In the last few weeks I have been faced with the task of meeting and beating the incredibly formidable New York challenge known as MOVING.

I have had to wage the war of transition on two levels . . . professionally and personally. The location of New York 1 is now about a mile south, or downtown from where I used to commute for more than nine years. I also chose to move to a more spacious apartment in the same neighborhood.

There are indeed many things in my life that I hate with no negotiation . . . moving is one of them. It will always cost you. You will either pay in blood, sweat or dollars and, in many cases, all three. Movers charge between 60 and 90 dollars an hour and this is one of those things where the saying "you get what you pay for" rings true.

This move has made my editors here at the PRESS crazy because I have had very little time to devote to jotting down my weekly thoughts to you. They have called and paged literally when I have had two or three boxes in my hands climbing steps or driving from one place to another.

I mention all of this to first apologize to them and to you for making their job of bringing you a quality paper more difficult. But secondly it gives me the chance to talk a little about transition and doing the work we hate to get to a place that we love.

All during this month we will hear about "Living the dream." "Fulfilling the dream" and "Keeping the dream alive" as we (during the shortest and coldest month of the year) celebrate African American Heritage. We’ll hear stories of courage and determination by people of color, moments of historical importance, and other victories that are not as public.

One common denominator in almost all these tales is simply a commitment to getting to the end of the road and reaching the goal. However, before you can commit to staying the course, you must make an equally important commitment to simply planning and then starting your journey.

When I looked at my OLD apartment I often used to say. "Ahhh I don’t have to move, I’m comfortable here, I have enough space, Blah, Blah, Blah." What I was really saying was "Man, I don’t want to pack up all this stuff and then lift it out of here." So this time I took a slightly different approach. I decided to start early, packing one or two boxes at a time and moving them at a slower pace, never allowing the enormity of the task to overwhelm me and discourage completion of getting out my old place and into a new one.

It’s a principle I have applied and spoken about to other people, usually along the lines of whether they should get a formal education or not. I would always say to folks that they shouldn’t look at college as this huge, insurmountable mission that is only for the rich or incredibly smart. I always suggested finding an institution (and there are many) that will allow you to go at a slightly slower pace.

The one thing about speaking or giving speeches is that there is very little exchange between the speaker and the audience. One cannot always be sure that the message gets through.

This week I was informed that at least one person in an audience three years ago not only heard but followed through with the message I tried to relay.

I got a call from a woman named Leslie Peters. She was a teacher at I.S. 192. Several years ago, I gave a commencement address to a few hundred young teenagers at their graduation. I was sure that some of them were just happy to be graduating, and could not have cared less about what I had to say. Ms. Peters was there along with parents and friends when I said, "If you don’t follow through with any kind of plan, how old will you be four years from now?"

I then asked, "How old will you be four years from now if you do follow through with some kind of a plan?"

The answer of course is you’ll be the same age. So why not get something accomplished in that little time?

Ms. Peters tells me that she is on the verge of finishing graduate school, which will no doubt increase her ability to further her career and provide for her family. She, like anybody who commits to getting a job done, will soon have the chance to look at her new place in life and say it was worth all the work.

As long as my back and wallet hold out in my move, I hope to be able to do the same.