to do it. Throughout time, people had basic ways of seeing life. These ways of seeing life shaped their lives and those around them. If we looked at all the practical views, we see there is nothing but views, actions, and the consequences that flow from them. If I chose years ago, that I was a mere convict, which many inmates do and accept, I would have never come to write this blog, be amongst the public, or going the direction I am going.



My Life Now

People told me that I wasn't going to survive prison. I did. People told me getting my GED at 17 and a score over 300 was shooting too high. I did that too. People told me that getting into Maryland
University as a felon, who just got out, and with limited means would be next to impossible. Obviously, that is not so. The sole reason I would hope to convey to you is that life is both a performance and a competition within yourself. Both take a degree of engagement, work, and inner war that is never ending.

Believe in Yourself. Once you see the world as you have come to fight to make it, you will see what true magic is all about. To me it's about changing your own world view and the view of how the world is to others.