The one big lesson I learnt from The Curious Case of Benjamin is that we should learn to let go. We should let go of the things and people who make us angry. We should also let go of the things we love, more especially the emotion we have towards them.

I remember when my laptop got stolen, it was devastating. I could not sleep at night, I could only think of how hard my mother worked to get me that laptop. I then did what I do when I am confused or in trouble. I read my Bible and on that day I fell upon the verse that read “Your heart lies where your riches are”.

This gave me time to think, do I really consider what I have on earth as my riches? I don’t think so, after I made this conclusion. It was the time a certain quote made sense to me and my life “growing up is realizing that not everything is about you or for you”. I know it is harsh but it is just the way things are.

When you let go of everything it is the time you will truly receive. Have you asked yourself what it meant to seek Him first so that all other things can be provided? Well I think it is the time when “you get your life”, a time when you get things together, when you sort out matters of the soul. When appreciate your true being.

Like Benjamin, you will be able to know that irrespective of how you grow up, you will one day die. Sometimes you will be too young to do something, some other times you will be too old to do things like dancing. The important thing is to enjoy the middle part, make sure that you will be satisfied with your youth as you become a modern citizen.

I once told an ex of mine that when I become grey, I want to be wise, I want to be wise in the sense that I do not have to say a single word to inspire a youth. This is all brought about by letting go of the things that I think I love. As a young person, growing up in the I-pad and Blackberry generation, I think that I want my life to be fast. To grow up I should learn to let go of that lifestyle.

The greatest forms of giving away what we love can be seen with God himself; He gave away His only son to die for us. He gave Him away to show us the way.

Nelson Mandela had to give away what he loved to fight for our country. He gave away seeing his children and wife so that you and I can love without limits.

Sacrifice is the greatest form of loving that I know of.

Most of us know that what we do is based on our emotions. I help an old lady rescue her cat because I feel like doing well. If we choose our habits and our habits mold our personalities. I think I have every right of saying that our feelings and emotions define who we are.

We choose a habit because of how we feel. We continue that habit because of the feeling it brings to us, at the end we want to feel in that certain all the time so become those feelings and emotions.

With this in mind we can wait for a ride. We can be innovative enough to design our own rides. Like the Warner brothers, we can fly. Nothing is impossible if you put your mind into it.

Many people follow the proverb that says “A man has to live, no matter how he makes his living”. But there is something about hurting other people to promote your own life. When you do that, your success is only seen in your own eyes. There is nothing more demeaning than hurting other people to become happy. It makes you inhuman. It strips you off your Ubuntu. Ubuntu is the way that we as people live; we live with one another and for one another.

I can’t imagine how it would be if we lived for ourselves. There would be crime, abuse, wars and other terrible things in this world. Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu writes in his book, Made for Goodness, that the only reason that we stand in awe when something bad happens, like the Marikana Mascara, is simply because we were made for goodness and nothing else.

Even if we have enemies, it is not good to see them fall. We have enemies for different reasons and under different circumstances. We learn to hate because of hurt, rejection, abuse just to name a few reason.

I met young girls who were raped and molested at young ages. The people who committed these crimes to humanity are not far from them, the people were their fathers, cousins, brothers, neighbors or fathers. The amazing thing about hearing their stories was their facial expressions. One girl told me that she does not blame herself, or her father for what happened. She blames his upbringing. She says that there must have been something taken away from him when he was still young.

I found great courage in that, it reminded me of what Arch Bishop Tutu wrote. He said that we should view our parents as five year olds. In that we see the innocent side of them. We should understand that the people who commit crimes to humanity have a history, there is something damaged in them that makes them act that way. That is why it is amazing when someone who has been rejected by the world is given a second chance.

Have you seen that those people do well? There was a young gentleman who came to my school while I was in primary school. He was an ex inmate. The world gave him a second chance and he used it help and educate young people he about the consequences of crime.

Oprah says that when she fell pregnant at the age of fourteen and the baby died. Her father told her that life had given her a second chance, and with that second chance look where life has taken her. She is not known as the girl who fell pregnant at age fourteen but as a woman who changes the world by bringing us stories that educate and better us.

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Let’s chat: The writer says, sacrifice is the greatest form of loving that he knows of, what does love mean to you?