“If my parents were rich, if my parents had sent me to school, if my parents were powerful and well-connected”; this begins the long string of excuses most people give for not having reached their potentials in life. Usually, I would stop listen and show some sympathy until recently. I have realized that it is what it is; Excuses. No more no less. This is my advice to my 19-year old self. You might pick a thing or two.

1. No one has more control over your life than you. Blaming your parents only show you are not ready to take control of your life. So next time so you hear someone sharing such pitiful stories; keep your sympathy. You’d need it for more serious cases.
2. You must learn to push back, to fight back. Life is a bitch and only the strong survive. Get up and fight again even if it’s for the fun of getting knocked down again.
3. Now that you know that no one has more control over your life than you do. Add this: life is an output of choices; the good, the bad and the ugly. Measure your choices, strategize them, and use them. After all, it’s yours.
4. Advice will come by the ton. Read it (public opinion is the world’s only truly free tabloid) but take them with a pinch of salt for most for them originate from very wrong orientations. Your mentor will be of great use to you here.
5. You must constantly evaluate your mentor and his mentoring alongside your desired realities for no one is an embodiment of knowledge and knows all. Pay more attention to his failures and defeats than his success for that is where the real lessons lie.
6. Impossibilities only reside on the tongues of most people and rarely in reality. You must learn to chart your path, switch off the opinions and switch on your imagination.
7. Leave the Television for those who want to watch for when you are done conquering the world, they would still be at the screen awaiting your return.
8. Your University degree is merely a dedication page in the book titled ‘Your Life’. You haven’t begun chapter one.