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Our lives consist of soul-searching sacrifice for an existence that makes some type of sense. I rise at 2:45 a.m. for a 3:20 a.m. meeting at UPS. This month marks 11 years in this labor of love and not for loading boxes in the back of trucks at 4 a.m., but for poetry and whatever it takes to support my dreams.

Working this job at night has allowed me to live my dreams by day ---- a fair cost to pay. We all make sacrifices for our heart's desires.

Take, for example, Quizan Fitz, also known as DJ Blends. He has five children, two dogs and a wife. He wakes up at 5 a.m.; his shift starts at 6:45 a.m. -- 50 stops between 7:30 a.m. and noon all over Greensboro and more than 100 by the day's end. He works 12-hour days.

For about three years now, FedEx has paid the bills, but spinning records feeds his soul.

He spins about five to six times a month, mostly on weekends, and at 34 years old, he is quick to admit, "When you get older it's hard to get up after a late-night spinning. I'd rather not even do it sometimes if it has to be during the week."

Mortgage, car payments, college funds for the kids, "but this is my sanity. Being a DJ is not long-lived. You have to be able to fit the mold, the times," he says.

From wedding receptions to club parties to poetry slams, DJ Blends is the man. Since he was 12, he has been spinning records, and he will continue till he is old and gray.

So, while I on the other hand would love to be able to write, recite, create and direct and that be enough to pay my bills and keep food on the table, the simple fact is at present it's not. The truth is, I will continue to work around the clock as long as it is allowing my dreams to chase my reality.

Yet, Atiba Berkley, 29, works for KGB, an information services company, and is a sound man for hire in his spare time. His brainchild, Higher Underground Productions, lives and breathes off eight years and 40 hours a week of slaving to the customer services field surrounding 411 information. But sound engineering is his forte, his passion and his art.

He just signed a contract for the Winter Olympics for February 2010 in Vancouver, Canada, where he will be running audio for the Olympic Broadcast Services. Which means he will be using all his vacation time for the next year to make that happen.

No days off, no sick days, no breaks for a chance to advance his hopes and dreams.

So, back to the grind and the grit of what we do to live the lives our souls crave. But society hides from us in plain sight, taunting us with the possibility of pursuing our passion, putting our dreams just out of reach.

We're unable to completely grasp them without letting go of this thing called complacency ---- not knowing if it will ever be enough to support a family or protect us and keep us healthy. So, we remain inside the lines fearful but unable to let go of our dreams and our means of survival.

The Bible says, "Faith without works is dead," so we work and keep the faith; we pray and we stay on the straight and narrow, traveling the unbeaten path believing we can make it and cascading through all the gray areas of the unknown, postponing or as Langston might say, deferring our dreams. So, we must not defer, we must not linger in our fantasies, but pursue our desires and our dreams. And at the end of the day we do, doing whatever it takes to get us through to the next stage of our lives ---- hopes, dreams and ambitions in tow. For we understand and know that we must do what we have to do in order to do what we want to do.

Josephus Thompson III is a poet, activist and educator in the Triad. His column runs once a month. Contact him at Josephus@mentalityenterprises.com.

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