Not going as planned, DON’T QUIT. Some of the best opportunities come after seasons of disappointment, delay, and uncertainty. Stay faithful to the process. Stay committed to your growth. One day, you’ll look back and realise that what felt like a setback was actually training

I love talking to children. Their understanding of the world is still untainted, beautifully naive and full of hope. Being around them helps me preserve my own childlike sense of wonder, it’s a small part of me that still believes anything is possible despite the many hard knocks life has dealt me. But my conversation with this kid was something special. A curious twelve-year-old boy I had just met at this inclusive day of chess event Onyinye had organized in partnership with Chess in slums Africa for special needs children. His name was Emmanuel. He unfortunately had a playground accident at the tender age of 3 that left him with a broken spine. He has lived the entirety of his conscious life on a wheel chair since then, and was definitively told by the doctors that he’ll never be able to walk again. But he spends very little time explaining his tragedy, his eyes lit up as he gleefully told me about his passion for chess, for risky adventures and how he dreams to someday be a successful writer and Author. He soon challenged me to a chess game and pressed for a rematch after he lost. I thought he was pretty good, maybe a bit impulsive with his moves, but he was fearless in the way only a child can be. I shared a few tips with him and spent the next hour observing quietly from a distance as he interacted with other children. What a truly wonderful child. He seemed completely oblivious of his difference in the world, not because he didn’t understand his limitations , but because somewhere deep in his young soul, he had decided that it simply wasn’t the most interesting thing about him. And here I was, in awe of this kid, quietly ashamed of myself-a grown man who had sometimes built monuments to his own suffering and allowed it become my identity. As I watched him, my heart slowly worried that the world may someday get to him and place its constraints on that boundless spirit. But somehow, I remain confident that he’ll pull through. I walked away from our interaction lighter, and somehow more serious about my own dreams. He will write his books one day, I’m certain of it. And somewhere in those pages, there will be courage, mischief, adventure and a refusal to be defined by loss. As I walked him to the car, his guardian complained, half amused, half exasperated, that he had gone through several wheelchairs in one year already. His adventures and mischief simply couldn’t be contained as he wouldn’t stop moving. And there it was. My title. I had met a boy who wouldn’t stop moving. In his frail body, he housed the greatest spirit I had ever encountered—and gave me a beautiful story to tell.