TRANSFORMING THE WALLS INTO DOORS!!!

"Speaking corporately, it’s easier to say “changing obstacles into opportunities”.   

Now, I am very well aware to share with you that there are a billion people going hungry today. I know that this year a million people will commit suicide. That is one every 40 seconds. I know today there are one hundred and twenty slaves or servants and I have met at least five. I have had an opportunity to see people at the top of the pyramid as far as business is concerned and I have sat with the billionaires courtesy of AUN (it was an amazing experience, seating and chatting with the prestigious board of trustee members). I have met bankers and I have also met orphans. We are all looking for something. We are all looking for hope. Hope you can’t just have because you were born with hope. No we are born with pain. We are born and we live through difficulties. In life, I have come to know that even though we don’t know why we were born or the way we were born, that we have a choice either to be angry for what we don’t have or to be thankful for what we do have. The power of that choice was the first thing that I had to overcome and decide for myself, especially in the early years of school. A lot of kids would come up to me and tease me. They rubbed your pain at your face as if the pain you already lived with was not enough; they just had to remind you consistently. To some of us that pain could have been academic failure, having a single parent, coming from a poor background, I could go on and on about this. Today I can call myself a proud ambassador of my school, and all my life endeavors is to make an impact wherever I find myself, and putting smiles on as many faces that I can in my own little way has become more than a duty; it is my hobby. I have realized that we do not necessarily need to have the best of everything or all our heart desires fulfilled to be happy. When we feel like we don’t have enough love and we don’t have enough hope, we start losing strength to live. For me in my life as a child, I had a big wall. I was surrounded by four walls and a low ceiling of opportunity. We all have our walls and whether you like it or not, there would always be opportunities no matter how little. It may not be what you asked for or what you were expecting. You may have parents that provide for your needs, yet you feel like you are not loved because they don’t spend time with you, they don’t encourage or inspire you, they don’t tell you how proud they are to have you as a child or how beautiful you are. You don’t see them to talk about the stuff that borders you. To talk about the professor at school, that boy or girl you like, your ambition, and many others. Now don’t get me wrong, they don’t do all of this because they deliberately want to hurt us, but because they were born into a culture were the best way parents can express their love is by provision. Thus all they do is strive as hard as they could to make sure they all meet that expectation as their fathers and forefathers have done. The world is a hurting place and the world needs love and the world needs hope. Without hope, we feel like ‘why are we here? Well “BROKENESS” I have mine and you have yours. Some are visible and some others are not. Today I may still be lacking in one part of my life, but everything has changed. What are you looking for? For me I was looking for love and happiness and I couldn’t see it for many years. In fact if this side of the room represents my hope, truth encourages me to become all that I can be. But then we have lies every day, coming in our minds, people will discourage us. You know the people that you have in your life who no matter how good of a day you are having, they will bring you down? Or no matter how bad of a day you are having, they will bring you even lower. Think of the three biggest discourages in your life. They are not your biggest discourages. You are. It only takes three seconds for me to tell you something that will discourage you, but then you may never forget my words. I have met women in their mid forties and fifties who still remember what their fathers told them that they wish they had never heard. Words are very powerful. And when you hear those words, and then your mind starts growing with these lies. Dorin you are no good enough, just quit trying, just give up, you will never get that admission, go learn a trade, school is not for everyone, you won’t find a man to marry you with your feminist attitude and so on. I’m pretty sure one out of ten of us seated here today would have contemplated suicide once because we didn’t have hope. We thought we didn’t have hope. Every single human being has value, and my value is not determined by how I look or what job I have, or where I’m from, where I was born, by whom I was born, all that stuff is nothing. Every day we live, the choices we make will affect our lives, other peoples’ lives and our eternal lives. We all have to come to the truth of knowing who we are here. William Barkley, he said the greatest two days of our life is the day you were born and the day you knew why. I don’t know what you are looking for in life, but I know that life doesn’t always give us what we want. We don’t always get the miracle we pray for, but if only we realize that when we don’t get a miracle, your life can be a miracle for someone else. People look at you or hear your story and they find a reason to live again, a reason to find hope, a reason not to quit…I am not a super hero, I go through ups and downs and so do you but take one day at a time and if you haven’t found that peace of knowing who you are and why you are here and where you are going when you are not here keep searching. For me, I want you to know that’s how I have overcome. I don’t have any walls anymore. Not to bring out my pride, I don’t have the best of everything, but I make the best out of every opportunity I get and I hope you are inspired to know that if I can dream big, so can you. There are no walls. Find your peace and you will make your walls doors.

Thank you so much!!!