I am

I am my own choices

Welcome to September, the beginning of spring to many. A season characterised by birds chirping, flowers blooming, love sprouting, longer and warmer days/nights. It is a new beginning for many hopefuls and lovers of love and everything beautiful. It is a new beginning for young souls and those young at heart. It is a time where everyone exhibits traits of starting afresh, traces of old flames that were almost obliterated by woes from since the year began getting rekindled. The air is filled with hope, joy, laughter and new beginnings.

Welcome to September, a month most South Africans dedicate to everything cultural and colourful.

We showcase our diverse heritage in many ways. Through our bright colourful attires, to our diverse form of dance and song. Our voices can be heard from many miles away when we are gathered in song and celebration. We give wholeheartedly, love endlessly and unify in song and dance. 

It is a month where we celebrate all that is valuable to us, from our core values (discipline, respect and integrity) to our women, cattle, history and heroes celebrated world wide. We celebrate the end of winter and welcome summer. We till our lands, marvel at the beauty of our rolling hills, flat lands, wetlands, wildlife and sunsets. We remember ourselves for who we were and hope to change our circumstances for the better.

I should be more than song and dance. I should be more about celebrations that are more inclined towards achievements beyond my cultural comfort zone. I should be financially stable, I should be financially savvy/educated. I should be educated and speak languages understood by the world. I should be able to communicate business, diversity, progress, connectivity, collaborations, development and investment without having to be shy/turn my back on my cultural upbringing.
I should be more than a man.
I should be vocal on matters relating to women abuse, ill-treatment of the elderly, the injustices faced by the defenceless, the young girls and the less educated.
I should be all this and more because I believe in the core values passed on to me by my grandfather from his grandfather, who in turn got it from his forefathers.
I should be all this because I understand how creating new cultures without losing track of old ones can help change my world for the better.


I should be all this because I am a young man who believes we need more young&old men who will stand up and be good examples to those who have lost their ways and forgot their ways.
Those who have never knew affection, motivation, encouragement and support.
I should be part of a generation that is looking for and implementing solutions that will rid our communities of all that is currently inconveniencing everyone.
I should be all this and more because I too once never had anything. I know the pain of being limited. I know the difficulties of not having that male figure to talk to, guide and look up to. The frustrations of rejection, condemnation, being cast aside or undervalued, I know it all too well and am not afraid to admit the destruction it can cause to a young man trying to make it out of the location/rural area/difficult conditions.





I pray for the day where we will face our challenges head on, without favour or discrimination against each other for all the mistakes we have made and the time we wasted having fun instead of building towards our tomorrows.
I pray for a day where we will create a culture of unity and prosperity. Where friends will advise each other against bad behaviour/habits and the importance of knowing how to save for tomorrow.
There will come a time where we will unit as men and face our shortcomings and help each other see the impact of our destructive ways.
Instead of condoning bad behaviour, we are ought to be encouraging each other to learn from each other's success, no matter how small our victories are. If we create and promote good habits from an early age, we will eventually raise a nation of even greater men, greater leaders, better men.

"We are our own choices"

As a man, you can not dream of a million rand house and not start working towards building it now. You will not wake up to your dreams without putting effort towards making them a reality. Old habits are hard to kill, best you start forming good habits that will see you prosper instead of habits that will tear your future into tatters. We all want a better life, that life begins with:

(1) Accepting your current situation.

(2) Having a drive to change your current situation.

(3) Rekindling your passion for what you are good at.

(4) Asking the right questions, knowing how to adapt and knowing the relevant people who can help you get your life back on track.

(5)Being determined and disciplined to see yourself through. Determination and Discipline are everything.







"We are our own struggles..... A stumble in your path should not be the end of your journey."

Taking each day as it comes.

Learning to Let go

- Picking up the Pieces -

There is no time better than the time where as a young adult, you accept and acknowledge the following words:

"I have been suppressing a lot of emotions. Not consciously or willingly, but the truth is staring right back at me, reminding me how I have become that which I feared the most: a young adult who has not made it to where he/she planned to be at his/her current age. It is time I face the reality of the pain I have been running away from for all these years, pain that I have been afraid deal with."

As a young adult, trying to keep abreast in life and stay afloat, I have decided to look back at what I have not been doing right and come up with possible solutions that will enable me to overcome my grief, forget my regrets and start all over again from the bottom up. Being able to deal with the past negative emotional moments and frustrations seems like a good place to start. This will ensure that I move forward with no baggage from my past weighing heavy on my conscious. That is where I will start to rebuild my life. I am reminding myself that, doing so is not a sign of weakness or shifting blame to my father, his family or relatives or anyone else who has had a contribution towards the person I have become. Doing so is nothing more but a sign of acceptance and acknowledging that not everything in life will work out the way I plan or would love it to.

With my 3 years experience of moving to Johannesburg, I did not anticipate life to be so hard that I would find myself in tricky and difficult situations. These include: getting caught up in family politics, living on a R200 budget for over  year, facing prospects of living in a squatter camp kind of setup/shanty town or going 2 years, a job that took more than rewarded, manipulative friends, etc.

Amidst all this, I did not give up or look down on myself. Yes, my self esteem dropped, I distanced myself from those who publicly proclaimed "You can not be in my company if your life is not going anywhere". I hid under a rock, dug a hole and berried my shame of not being part of the elite that has made a name for themselves. It hit hard and the blow was nerve wrecking.

 "Things fall apart."

With all that, I made a conscious decision to focus on that which drives me, I reached a point where I told myself that I will no longer run away from my past, where I come from, the pain I have been through or the fear of openly talking about it.

I am at a point where I have come to accept the past for what it is and acknowledge the lessons it has taught me. I am too old to be afraid of facing my skeletons and the unfortunate truths they might come with. Bottling in emotions and frustrations is by far the most dangerous thing anyone can do for themselves, especially a young man growing up to be a different man. How different will you be if you follow on the footsteps of those who raised you without opening up to you about issues that concern you?

If you bottle emotions, you easily create room for depression to sink in and slowly eat away the happiness in you.

That said, it should also be accepted that not having an outlet or means of releasing these emotions can be viewed as a reason why most men bottle their emotions in. There are many other reasons why men cannot talk or do not talk about that which they can no longer deal with emotionally. Fear of being judged or called weak is one of the reasons, but I believe not knowing how to deal/cope with life’s challenges is the main culprit behind men not coping.

I have always told myself that I will figure things out as they come, in the process, reducing myself into such minimal thinking that certain opportunities passed me by without even realising. This level of thinking also created a perception about me that not many people who saw greatness in me liked. It portrayed me as weak person, a person looking for pity from others, someone who wore his emotions and heart on his sleeve. With time, I grew to believe what was said about me. I grew to notice how petty I have become, how easily I would find myself relating my life’s story to anyone who would give me an ear. The intention was always to try and voice out all the bottled emotions and frustrations from years of hardship and difficulties. The results didn’t serve the desired purpose, instead, it portrayed me as a weak individual lost in his woes. That created a reason not try and talk or voice out my frustrations and difficulties.

Once you allow how others perceive or say about you to be true, you unwittingly sign away your life to a way of living that is determined by validation from others. I have been a victim of such for some time and I know that I am not the only one who has been reduced to such levels or that many other young men are suffering in silence.  It is easy to be reduced to a shadow of the person you once were but it takes a lot of work undoing the damage caused and to regain one’s sanity.

As a young man/young woman, I strongly suggest that you find ways of dealing with whatever has been causing you grief. Social media is not the right platform to air your frustrations/emotions, that move will only be met with a large number of following that has never been in your situation or similar situation, thus leading to your intentions of reaching out for help to be distorted or mistaken for an attempt to gain re-tweets and likes. Not taking away that social networks has a strong following of individuals looking to help young men in your position, the difficulty is getting your message through to them on time before the wrong crowd picks on it and gives you feedback that will make you wish you had not voiced out any of your worries.

Without losing track of things or spending too much time recollecting bad moments in life, I urge you to do like I did and start fixing your life. You are responsible for who you eventually become. Bad circumstances in life are there to strengthen you, not to further break you down. There are there to toughen you, not to harden you up or turn you into a horrible person with little or no emotions left in him/her. You are greater than all the sum of mishaps you have ever been through. I say so because you have made it through it all like you were made for it. Subconsciously, you are prepared to face whatever tomorrow may come with. Believe in yourself and stay true to your path. You will never be left behind if you stay/keep in your lane.

"Is it too late to rebuild oneself?"

(This is my parting question to you.)

Learning to let go

I know what is waiting for me

“There is little that I can do to prevent what is coming my way if I continue to ignore the glaring signs and live my life pretending I am different or that I will do things differently once I reach a certain age. I have seen through my father, my uncles and their brothers, how my life can turn out to be like if I keep on ignoring these signs.”

Some wake-up calls come in a form of death in a family and the sudden change in behaviour between family members who cannot tolerate each other. When everyone is gathered to lay to rest a family member, a temporary truce is put into place. Those who hate each other find a chance/moment to put aside their differences and focus on burying the deceased with dignity. At that very moment, silently observing how close your cousins are with their parents and siblings can leave you wondering where did your life go wrong?

Seeing how they support each other, help each other out without having to ask to be helped, how they encourage each other and amplify the good in each other can leave you wanting to be a part of their family.

The pain of having an absent present parent is heart breaking to a boy child, especially when he reaches a stage where he can make sense of his past hurtful moments, experienced in the hands of those he calls family and how they react towards him in the presence of other family members. The most painful part being hearing someone ask his father: “How is your son doing?” and his responds by saying:

“I don’t know, I do not talk to him much.”

As a young man, you will be destroyed by such words. You will be ashamed to call him your father in front of everyone knowing he has subliminally let everyone know how little your growth means to him. Bad memories will cloud your mind and fill your heart with anger and disappointment. At that very moment, you will find yourself caught between a hard place and a rock. Your reaction will subconsciously determine the kind of a man you will become in future.

 

If anger and hate win over your will to do better, you will stand a chance of becoming a bitter person yourself. The pain of watching his brother’s children laugh and interact with your uncle will shatter your heart into many pieces and turn you into a similar version of the man who helped bring you into this world, a heartless man who doesn’t know how to love his own flesh and blood.

As young adults, we are expected to be better fathers yet we are not taught at an early stage how to be better men. Were expected to forget the influence of the circumstances we were brought up under and change to be better versions of our own fathers without having access to them to teach us anything about being a father. It is easy to point out what is wrong in a person but difficult to help that person change for the better. It is easy to want a perfect man, but difficult to contribute towards building one, especially if he has been through a lot in his life.

 

 It is every man’s dream to find a good woman. The kind that is pure at heart, has no child or drama, is well educated and earns well, etc, but it is hard to accept that most of the women today are the way that they are today, because of us men not willing to play our roles as structures of support in their lives. Instead, we cheat on them, abuse and use them for sexual benefits. We see them in the same light as the one broken woman who ended up breaking us in the process. Likewise with absent fathers/mothers, the pain they bring into your life can harm those who had nothing to do with it. The rejection, the many years of being mistreated and subsequent favouritism shown to children

The hurt you cause someone today will end up being grief that the person you have hurt will exert on an innocent soul who had nothing to do with the pain you caused them.

 

“Most elderly people and grown folks complain about the youth of today forgetting they are the ones who raised it.”

A few people will have the courage to break it down to you on how your father/mother/aunt/uncle ended up being the bitter person you see today, even more disappointing is the fact that less will see the need to warn you when you are starting to become like them either. (Truth be told, miserable people don’t want to be alone in being miserable.) We are what we have been exposed to, especially us young men. We are the direct result of how our parents were raised.

“If he was never shown any love or given the chance to be close to his father, how can anyone expect you to be close to him or be a better version of him?”

If you were raised under harsh conditions, how can anyone expect you to be understanding and be a different man? At what stage/age do they think you will wake up to the realisation that you have to start being a better man when you are still trying to understand the reasons for your father’s absenteeism in your life?

I have lived long enough to know where I have gone wrong and where to start fixing my wrongs. I have seen the consequences of my shortcomings and know the kind of results they can have in future if I don’t make an effort to change my path. I will not wake up to a better tomorrow without building one today. I have lived long enough not to be scared to try a different approach to my challenges, live differently and relook all the beautiful ideas I had about life growing up. Happiness is a state of mind. That has been proven to be correct if we were to compare the childhood memories we had v/s how life has unfolded from then, right up to our present day. The visions we now have lack happiness due to the worries and problems we have inherited from absent parenting. Do not allow anyone destroy what you can become by allowing them to live their failed dreams through you.

This might not be applicable to you but it may help you gain a different perspective on how certain men in your life are the way they are.
If you already have a child outside of marriage and you are in your prime, I encourage you to try and be involved as much as you in your child’s life. Put aside your pride and fear of being judged for the mistakes you have made and think about the happiness of your child. Think not about what your family wants or what they think is right for your child. Your relationship with him/her starts with you willing to put your differences aside and getting involved emotionally and physically. You cannot always provide financially but you can fill the void money cannot buy by being present in your child’s life. .

“Be the change you want to see in your life. Never let fear hold you back from learning to let go."

Appreciation of Self.

   "People with positive attitudes are hard to defeat. A mind with              a positive approach to life will never be derailed from             reaching its goals by anything.   "

I got reminded of this by a  simple call to an old friend. It somewhat reminded me how easy it is to be misunderstood. How easy it is to be mistaken for someone who wants to be spoon-fed at all times and doesn't show initiative towards finding solutions to their issues/problems/circumstances.
This made me realize how strong a person I am for not giving up on my dreams and importantly for not dwelling on the past but braving the storms and moving forth. This made me realize how easy it is to be mistaken for someone who is forever complaining about his past or struggles he/she has been through. It also opened up my eyes to how important it is to protect your pain, speak less about it or share your bad experiences with anyone but those who have good intentions and want to see you grow from strength to strength, instead of those who want to know all about your struggles and be quick to remind you about them every time you try to move forward.
I know it is difficult to spot people who want to see you succeed from those pretending to have good intentions. Once you know the difference between the two, it will be up to you to keep away from those who indirectly destroy you and bring you down and associate yourself more with those who have best interest at heart for you.
You have nothing to lose in life except life itself. Be kind to yourself for you are all that you have in this world. Do not be fooled by anyone into believing what they say is your limitation.
Be strong in the decisions that you make or need to be taken, without making any decisions of your own about your life, someone else will. Without making any decisions in life, you will never gain any wisdom.

When you think you have no one to stand by your side, always remember this: You are an individual born with a courageous heart and a will to always stand up after each fall/stumble/blow you receive.

Society dictates that men should learn from an early age how to be strong and unflinching. The cons of that are the mental scars imprinted on a young man's mind as he grows up. Once a a child is broken and conditioned to be unapologetic in getting anything he thinks he is entitled to based on the facts that he is a "man" he will stop at nothing to get what he wants or thinks he deserves.

                                   "It is easier to raise a child into a strong man than it is to fix a broken man."

Near the end.......

How many times do you thank the Lord for taking away from you that which the mind wants but the hear is against, or that which the heart wants but the heart can not get?
When do we get reminded about time wasted...

chances never taken...
opportunities missed......
mistakes made....?

When do we remember time is not on our side or that it has never been on our side since the day we let out our first cry?
At the beginning of each year...
we draft resolutions....
make vows not to repeat the same mistakes we did the previous year...
We make plans not to fall into the same traps we fell for, we plan to avoid and cut off people who have brought us nothing but pain in our lives.
We plan ways of making more than we did forgetting that we have been living to see the end of each month instead of living to celebrate each day as it comes.
We plan and plan, forgetting that life is what happens while we are busy planning.
We marvel and praise those brave enough to cast their fears away and follow their gut feelings/hearts&intuition.
We call them lucky to have found mentors/person of reference. We call them lucky for having comfortable family backgrounds to afford to fund their ideas.
Instead of asking them how much of the "expensive hobbies" they had to sacrifice to get the attention they are enjoying now, we call them lucky.
Instead of asking what choices they had to make, we call them fortunate....
Instead of asking ourselves "what are we doing wrong?", we find fault in all those making it big each day.
We always have enough to get us through each weekend.
We always celebrate and spend on alcohol, materialistic possessions with little/no sentimental value.
We always have enough data to "like" posts on social platforms, criticize and entertain posts that have to do with other people's dirty laundry being aired in public.
We hardly research about our dreams...
We hardly follow disciplined individuals or business analyst.
We hardly invest or spend on those who can still have all that we missed out on, esp education...
We hardly encourage our cousins/half brothers/siblings,etc to do better than we did because we fear the very same people we were trying to impress by spending all we had on them will turn around and say: "but look at your younger brother,he is doing way better than you. You have always been a failure."

A small reminder to myself and maybe you as well:
"The past is one aspect of our lives we can never alter. We can never change it but can accept it and learn from mistakes made. Without learning, one never grows."
Near the end of it all, what pops to mind is regret.
We regret having a trusting nature.
We regret wearing our hearts on our sleeves.
We regret giving certain people a second 3rd/4th chance.
We regret opportunities we failed to capitalize on.
We regret not acting fast enough.
We regret not acting too fast
We regret not acting at all...
We regret, regret and regret some more.

What we hardly do is:
 (1) Ask ourselves what lessons can we gather from our actions?
 (2) We don't stand back and see what missing certain opportunities might have saved us from losing our essence and humility.
 (3) We hardly ask ourselves "why now Lord", instead, we curse God and everyone else for not getting what is not meant for us in the first place.
(4) We never ask those who have a broader view and perspective of what we have become for an honest feedback on "how we are really doing or what are we gravitating towards becoming.
Near the end of it all, only then do we realize how much we have messed up, wasted and squandered.
Let this be your wake up call.
Treat each day like it was your last few days left to make a difference.
Treat each morning as if it was your first morning waking up with dedication to go out there and be the difference you want to see in our life.
Be the change you want to see in your life.
Learn from your mistakes and never be too big headed to admit you messed up.
Life is a lifelong lesson with no test being the exactly the same as the next person's. Live it to the fullest and be proud of your achievements, small or big....

Cherish what you have....

You are a King/Queen, fooled to believing that you are nothing more than what you are told you are.

"May you be given wings to fly, roots to ground and remind you about where you have been and an abundance of water to sustain/nourish/replenish your soul in times of hardships."

What really matters......?

There are a few things in life that we all have to anticipate or have to deal sooner or later. As much as we strive to have as a lot of happy moments as opposed to difficult times, we can not turn a blind eye or run away from what might unexpectedly hit us. There will always be ups and downs, there will always be troubles and curve balls life will throw at you. There has been cases of educated and well paid individuals living on the streets after years of leading a successful lives. There has been cases of individuals who grew up with nothing and are leading firms/companies worth millions and millions of rands/dollars.
The difference between a successful person and one who hasn't made it yet is how the one who is successful reacted to what life dished out to him unexpectedly as opposed to the one who hasn't grasped the lessons life is trying to teach through harsh experiences/situations/circumstances. Your attitude towards any situation will always determine your altitude or how far you make it in life. How you choose to deal with a situation turns out to be testament that you are maturing well. That you are on a path that no one or nothing can derail you from. Have you ever asked yourself how does one gather wisdom? Have you never questioned yourself how certain individuals you aspire to be like manage to walk tall as if their lives have always been perfect? Have you ever asked yourself what is the person next to you going through or has been through?
Till you find answers to those questions, you will never appreciated your strength, abilities and capabilities. Till you understand that you are not the only one going through a rough patch, you will learn the hard way how to let go of that which you have no control over and focus on that which you can still change or improve on.

Self pity and regrets will lead you nowhere fast. They will hinder your progress and blind you from seeing possible opportunities/solutions to change your current circumstances. The only person who will get you out of what you are going through currently is yourself. Life happens for a reason, till you discover that reason, do not give up on what keeps your heart pumping and optimistic about a better tomorrow. Till that day comes, do not allow your past mistakes to hinder you and cloud your emotions. Till that day comes, focus more on what you can do better or differently.
What really matters in life is not where you have been but where you ultimately want to end up eventually. What really matters is what you can change in the present day and time instead of trying to change the hands of time. Wisdom is gained through bad decisions/choices/circumstances and problems inherited from family politics and unresolved issues.
What matters is how you pick yourself up after each fall/stumble. What really matters is your approach to life and the path you find yourself in versus the direction of the journey you want to take.
No one will believe in your dreams and aspirations more than you would. Believing in yourself and abilities is important.

2014 till the past month (June 2015) Has been a rough year to me, not only financially but emotionally as well. A lot happened, a lot of pain was unleashed. A few dreams were derailed, rejection was the order of each and every day. Friends turned their backs on me. Others pretended to have my back, spoke well of me in front of potential clients only to discredit me behind closed doors based on my past failures and mistakes. Others folded their arms and waited for me to exhaust all options and everything I had.
At first, I took all that negatively. Drank a lot. Cried a bit and locked myself up in a world that no one could find or reach me.
I allowed myself to be numb, distanced myself from everyone. At first, that seemed to be of some help. It felt good not explaining myself to anyone. What i didn't realize then was that, the more i shut the world out was the more the world evolved and progressed right in front of my eyes. That is how I got left out and missed out on opportunities and chances to advance myself in life or change my situation.
Truth be told, we all have ourselves to blame for everything that  we are or have become. Life will happen the way it was meant to happen, there is little we can do to change fate, but we have the power to control how we react to every situation we find ourselves in.
One evening of drinking in the dark by myself, I suddenly realized how I have failed to learn one simple lesson about life: " No one owes you anything in this world. You owe it to yourself to be what you aspire to be."
That hit me hard and made me look back at how much time, resources and opportunities I had lost through how I have been reacting to all the rejection and ill treatment from family, friends and colleagues. I could have made the choice to stand on my own 15 years ago, who knows, maybe I would have traveled half the world as I had traveled half of South Africa. I could have started my company earlier and helped more young men realize the importance of self belief and grow an understanding on what it means to be "a man". Maybe i could have met half the individuals I look up to and gather knowledge on how to follow on their footsteps and carry on from where they have left off.
"Maybe" and "If only..." are words I can not live by anymore but can reflect on and learn from.
" I will" and "I can" are words I have adopted and will live by for as long as I am alive and are willing to pick myself up and give life a second third shot.
As a young man, i encourage you not to be a victim of your circumstances or imagination. Do away with: " what if things don't work out"? Do away with: "If people with degrees and PhD's can't make it, who am I to think i can do it?"
You have control over what you want to achieve. If you can dream and think it about it, surely you can apply yourself into doing it and maintaining it.
Do not be dismayed by what life might throw at you. Do not be dissuaded by your age or achievements thus far, or let those who have not yet been exposed to the harsh realities the majority of the population is currently living under get to you/break you down.
As long as you have good health, determination, courage and hope, strength and good planning, nothing will stop you from achieving all that you dream of achieving.
You have made it thus far, fix yourself and invest more energy, time and dedication towards shaping your today in preparation for a better tomorrow.

My name is Sithembile Ngcobo, a young man learnig to let go of what has been and focus on what could be. Who are you and what are you prepared to learn to let go?

" Life is what you choose it to become, you have no one to blame for how it turns out like if you do not take control of it."

Dangers of Procrastination

                  Learning to Let Go

Procrastination

“I will do it tomorrow/latter/when I get time….etc.” How often do we say those words? How often do we allow people to give those words as satisfactory answers/solutions to our pressing matters?

Time lost is never regained. There is no better time than the present. Dreams and ideas become not a matter of “if time allows”, but a matter of “when I make time” for everything I want to achieve. Start with allowing yourself to make time to:

Think about it.

Plan it.

Execute it

Modify/restructure and try again.

It has been a while since I have allowed myself a chance to listen to my heart, listen to the silent impulsive voices of its beat and dance to its rhythm. It has been a while since I have allowed myself to just be and forget how things have been.

Reflecting on the past is always a commendable exercise to do, what we are not taught as young men is how to deal with the stagnant pain and sinkholes we find in our past. The pain of not knowing how to deal with pain doubles up and builds up pockets of pressure and frustrations that consumes us to a point where we lose ourselves to substance abuse, peer pressure and self-pity.



In life, you will encounter a number of different characters. There are 3 that stand out for me:

Those who will put you in difficult situations.

Those who will leave you when you encounter difficult situations.

Those who will stand by you and help you get back on your feet or get started.



You can be all these characters at once in certain cases. I know this because I too have played all 3 roles in my life.

The (i) Choices I’ve made in the past have seen me get into difficult situations. My (ii) ignorance has seen me get hurt and lose hope in ever finding happiness and seeing my dreams take flight. My (iii) trusting&forgiving nature has seen me getting burnt by the same flames I tried to douse and contain.

It is easy to become a victim of your own circumstances. It is easy to fall into traps that you unwittingly set yourself thinking you know where you put them and how to avoid them.

As a young man with dreams the size of my world, I urge you young person/old person/young at heart individual, not to be a victim of your own circumstances.

I urge you not to give up on that which comes from the heart due to frustrations of not finding suitable people to help you get started.

I urge you not to settle where pain resides. You will find nothing but regrets and pity parties there. Yesterday isn’t here today because it has to make room for tomorrow.

I urge you to encourage, motivate and give direction to those who are misled and confused by changing times and the era we are living in. Money is everything you need to make life easier, but respect; humility; selflessness are everything you need to sustain your rich heart & mind.

It all starts with you knowing what you are working towards. It all begins with wanting to start. It all begins with you wanting to see yourself through and help out where you can without any expectations of any form of monetary rewards or applause directed to you.

Where there is focus, dedication; courage and energy are bound to flow/follow….and results are always worth the effort put in.

It is with great pleasure to find myself once again. To focus on that which my heart sings about in silence. To focus on that which I dream about each day I hear/read or meet young successful individuals doing great in their fields.

If you read this and know anyone or you are offering mentorship opportunities or involved in the establishment of community based projects, I urge you to link me up with them.

My email address is: s.c.mbelu@gmail.com

My contact details are: 0718684508



Help me help those who need help and who are at the same age as I was when I needed help but no one was there to offer any.

“Be the change you want to see”, not just talk about