Literature
A 25-year-old resident of Shigalo village near Malamulele and student at the University of Venda, Love Baloyi, has just launched his first book, Life Series of Decisions and Self-encouragement.
Even though he purports his publication to be a collection of “short stories”, the contents do not quite live to up to his claim. However, readers must not feel dispirited by what has just been said here.
Life Series of Decisions and Self-encouragement is a book worth reading, as it carries motivational words augmented by what reads like anecdotes from the author's personal experience about life.
“I wrote this book to impact in the lives of people of different age groups in terms of figuring out the importance of decision making and also the issue of self-encouragement when they are in the midst of challenges,” he says.
He says there is nothing wrong when a person faces challenges because each individual has got to face challenges.
“But what matters most is how you react to what you are going through,” he adds. “I noticed that numerous people fail to make good decisions because of the lack of knowledge, and they fail to account to their choices. This book will be a base for them to know that the decisions we make today will determine what tomorrow holds for us.”
He had chosen the title Life Series of Decisions and Self-encouragement just because the decisions that people make are inter-related.
“They depend on each other, for example: when I decide not to go to school, I’m indirectly deciding to suffer,” he says. “Self-encouragement is also included in decision making because when you encourage yourself you will decide to do something and with a positive attitude.”
Many books have been written on motivation before, and Baloyi feels that he is not repeating what other authors have covered before him.
“I am not repeating what has been told many times before me because the approach of motivational writing is different, depending on the writer’s experience, observance as well as creativity,” he reasoned. “Another thing is that even if some topics already have been written by other writers, the way another writer can elucidate may differ. We may talk about the same thing but different description and what causes an impact is how I express my idea as a writer. The logic and the sense of what you write is what matters most.”
Baloyi is a currently doing a degree in biochemistry and microbiology.
“I succeed in both study life and writing time because I am a hard worker,” he says. “I make sure that whenever I’m not busy with my school work I think of what I can write about. One more important thing is that writing is a gift but what I am doing at school is just something that I decided to do. It means I cannot run away from writing becaus ite is part of me. Even when I have a lot of school work I can still write because there is a burning desire for writing in me.”