After graduation , where do we go from here? There used to be a false narrative that for anyone to be successful or take off in life, they should and must have a decent paying office job, something that has been debunked over and over again, the most successful people in the world didn’t attend college and /or had office gainful employment, they started their hustles and believed in them. It is true that getting a college degree gives a comparative advantage but what matters the most is translating the degree into a real life solution.   Having a shiny college degree and [or] so many of them isn’t a big deal, the real degree is, what can you do with it? I have a job today but do you know what else I do with my life? I dig. I go to the gardens, with garden tools and  do very great work there ; those you who have seen my gardens can attest to this, they are impressive. Do not let degrees blind you to the realities of life; there is more to life than academic credentials. ...

Through Photography I learn to appreciate life as it is right now, instead of wishing better days ahead. I am so thankful for the way my camera offers me gentle reminders to have patience, slow down, and enjoy life’s moments as they happen. I write from a lens of truth. In the words of Lao Tzu, “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power,” –there is no in-between , successful people don’t grow by accident, they grow by design. The road of truth-telling is not an easy one for many but I will still be here to smack you awake. Most of the pieces I have written through the years intersect with real life—life as it is, not as we think it should be or wish it was—this one is going to be reflective, about 2017. This year has been tough. It has at times beaten my ingrained discipline of fidelity to resilience (sometimes I have logged out of hope). I have learned though; that resilience isn’t an end in ...

Age brings losses and perspective I guess. Today, when I laid eyes on this, I saw only blessings. After all these years, I am sane enough to notice that none of us is perfect; ' we trust our instincts as we fight our daily fights, some we win, some we don’t - but some we will only know in time. But we live each night and day hopeful that today's sacrifices have worth it—that our instincts haven't led us astray, we do our best because this journey is worth our best —dare to be. There are people in our lives who discourage us from pursuing our dreams, often because they have given up on theirs. Ironically, you have to smack them awake by becoming a ray of hope to them as you move on with yours. People need to see the forest through the trees. Don’t confuse motion with progress . A 'rocking' horse keeps moving but doesn’t make any progress. In his book, Man's Search for meaning , Viktor Frankl writes: everything can be taken from a man but one,the last ...

I am a flawed human being, I self-acknowledge that I am and that helps me face my demons. Unlike so many of my peers or worse people older than I am, they want to hide in plain sight and present themselves as the angels the lord just sent to save the world. Like so many people out there, I have seen both light and darkness in my life but every way that comes through, I see darkness as the means through which we all know the power of light: light is what shines in a place full of darkness, not what presents itself as light. To see the darkness, you have to know what there is in a dark place. Sometimes telling a story about our lives is hard, or we don't know how to do it but here is the truth: the difference between despair and hope is just a different way of telling stories from the same set of facts.  Only a small number of us ever self-consciously write our autobiographies. It is a task we associate with celebrities and the very old – but it is, in the background, a univer...