When you're older, you'll make sisters. Sisters that will be dear to you. Women that you'll never let go of, never say goodbye to. When you'e older, you'll be a megastar. Helping people is what you do best, that is surely to be your legacy. Whatever field you choose, God will smile and bless those that you touch. When you're older, you'll dance with someone special. Someone special is someone that you should keep, so don't do something stupid for them to leave. When you're older, people will love you. When you come, they will shower flowers on the ground you walk on. When you want a favor, they'll do it right away, forbid any questions asked. When you're older, childish things won't bother you. You are good and alright with and by yourself. When you're older, peace is the norm. Knowing who you are shouldn't be as hard as pinning a cloud from the high sky, but as familiar as the words that roll out of your mouth. When you're older, you'll take care of your parents. Talk with them, laugh with them, share with them, all of that. Show your thanks through the work you do for them. Show your thanks through the work you do because of them. When you're older, you'll get closer with God. Your sisters will be on the same journey, as you would be, and daily conversations with the Most High will come naturally in your spirit and renew your flesh. So when you're older, you'll get closer with God. When you're older, you will simply experience true happiness. The kind that is not dependent on any thing or any one. The kind that is not dependent on any substance or circumstance, but the kind of happiness that comes purely within.

What should my next story be about?

- Who are you when no one's looking? Find the answer and we'll come back to our conversation, - I was told long time ago. As we know, everything takes place for a reason. Let me take you to the journey of a mindset change. Initially I associated the term quarantine with fear, hesitancy and negativity. In case of following this path, it could lead to the lowest point of life. And as it happened to be true, quarantine became part of our life in a pretty unexpected way. Want it or not, but it makes an impact. In my case the impact was life-changing. Yet, don't rush with assumptions. After spending a while isolated, a quite unanticipated thought crossed my mind. It made me realize that there's a meeting I've been postponing for so long. This is the worst time to make it happen, so I'll go for it :) Despite the rules of staying at home during this dangerous period of quarantine I felt that it could no longer be on hold. The person I wanted to meet was the one who asked me the key question. Even though I didn't have the answer by that time, I knew I'd be welcomed anyway. Honestly, I wasn't ready mentally. The time was inappropriate. I didn't reach to the point when I could feel comfortable with that person. Is this feeling of insecurity familiar to you? When the person knows the REAL you. However, I dared to take my chance, cause especially this period turned the inner calmness into priority. We met. It was a long conversation filled with gloominess, uncertainty, frustration, patience, simplicity, joy, tranquility. Quarantine has this unique effect of forcing us to face our deepest fears, memories, thoughts. I mean the hidden ones. The ones we weren't able to notice before, because of our previous “busy” lifestyle. We all have multiple identities, simply said – versions of ourselves. Some are “proven” by society; therefore those are the ones we show to the rest of the world. Our family, friends, basically everyone recognizes us as THAT kind of person. Still there's one left. A real version remains undetected. The one we try to hide so determinedly. Probably, my initial assumption wasn't precise. Particularly when I claimed that the timing of this meeting wasn't the best one. Apparently, society's isolation set the true identity of mine free for a while. That was the moment when 2 puzzles combined. Eventually the fulfillment I felt afterwards made me realize that our inner peace and needed mental balance is held by facing The Person – the only version of ourselves shown only when no one is looking.

I have trouble remember dates of most historic events. I am sure a lot of people probably have the same type of trouble. My hypothesis is that with my imagination I visualize the event as though it is a story, while first learning about it, I am given the date so I am able to imagine that time period. However, that is the last time I use the date when thinking about the events. So, when asked I have trouble recalling it, though I can recall a wide range like 500bc to 280bc ... I think the oddest part is that Icould probably describe the event very vividly like it is a story. Yet I cannot remember 3 to 4 exact numbers, and definitly cannot remember it, if months and days are requirements. My answer now is; If I did not know something in history occured or existed until today. Since I am imagining these evenrs taking place on this day. Then the date those days took place is TODAY, fore they did not exsist in my mind until this day. Mankind does not exist unless it is Present

Still in PT to get stronger and more help to breath. Have been here 4 months , miss my Blitzkrieg ( my wife Annegret) talk later

He stood alone in the outhouse, his back to the door held open by his girlfriend. If not for the twelve-gauge shotgun in his hands, he would have appeared to be doing what normal people do in an outhouse. But his plans were not normal. His companions' cheered and dared in the secluded, pristine northern California campsite. The friends were alone along the banks of the riverside campsite. In the offseason, few people braved the cold conditions, unless partying. The remote area provided privacy, a nice beach along the bank, enough wilderness to do some target practice, and a convenient outhouse. This site suited the needs of Danny and younger brothers Sam and Frank who planned the weekend outing to get back to nature, with their girlfriends. Older, more experienced, Danny ruled the group. Stronger than his size suggested, a true outdoorsman, he was the kind of guy people followed. The kind who'd been kicked out of community college when the admissions staff discovered he hadn't bothered to graduate from high school. “Wasted four months of my life,” Danny would say. Danny seemed to draw the company of attractive women with ease. His companion this trip was Amy. Wilder than most, with no fear in her soul, she stood ready for any adventure. An adrenaline junkie, she proclaimed life was too short to live it bored. Middle brother, Sam, more of a thinker the studious sort who, at age ten, calculated the trajectory and ricochet of a BB fired at a telephone pole, bounced it off and struck Frank in the head. The shot was legend in their family. Sam reveled in solving puzzles of all varieties; the more difficult, the greater the sense of accomplishment. Sam brought his girlfriend Kathy to the campsite. A wonderful girl, her heart wide-open to everyone she met. Her thick black hair stationed almost a head taller than everyone else in the group, her intellect hovered well below the dimmest. Youngest brother, Frank would rather play than work, viewed school as an excuse to play sports and date girls. Athletic, affable, with a smile that beamed likability, he slid through his youth on cruise-control, and did only as much as necessary to get by. Bore him with the mundane, and he would be lost to the lure of pretty girls or any other equipment that bounced. Frank's girlfriend Cheryl, a quiet introspect, preferred dancing or reading good books to trapesing around in the wilderness. Athletic, carefree, and nimble, she lied to her parents to go on the weekend outing. Just the type of girl Frank admired. During an afternoon target shoot, Sam wanted to experience the kick of Danny's ten-gauge shotgun. Kathy warned him to be careful. Afraid of the recoil, he held the shotgun away from his body, pulled the trigger. The gun flew out of his hands and landed behind him in the rocks. Sam stood frozen, his hands still clutched the now imaginary shotgun. Danny barked, “Go pick it up and clean it. Next time think about what you're doing!” That night they sat around the campfire, the only respite from the chill of the autumn air. Frank snuggled close with Cheryl. Sam offered well-chilled beers retrieved from the near-freezing river. Danny, his personality bolder than studious, pondered the effect of firing a ten-gauge shotgun into the outhouse hole. Cheryl cautioned him, stating she thought it a bad idea. Rather than dissuading his doomed-to-fail experiment, the rest of the group's shared inebriation resulted in rousing support. He decided it was a good idea, grabbed his weapon and strode to the outhouse. While Amy held the door open, he stood facing the open hole, shotgun at his waist, ready to fire. The others gathered nearby to witness. Danny pulled the trigger. The report boomed a concussive shock that stunned everyone. In an instant, the scene became surreal, played out in slow motion like a WWII movie. Danny stood frozen in place, as if unable to comprehend the need for retreat. His eyes followed a large column of thick, brackish muck as it rushed up to the outhouse ceiling and exploded in every direction. The group cheered and laughed. Danny stepped out of the outhouse; they laughed without control. Splotches of fecal matter in various states of liquid and solid forms covered his blue jeans and white t-shirt. His face showed the depths of his humiliation in the smears left from wiping the sludge from his eyes. His embarrassment highlighted by bits of toilet paper that clung to the splatter from his head to his feet. He stood there resigned to his misery and announced, “I'm going for a swim; anyone want to join me?” Most declined the invitation and left him alone to brave the frigid water. As everyone watched, Amy and Danny stripped naked and dove in. Kathy said, “That was great.” Sam agreed, adding, “But not smart.” Cheryl looked at Frank and said, “We warned him. When will guys listen to girls when we say what you're doing is dumb or dangerous?” “I'm guessing never,” replied Frank. “We're not that smart.”

The wind was yelling at everyone and everything in sight. Daring itself to be heard and felt. Waves slapped at the edges of the rocks and hurled themselves over the dock as the wind twisted them to its liking. With every moving mountain my body swayed in time to the raging water. At least it appeared to be raging. On the surface it was letting itself be affected by the wind. It was being changed and controlled by the pressure of the air around it, but deep down it was still exactly as it always was, calm and beautiful and genuine. Deep down at its core the pressure of the outside world couldn't touch it. When I am trying to impress people, when I am betraying who I really am, I am like water. I am twisted and contorted by what's around me, by the force of peer pressure that causes chaos on the surface. Huge, tumbling, chaotic waves that leave people thinking I'm dangerous or out of control, but deep down I am still me. Deep down at my core people can't get to the real me, but what's under the surface doesn't always matter if I let the wind control my path. What's deep down at my core won't matter if I don't force it to take control of the surface. But sometimes, instead of doing just that, I follow the path of the wind. I let people see who I think they want to see. I try too hard to be the perfect surface, while ignoring the reality underneath it. I try too hard to be the perfect version of me, when instead I should be trying not to let other people decide who that person is. Instead of being what other people think is the perfect version maybe I should be the genuine one. Why hide the real me? For fear that I be called dramatic, annoying, unsuccessful…I know now that people can say what they want because all of those things are better than being fake. They can say what they want, call me what they will. I'm proud to be me. I'm proud to think the way I do, even if it is different. I'm proud to feel things so strongly, even if it does make me overly emotional. I'm proud to be the person I am, and from now on I refuse to let the wind rattle my surface. People may not always understand the way I process, the way I think, the way I feel, but I don't understand the way they do those things either. Everybody is their own body of water, and everybody has something different way down deep in their depths. This is me...Imperfection makes me feel dizzy, loss of control makes me feel helpless, and emotion gets to me overwhelmingly. That's why I began to write, to write about the world in the way I see it. To write about the things that my imagination creates. To write about things in a way that can make people stop and think about things that they've never thought about before. One day I want to travel the world and meet all the different people, and see all the different places. I want to write about them, and the way they make me feel, the way they make me think. I want to talk to people in other countries. People with other cultures and mindsets. I want to hear those people's stories. I want to hear their ideas and their beliefs. I want to open myself up to all the things in the world, without forgetting the things deep down beneath the surface of my water.

Today is a new day, we have to approach it that way. Life comes and goes so fast, if we blink we miss it, and what we planned on starting has already ended before we give it a go. So take time to succeed. Focus, reach for your dreams and live life one day at a time, because we have only so much time in a day.

What I want to talk about is a solution that I have come up with as an African leader which I think is a sustainable way to finance development and transformation in community areas of Africa. We have an existing problem in our community when it comes to continuance availability of developmental funds which has led stalled improvements in our living standards and has led to some of the community projects either cancelled or halted and I believe it's also what most communities and counties in Africa face. I believe the solution is the establishment of a development fund for our community of which its proceedings will be used to develop our communities and their transformation. last rain season every household in our community was told to contribute money to make repairs to damaged community roads. But a few weeks after the repairs were made the roads were damaged by rain again and people become reluctant to contribute money again. This is an example of situations many areas in our country face were there can be an availability of funds for infrastructure maintenance and development but the source of the funds is not sustainable. I see that the main problem is not just availability of development funds but the problem is also the continuance flow of those funds in order to complete their objective. In the example I gave about how our community contributed funds to develop our roads rather than wait for government, the problem come because the source of the funds was not sustainable and when there was pause in contributions from the people, the project failed. The problem also manifest in many projects in our country evidenced by the countless number of unfinished projects that have turned official headquarters for those running from the law all because there was a halt in flow of funds . When I was thinking of a plan that can be put in place to insure that there is a continuance flow of funds that can be used for infrastructural and community development , then I found a certain book about Malawi's history where part of it talked about an initiative that our former president Dr. Bakili Muluzi established in 1995. Instead of injecting money directly into development projects he established a trust fund, the Press trust fund. The fund invested the money that Dr. Muluzi channeled to it and then from the profits it acquired from the invested it made was used to fund different projects like building schools , hospitals and also funding other initiatives and The fund has been around for years and it continues to grow in size . This is the approach I want our communities to take. If I was a leaders of our society I will lead to the creation of a development fund or Trust that we can use its revenues for the development work of our community. instead of contributing money to fund one project at a time, the Best approach is contribute money for establishment of a community trust funds that can invest in different business or low risk investments like mutual funds, then the revenues that we get from the investments be used to finance development of our community in things like road maintenance, buying teaching materials for our local primary school that usually don't have small materials like chalk and other things. The fund can also invest in businesses people are involved in which means it can also foster economic empowerment. Strict rules, guidelines and protocols can be put in place on how to operate the development fund to ensure its proper operation and accountability so as to make sure no one person misuse the funds which is also what rocks many projects in Africa. In implementing such an initiative I can like very much to work with the youths so as to involve them in coming up with sustainable solutions to the problems in our society because as everyone says that the youth we are the cornerstones of the society and we are the next presidents, minister and executives. If the youth of today accept responsibilities , take part in coming up and implementing sustainable solutions to our problems and work towards the development and transformation of their societies then we will have great leaders in our society and together we can uplift our societies , the country and the world at large. Sometimes small actions matter in solving a problem than wait for those we look up to and maybe this small actions may motivate other people into a movement that can change the world. So I think the model of creating development fund for our society can turn into a movement where development funds will be created by other societies, countries and leaders because of its sustainability. If the youth I can work up with ends up seeing the benefits of a development fund then a new generation of leaders will be emerged with a different perspective towards financing development and transformation in a sustainable way.

Sometimes, I like to think. Some people think about what they're going to wear the next day, some think about the big game on TV, and others, whatever seems to pass the time by. I used to find myself thinking about my future. On my fourteenth birthday, I wrote the following: "I feel I worry too much. From this day, I have 365.25 days until I am fifteen, 730.5 days until I am sixteen, about 1,095.75 days until I am seventeen, and 1,461 days until I am eighteen. "School is about halfway done. Eighth grade can't seem to see how much I wish it would slow down. I suppose it enjoys making me feel sad from my memories long out of my reach, and laughs in my face when I wish to turn back time. Ninth grade is in about 9 months. In roughly 17 months, I will have graduated from Junior High, and in about 20 months I will start High School. "In about 56 months, my education will move from home. In 56 months, I'll have a High School Diploma. In 56 months, I will gain access to colleges all around the world. In 56 months, I will be leaving home; my family and childhood friends. "After 56 months are up, I will not know what to do. "I hope to make each day count. "I hope to accomplish much until then." Even though I wrote this only fourteen months ago, my perspective has completely changed. Our futures aren't meant to be worried about. They aren't supposed to be planned to the exact pinpoint and time in our lives; they're mean to be lived. Our lives should be filled with mistakes. With forks in roads and paths that wind off somewhere we didn't plan to follow. Girls were made to follow rabbits down rabbit holes and boys were meant to play King of the Forest with the trees, dreaming up fantasies in their minds and getting lost in the beauty of it all. That's why the best stories are those that weren't planned; the best adventures being the ones no one saw coming. Let your worries go, and live.