embrace positivity

I'm currently involved in a situation and the situation is I messaged a girl on Facebook and the message was very personal and I told her to not share it with anybody except me and her. She shared it with people on campus. I should've known this but I'll know next time. I'm not mad at all, I've made peace with myself with the whole situation. Now people are talking around campus but the main lesson I got out of this situation is to no let my insecurities hinder my happiness. Even though people talk about me on a negative aspect but I know God is greater than any hate that you face. I also know that He will never will leave me or forsake me. I can't let things or people upset me to the point that I lose my own set of morals, values and most importantly, Sanity .

I want to inspire the younger generations that come after me to find that purpose or gift that they have. I know that they have that gift in their life but they just don't it yet. They really need to find it themselves. It might take them a while to find their purpose or gift but when they find it, it is going to be so exciting. When they have that purpose or gift in their life, it's so important to not let that gift be wasted. The Bible says " You are something to God if you have a purpose in this lifetime but if not, God doesn't want anything to do with you". Helping others is associated with this also. This is why I wanted to produce this film, I wanted to have a relationship with God. I just want my film to change the mindsets of people, I just want people to treat other people the way that they want to be treated. I want You to have a purpose in your life.

Before I was involved in Young Audiences, currently called Center for Arts-Inspired Learning I wasn't really interested in the arts. After I became involved in this arts program, I became really appreciative what the arts does for people. Everybody has their own individual art form, they may be painters, rappers, anybody who is in the film industry or anybody who is pursuing their dreams in the way that benefits themselves or/and others. Rappers rap what they want to rap about and there is no problem with that. People might not like some rappers because they use explicit language and refer to women as inappropriate persons. But what people need to understand is that at the end of the day, that is an art form and those rappers can express themselves as freely as they want to. You know how the old saying goes: You might not like them but you have to respect them. Same goes for rappers or for anybody who's pursuing their own individual art form, you might like...

When I was a kid, I took a lot of things for granted and I still do sometimes but I try not to. I used to take advantage of water, food, shelter and having loving and compassionate parents who want to see me succeed in life. I take long showers and drink water without any thought. I think about people around the world, especially the undeveloped countries that don't have sufficient drinking water or any clean water to clean themselves. I also waste food a lot and after the fact I always think about people within the United States and outside who go hungry everyday because they don't have enough money to buy food. There is a rapper that I listen to and his name is Mark Battles. He recently released a mixtape entitled Shelter Food. This mixtape is about how he and his family were in shelters throughout his childhood and how we take little things in life for granted. For example, wasting food. I always take my parents for granted. A lot of...

Over spring break, I went to see the new movie, Chappie starring Hugh Jackman and Dev Petal. The message I got out of this film is to be different from people, in this case be different than any other robot. Even though the storyline was centered around a robot, I could still feel the emotions that the robot was feeling. Regardless of its robots or people, we should treat everybody with respect and compassion. Most importantly, we should embrace uniqueness. Nobody should want to be like their counterparts because everybody has their own interests and individual gifts they specialize in. One of the many messages in my film is to be different. We should embrace our own creativity and our individual habits. Be different at every chance you get.

Be an advocator for change!! We desperately need leaders today to change our world dynamic today. In 2012, I traveled to India with my cousin. It was an exciting trip but one day made me think critically to myself. My cousin and I were going to see the TaJ Mahal but my cousin told the driver to drive us through the villages. I'm glad he told the driver to do that because I could see everything. I was so shocked of what I saw!! I saw so much poverty. I wanted to cry in the van. I saw adults, mostly children selling dolls, vegetables and anything that they could sell. . I saw many families living out of cardboard boxes. I was thinking to myself how can this be? There is a wealth divide among individuals and that isn't right. Maybe this is associated with the caste system even though it's illegal today, it still happens. The money in India is distributed unequally. You can say that about the United States too. But we don't have to sit around and let this happen. We can ...

One day I started to stop feeling bad for myself. I went with my mom to her co worker's house for a fundraiser for her daughter. The daughter has cerebral palsy. She was talking and she was enjoying life. I was thinking to myself if she can enjoy life, I can too. She also is in a worse condition than me so how can I complain? From that moment on, I started looking at my life in a positive way rather than a negative way. I wrote two publications, one in my high school newspaper called the Shakerite and a local Cleveland magazine called Your Teen . I wrote them because I wanted people to understand a little bit more about me and how I'm living with Joubert Syndrome on a daily basis. The most important thing I want people to understand is that they shouldn't feel bad for me because I was in a good place when I wrote those publications back then. In the summer of 2012, I was in Young Audiences which is a  program that caters to high school students that want...

Hey guys, My name is Noldon Starks. I was born with Ocular Motor Apraxia which deals with my fine motor skills. For example, I couldn't pick up individual coins from a table. Another example is that I couldn't tie my shoes until I was three years old. When I was a pre teen, I was diagnosed with Joubert Syndrome. I still have Ocular Motor Apraxia but the symptoms of Joubert Syndrome is more common in me. Joubert Syndrome is a genetic disorder that affects my coordination, balance and speech. Joubert Syndrome is very similar to Ocular Motor Apraxia. There are a lot of different forms of Joubert Syndrome and I shake my head involuntarily. A lot of people in elementary school didn't really understand why I shook my head so they teased and bullied me. People would ask me why I shake my head but I was too embarrassed to tell them due to the insecurities that I had about myself. My goal of this blog is to empower and inspire individuals. The experiences that I went through and ...