imagine you are 14, your parents can’t afford to send you to school because they have no money as their crops failed. Your only access to education is to visit a library and read in your spare time. You read about windmills and how they can generate electricity.
You decide to build one but you have no money and not materials. Your only materials are scavenged from a local scrap yard and you start collecting items; bicycle frame, shock absorber, tractor fan. What do you do next? You through sheer determination figure out how to build a windmill, your family think you are mad, your friends laugh at you. Nobody understands what you want to do or why.
You finally build it and you are able to power one light with it. As things go on you are able to make it power more lights and then everyone realise that you have done something phenomenal. You have created a power source where none existed with scrap.
If you are wondering about this then do yourself a favour. Go buy the book of William Kamkwamba. He was then a 14 year old boy who believed in himself and never gave up. His efforts in the middle of nowhere in Malawi caught the world’s attention and at the age of 19 he spoke to delegates at TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) about his story.
If you are wondering why i am writing about this there are so many reasons that you could write a book about it. Basically it is that he believed in himself. The statement that stuck with me is this “It was a future I could not accept.”
That statement defined how he approached his life and his goal. He reconciled to the fact that he had nothing, he accepted that there was no one he could rely on to achieve what he wanted. He was in the worst position that he could have been in. When you get to that point in your life and your have the clarity of mind and purpose in your decision all your other fears get put to one side and your focus and purpose is single minded.
He has his own blog and he is building traffic and visibility. If someone with so little can do it and make such a positive impression on people imagine what you can do.
Sit down look at what and where you are make your decision in life and then live to it.
August 14, 2009
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