A couple years ago I meant a young man who had fallen on hard times and had no hope for the future. I sat with him and spoke to him about how lucky he was to have been born in the UK, I spoke to him about how young people in a lot of African countries would love to live in the UK and have the opportunities that he has. This young man went on to tell me what his school life was like, how badly he was treated by some of his teachers. The more I tried to show him the opportunities that were available the more he argued about his limitations. I told him that his school life sounded a lot like mine and if I managed to turn my life around so could he, however this just made him even more determined to tell me how bad his life was and how he could not turn his life around. After a few more minutes he stood up and said “This is how my life is going to be and noting can change it!”

When I failed my high school exams i made a decision to fight for the life that I actually wanted, I knew I needed to learn a lot of things to turn things around. The fact that I had decided I was going to change my life meant that I was willing to do whatever it took to turn my grades around. A lot of people are not leading happy lives only because they keep fighting for the things that they don’t want. For example a person will be unhappy in their marriage and instead of demanding that their partner change their behaviour they will be finding excuses for their behaviour, they do very little to fight for a better relationship but they do everything to justify why they are been treated badly. Put all you energy into fighting for the life that you want and you will get the results you want.