The Cost

By Jay Goodman

Has anyone ever noticed that anything worthwhile in life Hass to cost you? If it doesn’t, your life to question its value. I would like everyone who is reading this to stop for a moment and look at what you’re doing in your lives. Whatever it is you’re doing ask yourselves what this choice cost?

I have wondered if the people have run the Texas prison system before or now have ever thought about this question? What about the prisoners, have you ever stopped and looked at what you’re doing inside these prisons and thought about what this choice will cost you? Not many people do and that’s why most prisoners never change. Not because you can’t but because most won’t stop and look at what your choices now will cost.

What most people never realize is you don’t have to necessarily be in a prison to be imprisoned. There are many people in prison who are actually more free than people in the free world. To a lot of people reading this that may sound crazy. But so many people in the free World live their entire lives mad at everyone around them. They hate their job, they’re always mad at their spouse or children. They can’t seem to find time in their lives to do the things they enjoy. They’re always broke, they’re out of shape, they complain all day about their lives and how much they hate it. And with most people that are like this they’ll blame everyone around them for their circumstances. But if you were to sit down with these people and go over their lives, they will quickly see they didn’t count the cost of the things they did in the past that led them to the point they are today.

Let’s take a look at the Texas Department of criminal justice. I have went back decades in my book the puppet masters, and wrote about the conditions and brutal treatment of the prisoners. Not just in a few presents but throughout the entire prison system from the start until now. If I could talk to the people who run the prisons, I would ask what has been the cost for the way you allow the prisons in Texas to be run? I am sure they wouldn’t even understand my question. But for everything we do or don’t do in life there is a cost. If we went back to the start of the Texas prisons and there use of turkeys, and asked what was the cost of using inmates as guards? I’m sure they would have many reasons. But in reality, their use of turkeys cost tens of thousands of prisoners to be beat, raped or murdered. it cost so many violent crimes it’s not even possible for me to explain. Also, by allowing prisons to be run basically by guards, ranking officers, and administration who are all family members what’s been the cost?

The whole prison system from the beginning until now has been one of the most corrupt prison systems in our country. And here we are 2020 and what’s different about the Texas prison system than when it began back in the 1800s? I’d say nothing is changed as far as they are thinking, and that is why the entire prison system is stuck 100 years behind most other states in our country. To be able to move forward in our lives we have to be able to put the past behind us. And since a big part of the Texas president has been run by family members or friends each generation has taught the next the same kind of thinking.

And because they have taught all the new guard starting out now this old slave master type of way, they will spend their entire lives hating and miss treating the prisoners. But what a lot of people don’t realize is the long-term effect it had on the people who work for the prison system. Remember everything has a cost. A man or a woman cannot spend their whole lives being mean, hateful, and angry every day and it not affect them mentally or emotionally. Almost every guard I met has some kind of anger problem. Almost every card I met has been divorced two or three times. A lot of them are sad and depressed.

I have also had a lot of officers tell me they hate their job. What many people don’t realize is that it’s not only been bad for the guards but for their family and friends too. Life is full of choices, and it’s important to remember that those choices will always have a cost. Well son choices will have short term effects; some will have long-term if not life-changing affects. No matter what there will always be a cost.

Now allow me to move onto the prisoner. As I said earlier, the reason most people keep coming to jail is they won’t stop for a second and think about what the cost will be.  because if they could see what their future holds, I am sure they would change. I mean if everyone had a crystal ball and could see a lifetime behind bars, seeing their children grow up without them, watching their mom and dad die, and their own life passed before their very eyes, until the day comes when they will die alone in a prison medical unit. It’s so important to use the time we have in here to better ourselves in every way possible. Start asking yourselves all the time about the things you’re doing now how it will affect you in the years to come? At times I look at my fellow prisoners and wonder why it’s so hard for them to see the big picture. I have learned a big part of it is their lack of thought. Most Prisoners usually live for the moment not ever considering how your actions now will affect you next week, next month, or in the years to come. A lot of prisoners will allow the way the guards treat you to consume your every thought until you become bitter and angry most of the time. Of course, you’re not realizing that you will take those emotions home with you when you leave prison, and it will now be passed down to your family.

Just because we are in prison doesn’t mean you have to act like it takes this opportunity to grow into a man that will leave prison and never come back. Turn into that man who goes home and is an asset to your family. Who leads his children into prosperity. Don’t let the bitterness or hatefulness of the prison employees change the person you can become. Most prisoners won’t give themselves a chance. They surround themselves with people who have nothing on their minds but getting high and live in the same lifestyle that led them to president in the first place. We all possess oppositional forces within ourselves, but we all have the power to control our thoughts and actions. Learn to direct Your thoughts towards your dreams. When I was able to let go of everything that help me back, I was finally able to grow into a better human being. If we refuse to let go, we wind up in sales of her own making, when we’re not compassionate, and forgiving. Without love, we build dungeons in our hearts and fill them with perceived enemies. We believe they deserve to be there for the harm they caused us, but by imprisoning then we’re destroying our own spirit. When our dungeons are overflowing with these prisoners, we refuse to set free, we become slaves to our self-righteousness, our anger resentments, and self-loathing, which we let multiply until we wind up in prison in our own death row.