One More Light

Who cares if one more light goes out?

In a sky of a million stars

It flickers, flickers

Who cares when someone's time runs out?

If a moment is all we are

We're quicker, quicker

Who cares if one more light goes out?

Well I do

One More Light - Linkin Park

Hey brothers and sisters. Tonight I am going to talk to you about the dreaded topic of depression. As always, I come to you not as an expert but as someone who continually faces and overcomes the struggles he speaks about. Have I struggled with depression? Of course. Have I conquered it once and for all, no. My aim in writing to you is to show you how I view depression and how I fight it whenever it comes upon me. I hope you enjoy the read.

Should've stayed, were there signs, I ignored?

Can I help you, not to hurt, anymore?

 First of all, depression in my view is not a mental illness as some claim it is. It is a part of our lives which we ordinarily do not wish to see. How do I mean? A coin has two sides. Day and night are part of the same cycle. The night may indeed be dark and there may be many terrors but without the night, day loses meaning, it loses value. King Solomon once said, "Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us." To be clear, sorrow is not depression but it often leads to it. 

I would like to debunk the myth of depressed people being "mentally ill", to me this is a false innuendo especially employed in situations where a mentally deranged person performs an outrageous act such as a mass shooting. In such cases, when people have trouble understanding why certain people, hitherto unsuspected of being capable of performing such heinous acts, end up perpetrating them; the use of the phrase is employed. You see what I mean? There is a great misuse of the term, "mentally ill" and the trouble is, it leads to ostracism for those who are actually depressed, therefore making such people unlikely to ever report or share their struggle with depression with the people who can actually help.

And you're angry, and you should be, it's not fair

Just 'cause you can't see it, doesn't mean it, isn't there

To what can I best compare depression? Depression, is best explained with an anecdote from the famous Sci-Fi series, The Walking Dead. In the TV show, people suddenly become zombies after they are bitten by other zombies and start attacking normal, healthy human beings. It was not until much later in the series when the cast finds out that people did not just become zombies because they were bitten by zombies, rather, everyone was infected by a particular disease and if they died, they would turn into zombies. This is the same way I view depression, or as some scholars would call it, clinical depression. We all have the seeds of depression within us. We all fall prey to it sometimes, whether we show it or not.

As I see it, when depression occurs one often feels sapped of energy, spent, without choice, trapped by circumstance, as if no further help is possible. These feelings are often as a result of the individual having felt frustrated and sad, sometimes due to feelings of loss or abandonment. Women generally handle depression better than men, as they tend to share their problems more. Men on the other hand believe themselves to be the masters of their own destinies. They take the bull by the horns and face it squarely. If a man fails critically at a task he feels is personal to him, he will not share with anyone else. He will turn the problem over in his mind looking for a solution until one is found or until he has no choice but to admit defeat.

This is the most crucial step. In this particular case, if a man faces a problem that he cannot solve and for which he feels he cannot seek help, then only two choices are really available to him, to distract himself until he finds a solution to the problem or depression. It is a mark of pride for a man to fix a problem all by himself and not to complain about it. This is why often men will not let other people know that they are facing something. 

Women on the other hand can sometimes get depressed when they experience the same feelings of entrapment. Such is the case when a highly educated and so-called "empowered" woman is battered by her husband. Usually such women feel embarrassed to admit it and wish for their peers not to know. Sometimes such women are brave enough to speak up about the issue but cannot leave because they fear that their children will be abused physically as well. Especially in the case where the man is a high profile figure, for example a senior police officer.

There are many cases that lead to depression, job loss, cancer, sickness, rape, domestic abuse, constant failure, under appreciation and emotional abuse. The list goes on and on, time and a lack of infinite knowledge on the subject matter bar me from listing all the possible causes of depression. I've been through some of the above, so how did I overcome it?

There is no one size fits all approach to overcoming depression, but here is what I find that works for me:

• Friends - I am a man, I don't talk about most of my problems. Sometimes, I get sad, really sad and the world moves on without me. However, when my friends are around me, we can talk about completely unrelated subjects that can distract even from a while from the darkness inside

Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to talk with you again...

• Darkness - Sounds controversial right? Depression management experts often say that when feeling depressed, resist the desire to isolate yourself. Well I don't disagree entirely, but I believe you need some time to be completely alone with your thoughts, no matter how dark they are. In the darkness, I isolate myself not just from people, but from objects. I stay away from my phone, my tools, the only thing I sometimes stay near is the bed, so that I can sit on the floor and lean on the bed. Being alone with my thoughts helps. I believe in the "Phoenix mentality" (yeah I totally invented that one). Some call it the "bounce back mentality" but I prefer to call it the Phoenix mentality because I allow myself to feel worse and to have darker thoughts till I break down and then I find my strength in the darkness and I do not leave the darkness until I have a morsel of strength.

When words fail, music speaks...

• Music - As with the case above, I allow myself first to listen to sad or angry music, the music that expresses exactly what I am feeling, what I can't put into words. I like using YouTube for this as it allows me to search for the songs I like easily and quickly, but also because in time it learns what mood I am in and begins to recommend similar songs. In time, I no longer need to select the music, the songs it auto-selects for me end up cheering me up. This is not because YouTube plays the music I love or need to hear, but rather that, by maintaining a certain rhythm or tempo, my mind finds a way to deal with the situation.

I want you to know that there won't always be a light at the end of tunnel and sometimes you will simply not know what to do, or you will just want to end it all. I want to encourage you, the universe is not yet done with you. Godspeed.

Who cares if one more light goes out?

Well I do

As a token of my appreciation for having followed me through this long and arduous article, please find below a link to the playlist I was listening to while writing this article.

I made the playlist as I was writing this article so it only has 15 songs. Once again, enjoy!

The Climb

There's always gonna be another mountain

I'm always gonna wanna make it move

Always gonna be an uphill battle

Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there

Ain't about what's waiting on the other side

It's the climb

The Climb - Miley Cyrus

Happy New Year! Oh wait, I am a little late aren't I? No matter. I'd like to talk to you today about hiking and the lessons that we can draw from being on the hiking trail. Why don't we start with a story. The year was 2018 and I was a strapping young man bursting with dreams and ideas, but not much of a sense of adventure. One day as I was parting with a friend, he casually asked me, "Joe do you hike?" I replied yes with some hesitation despite the fact that I had only hiked once before in my entire life. He asked me if I was ready to attend a hike and I again replied yes. A few weeks later I was on a bus on my way to Naivasha for a hike on 3 hills, all to be done on the same day. It has been a year since then and I am still hiking. Last Saturday, I went for the toughest hike that I have ever attended and these are the lessons that I learned from it.

Hiking requires a goal

In hiking as in life, one requires a clear goal. For a lot of people, their goal in hiking is be fit. For others it is to have fun and still for others it is to meet new people and to travel. Everyone who hikes regularly has a reason as to why they hike and so it is in life. One of the things that everyone needs to be happy is something to do, something meaningful. Goals give us something to pursue, something to work towards, something to focus on and something to apply ourselves to. The feeling of achievement that we experience in reaching these goals reinforces who we are and makes us more confident of pursuing other goals.

Beyond our individual selves, goals unite us with people who have similar goals and allow us to be more effective. Hikers often hike in groups. It is not only more fun to hook up with other people in pursuit of a common passion but it is also immensely rewarding since it allows you to learn a lot of things much faster.

Hiking requires preparation

I once heard of a story in which a bunch of girls showed up for a hike in high heels. Needless to say that this was ill advised. Hiking is not an ordinary day to day activity, it requires some preparation. For one, you need to hydrate for days before the actual hike, this is because the hill will cause you dehydration, dehydration will lead to several issues including; headaches, weakness, dizziness and lower blood pressure. None of this is good on a regular day, on a hike they are especially perilous given the many dangers associated with hiking, such as falling from high points. 

You also need hiking gear including but not limited to a bag to carry the things you will need for the hike, two or more bottles of water, light food, hiking boots and hiking poles. You may need more or less equipment depending on the mountain or hill that you intend to climb.

In life as in hiking, you must prepare yourself adequately in order to pursue your life goals. Good things don't come easy and you must be prepared to pay the price to get to where you want to be. 

You may start together, but you don't finish together

Hiking is every bit a competitive sport as running is. In particular, hiking is a lot like a marathon. You may all start at a common point but as you go along, divisions start to occur. Some people naturally move faster, mostly because they have hiked before and are thus better prepared for it. In the same way, in life there are people who move through certain stages in life faster than others. These people don't always reach the summit or the finish line before everyone else. 

In Hiking as in most marathons, it matters not that you are the first one, it only matters that you finish. 

It's not about the destination, it is about the journey

Success means nothing without the challenge. 

“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value...” - Thomas Paine

Oftentimes people curse while they are climbing the mountain. Why? The climb is tough. You fight against gravity, both on the way up and on the way down. You fight the heat and the cold. It might rain or it might be windy. Yes indeed, you might have to climb through treacherous terrain while battling hailstones, I know I have. Such is life. While pursuing your dreams you will encounter hailstorms. You will face adverse conditions when you thought that you were already facing your worst day, again, I have been there.

Have you ever had such a bad year that you thought it couldn't get worse and then it did? Yeah it's not funny at all. 

You will go through things in life which you will not understand while you are going through them 

- Les Brown

When you reach you destination, when you achieve that long time dream, when everything culminates into that one dream that you have always had then it will all make sense. Adversity makes the man, remember that. Therefore, enjoy your journey. If you fall seven times, rise up eight times! The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.

The Higher Your Goal, The Harder It Will Be To Reach It

When we were hiking last weekend, we kept seeing a summit. We would climb hard and reach it, only to be told that it was not the actual summit of the mountain. It took six and a half hours to get to the fifth summit, which was the real summit of the mountain. By then, everything in my body was screaming in pain, but it was nothing compared to my exhaustion. I had never had a hard hike prior to last weekend and this was a tough hike. By the time I made it to the summit, I was dead tired. I collapsed onto a rock and lay there like a dying soldier.

It is important to note here that I had been on other hikes before, most of which had not really bothered me. I have been on marathons to me too. This was different. By the time I was halfway, I was utterly exhausted. It took sheer willpower and lots of encouragement to get to the peak. 

Life goals are much like my experiences hiking, the lower your goal, the easier it is to achieve, but also it is less rewarding. The higher your goal is, the harder it is to reach but also, the greater the reward.

You will make it but not alone

Now I know there are incredibly fit people who can hike the most formidable mountains in Africa in astoundingly short durations, in fact, I have met them. Some of them were at that very hike, both men and women. Can I tell you a secret? Don't judge a book by its cover. There were some short slender ladies on that hike who could carry incredible weights and who completed the hike in record time. It is absolutely shocking how some people can carry the equivalent of half their weight in a backpack and still not struggle to climb a steep mountain.

For me it was different. I weigh two hundred and ten pounds, far more than anyone else at that hike and far beyond the recommended weight of someone my height. I am a strong person and like I mentioned earlier, I have hiked before without straining too much. This was different. I ran out of water much earlier than I expected. I ran out of strength halfway to the top. My body trembled and I became frail. My heart beat erratically. Sometimes my heart pounded furiously, at other times it slowed so much that my whole body was consumed with weakness and I had to sit down or collapse. 

I fell several times. Every part of my body hurt. I reached within several hundred meters of the peak but my body was too weak to continue. I resorted to making ten steps forward then pausing for thirty seconds, sometimes more. It was hard. I had been fighting the voices of doubt for several hours. I had been fighting a strong desire to quit as others had done. I had been fighting to continue but now, my body had had it. It was not simply a question of will, it was also a question of ability. Soon I was making five steps then stopping for two minutes. 

I managed to get within a couple hundred meters of the peak but beyond that I could not continue. A friendly lady kept encouraging me. The two of us were the last ones. She too was suffering just like I was but she had the strength to go on, I did not. She promised not to leave me but said that we had to make it to the summit. I tried but I could not go on. I was now only able to make just three steps, then I had to stop for two minutes to heave and pant. 

My heart was moving so slow I thought I was going to die. Coupled with that, I was fighting the bitter urge to vomit. The ground was muddy and it was hard to move at all. To make matters worse we were at an altitude of nearly 4,000 meters above sea level. I had never been above 2,800 meters above sea level. Even the vegetation was different. The grass protruded well above the ground and concealed the ground beneath, it tripped us many times.

Then the hiking guide showed up. He took my hand and he pulled me forward. With him I could at least take ten steps forward before resting for thirty seconds, again. With him, I made it to the peak. For the final steps to the top of the mountain, I asked him to let me do it alone. He acknowledged my request and released my hand. I leaned on my hiking pole with all my might. My lungs were burning. Every breath felt like it was my last. It was as if I was drowning out of water, it is a hard feeling to describe, panting like an ox but feeling like each breath is hardly enough. I eventually made it to the top and collapsed on a rock.

I was wearing very light clothes but the cold did not bother me, I had made it and I deserved my rest. The hiking instructor woke me up from my sleep and asked me to wear something warm. "If you sleep here like this, you may never wake up," he said. I decided to wear the t-shirt so that I could get back to sleeping. Unfortunately this was not to be. The way down would be just as long as the way up and we had to leave immediately. 

I have seldom been tested the way I was on that mountain but through it I learned a lot more than I can share here, including the kindness of strangers and the capacity of the human body to adapt and endure.

The view is beautiful at the top

In other words, it is worth the pain, it is worth the struggle. Let your dreams guide you to the place your heart calls home.

You must give everything to make your life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in your imagination - Roman Payne

It is my hope that you enjoyed this article. It is also my hope that these goals will guide you in pursuing your life goals. Till next time, stay strong, stay hungry and stay foolish 

Of French & Love

Je pressens ton envie de bouger

(I sense your desire to dance)

Acceptes-tu cette danse?

(Do you accept this dance?)

C'est Ladies Night, tu es à l'honneur

(It is ladies night, you have the honour)

Allons, viens, danse

(Come, dance)

Je m'éveille sous ta sensualité

(Your sensuality arouses me )

Donne-moi une chance

(Give me a chance)

C'est plus que je ne peux endurer

(It is more than I can take)

Allons, viens, danse

(Come, dance)

Slaï - La dernière danse

It was a warm day in August. The sun was shining brightly in the sky even though it was 5pm. There was little to no wind and dust covered the streets. The young man called his friend from his hostel. She lived within the campus grounds, in a girls' hostel where up to four girls would share a single room. Each floor of the girls' hostel had shower facilities where all the girls belonging to the same floor would go to bathe themselves. Often a visiting boy would grin with glee when he saw girls wrapped in towels walking by. The girls always looked so angry when they saw the boys.

The call ended. The girl asked him to meet her in her room. They were planning for a party for a group of friends and she was the treasurer. The purpose of his visit would simply be to make his contribution. He made his way from his room in a hostel outside the campus to the campus itself. It took longer than usual as there were more students around campus than usual. Then again, it was almost exam time. The time when everyone showed up at campus, from students who skived classes often to absentee lecturers.

He passed by the guards at the campus gate and headed towards the girls' hostel. The guards did not search him as they had become accustomed to seeing him by now. Newer faces were not so easily allowed through the gate, a valid student ID was required. The university had many buildings all over. The closest one to the gate was Hall 13, the famous Hall 13 where girls disappeared on Friday and magically reappeared on Monday. 

It was a boys' hostel of course, their favourite. Next were the merchant shops where one could purchase anything, from snacks to condoms, from printing paper to leaked exam papers. This was the place to go for all student needs. The merchant shops adjoined the newest mess hall where the Hall 13 residents always dined. From there one could choose to go to the other hostels or to Hall 14, where classes took place from Monday to Friday. He took the path to the hostels.

There were three girls' hostels and three boys' hostels. Four of the five hostels were across from each other divided only by a common corridor. He passed by the first hostel, this was a boy's hostel and was on his left. He reached the second boys' hostel that was also to his left but rather, he turned right so that he now faced the girls' hostel that he had been instructed to go to. He took the stairs to get to the second floor and walked past a few girls in towels to get to the room where his friend lived. 

He knocked on the door and dipped his hand in his pocket. He began fumbling for his wallet just as the door opened. He froze. His friend was a short dark-skinned African lady with a big smile. She was a simple girl who almost always plaited her hair and dressed conservatively. Standing in front of him was a shapely, light-skinned woman wearing a beige sweater cutting a low neckline revealing large succulent breasts, the kind whereby the complexion lightens as you get closer to the nipples. Her hair was curly and she looked anything but simple. 

"Yes?" she said. "I err...I'm searching for my friend Monica..." the boy began to say. "She's not here," the girl said interrupting the boy. "Ah well, okay." He turned and began to walk away. She closed the door. He pulled out his mobile phone and called his friend Monica. She picked up his call after the third ring. "Hi Monica. I came to your room but I found that you are not yet here..." he began. "But there should be someone there," she insisted. "Err...yes," he said hesitantly. "Then just wait for me there," she said. "Err..." the boy said. "Wait for me there," she said and hung up. 

The boy walked slowly back to the door and knocked again. The buxom lady opened the door again. "She err...asked me to wait for her here," he said sheepishly. "It's okay," she said letting go of the door. He walked in to the room. It was an ordinary campus hostel room with two Double Decker beds and a balcony. Two large glass doors framed with wood separated the balcony from the room itself. The boy noticed a young slender man lying on the bed looking at him threateningly. Not wanting to get into a staring competition, the boy looked around for a place to sit. His eyes fell upon an adjacent table that was complemented by a stiff wooden chair. He walked to it and sat on the chair.

No sooner had he sat down than he realized that he had made a big mistake. The girl crawled over the young man and lay on him. Her hands were crossed under her breasts so that her body was slightly raised from the young man's. It meant that the young man had a very good view, but so did the boy. He wanted to turn the chair away from them, but to do so, he would have to turn it completely away from them so that his back faced them. This struck him as odd as it would give the impression that he was either ashamed of what he was seeing or that he was too young for such tender acts of passion. 

Le groove de la basse nous fait vibrer sur la séquence

(The groove of the bass makes us resonate in sequence)

Tes courbes qui ne cessent de me frôler me mettent en transe

(Your curves keep brushing againt me, putting me in a trance)

Sois ma captive, sois ma dulcinée

(Be my captive, be my sweetheart)

Qu'est-ce que t'en penses?

(What say you?)

Je me plierai à tes volontés

(I submit to your desires)

Donne-moi une chance

(Give me a chance)

Before he could make up his mind the young lady with an hour glass figure began to mutter beautiful things to the young man and little by little, she began to kiss him. The boy suddenly began to feel hot around the neck. This was more than he had bargained for. It was not just that they were kissing it was that they were conversing in a foreign language, one that he recognized but could not understand, French. The boy sat at the edge of his seat, erect, like an arrow about to be released.

The young man turned his head upside down for a moment so that he could see the boy. "Can't you wait outside?" he asked angrily. The boy began to get up but the attractive young woman waved him down. "No, it's okay. C'est bon mon chéri (it's okay darling)," she said. She kissed him twice but the young man would not relent. "You can wait for her outside!" he said angrily. This time the boy did not hesitate. He half-walked, half-ran out of the room. He quickly descended the stairs and walked out of the hostel. As he turned the corner in order to take the corridor that would lead him back to the gate and outside the campus, someone stopped him.

He looked up and saw Monica's face. "Hi!" she said brightly. "Hi," he said quickly. He shoved his contribution into Monica's hand and began to walk away. She stopped him again. "Are you okay?" she asked him. "Your roommate had a guest," the boy said. "Sorry," she said to him apologetically. He could see it in her eyes. She too had been an unexpected guest at a similarly erotic show.

It has been nearly a decade since this happened and I am glad to report that I now speak French :-)

Dear Future Wife

Who can say where the road goes
Where the day flows, only time
And who can say if your love grows
As your heart chose, only time

- Enya

 Dear Future wife, I love you and I want you to know that my love for you is as endless as the sea. I know that you will be a good role model to our children and that together we will teach them in the way that they should go. Your love for them will be as boundless as the universe and under your tender care, they will flourish like roses in the spring. I know that I will be a loving and faithful husband to you my beautiful and virtuous wife and that we shall live long and savour the sweetness of our marriage.

My dear future wife, there are things about me that you need to understand before we can have that sweet life that awaits us. It is not my wish to alarm you, nor is it my intention to hurt you but I want you to know the person that I am before I marry you and share eternity with you. I want you to know that even though I love you that I won't always be as close to you as you'd want. It will not mean that I no longer love you, it will not mean that I no longer find you attractive, it will mean that I am not always superman, that sometimes I am Clark Kent.

My dearest sweetheart, I love you with a love that shall not die even if the sun should grow cold and the stars grow old. There is still more to me that will surprise you. My dear, please know that though I have big dreams and talk of great conquests, that I do not always succeed. I am no quitter but sometimes even my best is not enough. I will never give up, but if you see me silent and withdrawn, please understand that I just haven't found a way to win yet. Trust me and show me that you believe in me and I will find a way, not just to succeed but to come back to you.

My lovely dove, you know that I have few fears in this world. You know that I am a brave and steadfast man, who may sometimes blunder but who always bounces back in the end. My dearest treasure, my greatest fear is to lose you, not just through some natural calamity, no, my fear is that you will stop believing in me and in my dreams and in all that I have to offer you. My dreams are great yes, but my fear of gaining your love then losing it is greater. This is why sometimes I distance myself from you. My love for you is constant and unceasing, and if you never show any doubt in me, I will never make you feel alone or unloved.

My beloved princess, I know that I treat you out to great places and lavish you with expensive gifts. It is not always that my finances are good, it is that I want to share what I have with you, whenever I can. You see my love, I see you as a part of my life and because I am happy, I want to share my happiness with you. I would like for you to know that I do not wish for you to partake in my sorrows, my doubts and my fears. My precious love, I don't want you to see how truly vulnerable and weak I get sometimes when things don't work out, or when things aren't moving as fast as I want them to. It is at these times that the distance between us may grow. You see my love, you fell in love with Superman, you see my dear, I don't want you to see Clark Kent because I don't know if your heart can accommodate him too.

My gentle flower, I wish I was always strong, always sure about the future, never having a moment of doubt - like the starring characters of great action movies. I wish I could turn any situation around in the blink of an eye and make it all alright, but that's not how life works and Clark Kent doesn't know how to remove the cape that would show you the side of Superman that you don't know. 

My dearest love, I hope that someday that this will all make sense to you. Why I no longer call and why we go on fewer and fewer dates. I hope that some day you will understand, how hard it must be, to love someone and to know that you can't keep them. To care for someone but to be afraid to lose them. To want somebody whom you can't have, not because there is anything in the world that can stop you, but because to that person you are only Superman, and not Clark Kent.

I keep dreaming you'll be with me and you'll never go

But it's time to face the truth, I will never be with you...

The Sound of Silence

Hello darkness, my old friend

I've come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

The Sound of Silence - Disturbed

How did I end up back here? It's cold but that's not why my body is trembling. It's taking so much to write each word of this article. My passwords which I usually type without ever looking at the keyboard seem to be failing me today. As my hands tremble like a leaf in the cold blizzard of a bad winter. I try to make sense of things. Where did I go wrong? What did I do wrong? Why is everything so hazy? I feel so weak, like one denied food for days. Devoid of strength, eyesight failing. What is this feeling? Why do I feel like the air has been knocked out of my lungs?

Then I answer myself. It is because I became comfortable, because I got lazy. It is because I forgot the very lessons that I once taught, I forgot who I was. Hello darkness indeed. The darkness is where we go to express our innermost being. It is where we find solace, where we find acceptance and respite for our souls. In the darkness, no one can judge us, no one can belittle us, no one can make us feel small or hurt. In the darkness is where we find our truest selves.

In the darkness, we can find ourselves again. We can clutch and claw and grasp for fleeting straws. We can gnash our teeth and curse and throw up our arms. We can quit, we can judge ourselves, we can fight ourselves, we are allowed to express our doubts aloud. In the darkness, we can be bad, we can be good, we can be weak, we can say out loud our greatest fears and in the darkness, we can breakdown. In other words, in the darkness we can be who we are afraid to show the world. We can be our purest selves without the slightest regret.

Finding yourself again after hitting the ground is never easy, especially when you didn't even know that you were falling; but each time you fall remember this, you learn to walk by falling not by sticking to the rules.

Stitch by Stitch

And I give you all my pieces broken
In your hands there is nothing that you can't fix
My heart is frayed, my scars are open
So put me back together now stitch by stitch
Put me back together now stitch by stitch

Stitch by Stitch - Javier Colon

There was a time when I would have gotten on this blog and vented about how people get hurt and about how much you can get hurt when certain eventualities occur but that time is past. To be sincere, there comes a time in life when you are just so over the drama of reacting to crises and perceived crises in your life. That time for me is now and this article is not about pain or betrayal or love or any of the usual suspects, no, this article is about overcoming the pain that life throws at you. This article is dedicated to those silent heroes who shine a candle for us when all is dark and no one else cares enough.

What you say, without words, resuscitates what was numb inside

So repair me, every thread of me, 'cause you're bringing me back to life...

No matter how hard you try to avoid pain in life, it will come and meet you where you are. The only way to completely avoid pain is to do nothing at all. I am sure that you've all experienced heartbreak or loss at some point in your lives. You lost a job, a spouse, a loved one, a business, a limb or even a house. You must have at some point in your life felt so much pain that you couldn't tell front from back, a time when you may have been sad or depressed. A time when everything lost meaning for you and all you wanted was for the pain to end. If you have been there, are there or are headed there, don't give up just yet.

I'm still afraid of falling, somehow it's takin' over me

Don't ever let me let it go...

The first step to dealing with pain or disappointment is to get a support system. Someone or some people that you can talk to, someone who will listen and genuinely care even if they cannot offer any material support. Just having someone who can listen to you can make all the difference between a bad day and full blown depression. It's nice to have family members that you can talk to but the truth is, most of the time the person who will get you the most will not be related to you. As King Solomon once said, A brother is born for the day of trouble but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

As an example of the above, there was a time when I was in between jobs. You see folks I had quit a job and didn't have anywhere else to go. I had savings but they didn't last long. Of course I didn't just wait for opportunities to come to me. I enrolled in a French class, volunteered my services at an organization and gained other skills on the side. I applied for several jobs and even tried to work some contacts. I was absolutely certain that with my excellent curriculum vitae, my strong background and my good reputation for getting things done, I would get a job offer in less than three months. Three months came and went and I was still unemployed. My savings ran out. I was desperate, I had nowhere to go and could no longer afford the rent where I lived. I had virtually no money left. Worst of all is that I didn't even know how to ask for help.

Help came in form of a relative who asked me to go live with them till I figured things out. I was grateful, but at the same time I had a tremendous burden of guilt on my back. I felt guilty for burdening a relative, guilty for not having my life in order, guilty for ending up in the exact same way I had sworn never to end up - penniless. Worst of all was that I had nothing to show for the many years that I had been previously employed. I was broken. I felt like a failure. Three months turned to six months and though I was prospering in other ways, I wasn't getting a job. I was deeply scared that my relative would run out of patience and ask me to leave. I was also deeply ashamed because I had to borrow money for the most basic things. Thankfully, my relative understood and they encouraged me and listened to me. Encouragement and support mean everything when you are down to nothing. My relative however, was not the only person who encouraged me. There were a handful of friends who sometimes called to check on me and who made time for me whenever they could. Long story short I eventually got a job after nearly one year of unemployment and this job was way better than any that I have ever had in the past.

There and back, there's no doubt, your touch makes me whole again

The second step to dealing with pain is believing in something bigger than yourself. Not many people know this but my life has never been easy. I know that many of you feel the same way and that you've had to overcome your fair share of mountains. The thing is, for several years my life got worse and worse. There were some highs but the general trend was that things just got worse, no matter what I did or how hard I tried, in the end I almost always ended up worse off than before.

I was raised in a christian household so I learned early on to take my troubles to the Lord in prayer. Despite this, my life did not get better. At some point, I was so fed up with God that I became an atheist. That same week something happened and my worst fear was realized. My life was literally a nightmare during that week and the week that followed. As a man, you must always be strong, stoic and unshakable. The reality is though, that sometimes despite your strength and stamina, life will beat you down and shake you to your core. 

If you don't believe me read about Sylvester Stallone and his journey to stardom. Read on others too like Richard Branson, Jim Carrey and even Joyce Meyer. In life you will face things much bigger than yourself, things that will break you down and make you feel trapped with no way out. Remember that time when I was unemployed, yeah well, there were times when no one could help, when no one could understand, when no one had the time of day.

For me it was God, God is bigger than me. He is the all-powerful guiding force in my life. For Jim Carrey that is The Universe, for Richard Branson it is his Family. We all need something or someone to believe in, something to hold on to when nothing makes sense and when everything seems to be turning against you. William Butler Yeats once said, The center cannot hold; things fall apart... Find your center, find something bigger than yourself to believe in.

There's always a light at the end of the tunnel...

Finally dear brothers and sisters, believe in yourself. Know that you are capable, know that for so long as there is breath in your body then there is hope, For a live dog is better than a dead lion. The winds of doubt will blow, the storm of fear will strike, the darkness of uncertainty will cloud your vision but when life knocks you down get back up and say to yourself, No matter how bad it is and no matter how bad it gets I am gonna make it. Murphy's law maybe real but you were born a winner, that means that it matters not so much where you started, where you are from or where you've been but only where you finish truly matters in this life. Read up on your favourite idols and superstars. From Ronaldo and Lionel Messi to Dwayne Johnson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, from Taraji P Henson to J.K. Rowling, you'd be surprised to hear where they started, where they came from and what they had to go through to get to where they eventually did.

In the natural, we are conditioned to react to pain in only one way, to avoid it, like the way we would avoid a knife cut. The way to deal with pain in life however, is not to avoid it but rather to deal with it. To rise up and face it confidently. Why do we do this? We do this because it is the only way to learn and move on. The risk we run of not facing our pain is that we risk repeating the same mistakes or actions that led us to that pain. I complete this article with a certain quote from Bill Clinton's book, My Life.

"Over the long years since I first saw High Noon, when I faced my own showdowns, I often thought of the look in Gary Cooper’s eyes as he stares into the face of almost certain defeat, and how he keeps walking through his fears toward his duty. It works pretty well in real life too."

101 Reasons Why I Like You

Oh, her eyes, her eyes

Make the stars look like they're not shinin'

Her hair, her hair

Falls perfectly without her trying

She's so beautiful

And I tell her every day

Yeah, I know, I know

When I compliment her she won't believe me

And it's so, it's so

Sad to think that she don't see what I see

But every time she asks me, "Do I look okay?"

I say

When I see your face

There's not a thing that I would change

Cause you're amazing just the way you are

And when you smile

The whole world stops and stares for a while

Cause, girl, you're amazing just the way you are

Just the way you are - Bruno Mars

Ever so often we get the chance to tell our loved ones how we feel about them but we don't. Sometimes it is because words fails us. Sometimes it is because we are afraid what it might mean if we tell them all that we really feel for them. I happen to fall in that category, so I want to pick today of all days, Valentine's, to let that special someone know all the reasons that she is special to me.

Dear Love, it has been two years since we first met and every day I thank God a little more that we met. When I count my blessings, I count you twice because I am doubly-blessed to have you in my life. You are the fruit that makes me weak and if I had one wish it would be to spend eternity with you, by your side, making every day count like it would be our last.

Dear Love, ever since we met I have become a better man. I smile whenever I think of you. I have better dreams and when I see you, my heart misses a beat. You cannot possibly know to what depths you have inspired me, even when I was down you were there. You never saw me as a lesser man because I had nothing to give or belittled me because I was out of luck. Rather you breathed new life into my dreams and encouraged me all the way. When I was weak you were strong, when I was faltering, you were my pillar of strength, when all was dark, you were the guiding star in my world.

My Precious Love, you are blessed with the perfection of beauty, amazing inner strength and wisdom beyond your years. You are brilliant, sweet, kind, smart and playful. You are worth more than diamonds or gold because you can never be replaced. You make every day a day worth living and every tomorrow a vision of hope. What would I do without your golden smile? Oh what would I do without your beautiful counsel? Oh what a glorious pleasure it is to spend every moment with you.

My Dearest Love, there is so much we have seen together and so much that my heart desires to tell you but the words to express it all fail me. You are the miracle that the world never knew, the amazing promise of God to the one who will be the world's most blessed man. You are beauty defined. I am awed by your awesome splendour. Your grace and elegance are second to none and if ever I should be so lucky to have you, I will remind you of it every blessed morning and every glorious night.

I'll be your dream

I'll be your wish

I'll be your fantasy

I'll be your hope

I'll be your love

Be everything that you need

I'll love you more with every breath

Truly, madly, deeply do

I will be strong

I will be faithful

'Cause I'm counting on

A new beginning

A reason for living

A deeper meaning, yeah

I wanna stand with you on a mountain

I wanna bathe with you in the sea

I wanna lay like this forever

Until the sky falls down on me

And when the stars are shining brightly in the velvet sky,

I'll make a wish, send it to heaven then make you want to cry

The tears of joy for all the pleasure and the certainty

That we're surrounded by the comfort and protection of the highest powers

In lonely hours

The tears devour you

Truly, Madly, Deeply - Savage Garden