Awakening to Mission

In 2014, I did something that shocked so many people who knew me.  I switched my major from Music to Sociology.  One of the reasons was because I was tired.  I had been a Music major off and on for 5 years and in 2014, I was 24 years old and ensembles were so lackluster by then.  I could not understand it until I talked to a lady who sang and used to be a Music major in her younger years.  She helped me realize that what had happened was age.  As you get older, you realize that there is more to life than just singing in choir and touring. That's what happened to me.  I got older and found being a Music major to be really time consuming, especially as a member of the Morehouse College Glee Club where I was Baritone Choir II under the direction of Dr. David E. Morrow.
There was another factor in that decision though.  Even though I had only been chanting Daimoku for four months by January 2014, I was awakening to a sense of mission, and being a Music major was not fulfilling at all to that mission.  I realized that I wanted to deal with activism for people of color, and the LGBT? community.  So I relayed my ideas by my academic advisor Mr. "E.", and he suggested that I look into the Sociology department.
Changing my major from Music to Sociology towards the end of the school year was NOT an easy thing.  It was a successful change though.  Even though I've only had two Sociology classes so far, they have been some of the most damn rewarding classes that I have taken.  They were Introduction to Sociology and Men in Society.
Through chanting, my mission also came more into focus and I realized that I wanted to work a lot more with the LGBT? community and with feminism.  I realized that in order to help other LGBT? individuals, I must not only overcome my obstacles and wounds from the past, but I must also be educated to understand the causes of homophobia and misogyny.  Through my Men In Society class, I learned that there is a link between misogyny and homophobia against same gender loving males.
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I have had more obstacles and I have suffered more for being gay and perceived as gay than for being black.  (There was a scene from The Fosters where Lena Foster said, "When someone calls one person the n word, it doesn't just hurt that black person.  It hurts all of us.  It cuts."  Lena was referring to the word nigger. The same goes with the word faggot.  It does not matter if you are not the person being called a faggot.  You are more than likely hurt when you hear homophobes use the word faggot.  When a homophobe use the word faggot, what they are saying is that every same gender loving male is impotent, contemptuous, and unworthy of respect.  Just like the word nigger).
As I practice, my mission comes more and more into focus, and it is close to my heart.