Have you ever thought how much you have to offer, so much to give, and so much you deserve to receive in return. Don’t ever doubt that, since you know yourself and all of your fine qualities. Be happy and become the person that you want to be don’t ever doubt yourself. When you see or hear that many of us are facing great emotional distress and some can hardly cope with life, while others are suffering unhappiness and many find themselves in strained romantic relationships. These unhappy people usually have one thing in common; their lives and emotions are out of control. Almost always, these people are not applying an important principle that would help them find the happiness, success, love, and sense of worth they seek. If you try to learn and use this vital principle in your life, you’ll soon notice a vast improvement in the quality of your emotional well-being and life in general. I know that we could seek help as a person made a comment when I wrote about “How many of us suffer from mental depression,” on the greatest cities. It is true that psychology deal with emotional problems and person-to-person relationships. They advise readers how to have inner joy, take charge of their emotions, overcome anxiety and depression, gain self-confidence and self-esteem, the art of loving in which I intend to write about when time permits me, of course you might be saying or wondering why anyone could be unhappy. If you’re sitting at home struggling with some emotional difficulty this may be downright discouraging. How can you change your thinking to become the person you should be? What change in your way of life can lift you out of emotional distress and ensure you a happy and abundant life? There is a way that allows us to achieve productive lives and happiness, to find love and have a sense of worth and a good feeling about ourselves. The way to this abundant life is to be found through “Responsibility.” Some might say what is responsibility? Responsibility is the ability to fulfill one’s needs, and to do so in a way that does not deprive others of the ability to fulfill their needs, and only through responsibility behavior can we fulfill our needs. Those needs are twofold, to love and be loved, and to feel worth-while to ourselves and others. Personal responsibility should be learned during childhood in a loving home. The younger we are exposed to love and discipline the easer and the better we will learn responsibility to my own opinion. But learning and applying responsible behavior in one’s life does not come that easy. Some of our children do not know that what seems easy to them will not fulfill their needs, so almost from infancy they struggle against the reality that they must learn from their parents how to fulfill their needs. For some of us the problem is some parents may not have learned responsibility behavior as children either. Yet, the person who begins behaving responsibly can dramatically change his or her life for the better. The person who is responsible and loving to other human beings has, in turn, extended love and derives a sense of personal self-worth. That’s the only way our own lives and, in turn, our society can function properly. You cannot rid yourself of emotional problems until you look outside of your self to the needs of others. Right behavior will be the kind that helps, not to hurts others as well as self and everyone will wins if it is. Behavior that does not help others to fulfill their needs as we fulfill our needs is simply irresponsible. If you know someone who’s a drug addict is an irresponsible person, the husband who beats his wife is an irresponsible person. The teenager who doesn’t respect his or her parents is an irresponsible person, the person who fails to carry through on a job is an irresponsible person, the person who cheats, or steal is an irresponsible person. In most instances that we humans behave irresponsibly, we are depriving others of their needs, at the same time, we fail to fulfill our needs, especially to acquire a sense of worth and the love we need from others. Now, everyone loses. If we begin to conduct ourselves in a constructive way, our attitude follows along, and we see that our lives are changing for the best and we begin to feel better about ourselves. You might smile and say, can it really be this simple? Can it be that if we love others as we lover ourselves our problems begin to disappear? Is it possible that if we only do to others what we would have them to do to us, that we would feel better about ourselves and begin to find the happiness we have craved? Yes, it is that simple, Carmelina and I [Charles Bray] have been living this kind of happy life for many years. Believe me the principle is true and right, it works. Carrying out this principle daily in our actions takes diligent effort. It requires a change in thinking, it means becoming a different person. Change is not something that happens accidentally, it’s not natural to

This Nigerian citizen, like Fegalo Mitee, prepares for a life in exile. Zucrich, Switzerland. UNHCR / 22120 / A. Hollmann / March 1992 An Ogoni in America Coping in a new environment Fegalo Mitee, one of the leaders of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, fled Nigeria after the execution of Nigerian author and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogonis in November 1995. He and his family now live in Alexandria, Virginia (USA). It has been one year since we got here. When I first arrived I didn't know anybody – no Nigerian, no black person, no white person. It was very difficult. We have different ways, different expectations, different attitudes. It's interesting, because I thought there were a lot of hazards here, but what you see on television is not the same thing. I was thinking that people are not friendly, but I have seen that everybody is ready to help. A lot of people around this area where we live are immigrants. They have gone through similar problems. My family and I have gone through the initial settling-in period and we are now settling down. The psychology of coming from a situation where you were the head of a department, a leader of a group of people to a situation where you are virtually nobody is a difficult one. Losing everything in your life, even your personal documents, has a great impact on you. The Lutheran Social Services representatives took me to a hotel. They asked me to do some work, cleaning toilets, things like that. I couldn't cope. With my master's degree in Digital Systems Communication, I was thinking a developed country like this would need someone in that field, but they wanted a job history to be able to trust someone. Also, in that field you need security clearance, and if you're not a citizen, you cannot get work. Psychologically, I was not all that prepared, but I had to do it because I have kids – a baby girl and a boy who is nine years old. Luckily for me, I have a lot of self-confidence. It was possible to get a job in a department store called Radio Shack. It is $5 an hour basic pay, but I'm learning. In the next few months I will be ready to take another leap. I'll see what else I can do. In Nigeria I founded an environmental movement which quickly became very popular. When we started, the government disregarded us. They thought that this tiny group of people could do nothing. When we became successful the government started to get annoyed and tried to stop the movement. In 1993 the government started arresting people. When they came for me I was able to jump from the upstairs window and run into the bush. My brother couldn't jump so they arrested him. As I made my way to a nearby village I saw the killings. There were Ogonis and even other people from the university being raped and killed in front of other people. It was worse than I could have imagined. I can't talk much about it. I stayed underground for one full year. At the time they killed Ken I was still underground. I felt that I was still an inspiration to our people and felt I should stay and not run away. They wanted to silence us because what we were saying was right. We wanted to show the world that we don't want to actually use violence, thinking that the world would say, okay, since this is the first non-violent movement in Africa fighting for the environment, they would be able to protect us. It was when they killed Ken and they started looking for us again that we all decided to escape. So I got my wife and children and said we have to go to the next border, we might be better off being alive there than dead here. I asked my brother to sell our things, give us some money. We disguised ourselves. The border to Benin was very difficult to cross. We sneaked through and then ran and used a vehicle. We then asked a taxi driver to drop us at an embassy, but it was very difficult to get near the embassy area. Someone suggested we go to UNHCR. It was towards the weekend, I think Friday, and they were trying to close. They told us we were not supposed to come at this time. I told them that we had two little kids, and then they came and took care of us. We slept on the floor at UNHCR. They were very helpful. My youngest child was about five months old. She was very ill. We didn't think she would survive. We went to different embassies stating our position and we were finally accepted by the United States. UNHCR has done a good job. The only thing you should do in addition is to follow up those you have resettled. Ask how you are after three months, how you are being taken care of. Information is the most important thing in someone's life. And we lacked that. That's why it took us a long time to settle. But we are happy. We are able to talk to a lot of people, someone gave us this table, we took these chairs from the trash and someone gave us the telephone. A lot of people do not realize what a refugee goes through, psychologically and physically.