Alive Time or Dead Time?

An Inspiring Story about Malcolm X Told by Robert Greene.

American author Robert Greene talks about a powerful concept called “Alive Time or Dead Time.” This idea came to Greene after studying the life of Malcolm X, whose birth name was Malcolm Little. (Thank you for asking)

X was an American Muslim minister, activist, and spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964. Though, before that, he was imprisoned for robbery from 1946 to 1952. This time in prison, became one of the most important periods of his life and led him to become deeply involved in the human rights movement.

As Greene explains, “Until that point, the world took everything away from Malcolm X, except for one thing: his ability to turn his jail sentence into an ‘alive time.’”

In his autobiography, Malcolm X wrote that “the defeat, the heartbreak, and the losses” he faced actually contained the lessons he needed to improve as a person. He also believed that “To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. But to remain a criminal, that’s the disgrace.”

With this new understanding of life, Malcolm X turned those six years of suffering and despair into what Robert Greene later called “Alive Time.” Greene explains, “He had nothing else to do with his time but to think and reflect,” and that reflection…