There will be tears

Life is good, life is always good. When there is nothing to stress about, life as I said , will be good. There is a name for this situation, it is called the comfort zone. Something subtle happens when you make a commitment, the world will simply be a different place which is perhaps the reason why we fear the big C.Expect a lot when you finally make that decision, I will just mention a few.

There will be questions. People will ask questions as to why you do what you do. If thats not enough, many a times you'll find yourself questioning yourself. Whether it is necessary or not, whether it is worth it or not. Brace yourself , prepare those answers, because the answers to these questions will determine whether you quit or survive.

There will be tears, maybe literally speaking or  perhaps even real tears. The universe will try to test you if you are really serious about whatever it is that you want. You will fail a couple of times and you will feel like giving up. Well, when this happens, remember Thomas Edison had to make 1000 mistakes to make that tiny light bulb. Was this reasonable? Nope not in this fast paced world, was it worth it? Of course it was.

But there will also be rewards. The one that will always seem far fetched is the rewards. Your journey is like hiking. Walking up is not the most luxurious activity you'll want to do, you will get tired along the way, but the the view at the top simply makes you forget all the pain. In short, the future you will thank you for the tiny steps you made along the way.
There is a reason why we fear commitments; because we commit to the road less traveled. We just have a vague idea of the end result but we are never sure of what will happen next. That's a bit scary but you know what? The rewards up there are simply worth the pain. Life will not just be good, it will be amazing. So have a 'tearful' week ahead.

A healthy disregard for the impossible.

Today I wont write about Newton or Einstein or Steve Jobs or any of the other legends who been my inspiration for this blog. Today I'll write about an event that has inspired me even more, the Google Student Ambassador Summit in sub-saharan Africa that took place last week in Accra, Ghana.

There is a word for the atmosphere when 130 young and talented students meet from all over Africa, energy, anything but boring. There is a reason #gsassa has been trending for the past week. Every moment was a picture moment. The training spanned all the way from presentations to the wabble dance, factorial claps, all the way to the final competition where each group had to simulate a campus event. Presentations from Googlers and star GSA alumni were inspiring and informative. 10 factorial claps to +Aída Martínez , +Check Nyah , +Aneke Chimdindu , +Emmanuel A. Gamor , +Ryan Michael , +Freek Vermeer , +Estelle Akofio-Sowah , +Jeminatu Alabi-Isama , +Noha Salem and the other speakers I havent been able to tag, you sent the message across. It was interessting to learn Larry Page's slogan "Have a healthy disregard for the impossible".It is definitely how Google developed from a garage project. Did I mention that we got to watch the movie Guardians of the Galaxy and the whole theatre was booked just for us ? Yes, something only google would do. And finally the cultural night 

I met intersting people , really interesting from the rooms, to the dining room, to the selfie moments. I was  lucky to be the roommate +Sithe Ncube  ,the star of the day who amazed everyone with her video making skills, I got a cultural partner (who actually got me a present) +Temitope I Olorund thanx to +Joshua Josh and +June Tessy  for taking the initiative, +Awa Mbengue 's musical talents just amazed me.
Being Tanzanian myself I easily connected with GSAs from Kenya and Uganda ,  +johnstone vusena , +Jarau Moses , +DENNIS THUNGU , +Jarau Moses , +vivian omondi , +kweli mukeli , +Miss Chelle, +Tushabire Adah , +Kagimu Brian  , +Latifa Mbarak ,, +kweli mukeli , +Victoria Mbabazi  to name a few . Fellow GSA's from SouthAfrica  are loud(at least that's the impression we made),Its really hard to forget people like +Amukelani Hlabano , +Lucretia Ringane , +Alwande Tshabalala , +Avile Maja , +CHRISTELLE ATIBIA EMEBIGWINE , +Tubatsi Moloi , +Alan Kow , +Eduan Cronjé , +Dévan Coetzee , +Stan Sibiya, +Carla Wilby , +Asongtia Guilian A , +diane DIOBE . It really is hard.
The GSA's from Ghana were actually very good hosts, +Abraham Ametepey , +INSAH HAKI, +Quarshie Timothy , +Suhaib Ahmed , +irene sogli +Desmond Nketia Sarpong  , you did a good job.   (I hope I've mentioned everyone).All in all,a 2 minutes conversation with any of the GSA's is enough to prove that Africa has lots of potential.

So I am now the official Google student ambassador for the University of Capetown. Oh yes and I dont have Ebola .:).
Thank you +Jeminatu Alabi-Isama , +Olalekan Samuel , +Aída Martínez , +Noha Salem +Victor(couldn't get his G+ profile).This summit has taught me to build a healthy disregard for the impossible. Together with +Carla Wilby  I hope to do cool things that actually matter at UCT.

Whats a good summit without good food?

Alisa hotels gave us a warm 'Akwaaba' (welcome)

SSA GSA's with our "Google glasses"

Fun times.

Serious things done at the conference

GSA's at UCT

Even the cake had to be Google.

Even the bottle is googly ... :)

South Africa culture at the cultural night.

Google everywhere

I got cool sandals from my cultural partner +Temitope I Olorunda 

With +Sithe Ncube  and +Philip Onyia 

#gsassa, #gsummit2014

What you see is NOT what you get.

     

Have you ever a bad feeling about something,  in the end it turned out to be good? Well, isnt that how we always feel about anything new? In fact most good things started out as bad ideas. Here are proofs that ideas plus a little faith in them produces good results.

All publishers (except Bloomsbury) had a bad feeling about JK Rowling's novels, simply because they were new. "No one would be interested in a wizardry piece of fiction. Well, Rowling's revenue at present proves that the bad idea was not to give it a try.

You know what else was a bad idea? Or at least wasn't a good idea at first? Electricity, Science, the Macintosh, you name it. Lots of inventions we have today started out as impossible's. With a little faith and risk taking there were turned into realities.

Point is, many things in life will seem like bad  ideas. Waking up at 6 perhaps, quitting your job, starting a project in the middle of the year or even  taking a break. It may appear as though doing such won't make anything better. Well, it won't, until you do it. Truth is, the future is completely blank and it is made by grabbing opportunities which are sometimes disguised as failures and risks.So the next time you are stuck on whether you should do it or not, just do it. The future you will thank you for it.