1. Don’t be whistling inside a prison, department of correction (doc) camp. Whistling is associated with birds; birds are free; inmates are not; so don’t do it!

2. Don’t stare at other inmates! It could be interpreted as spying or that you have a problem with that individual and a fight could be inevitable. This rule doesn’t only apply inside a correctional facility but any other places in the community. Understand that there's a difference between staring and looking. Staring involve eye contact toward an individual for more than 3 seconds.

3. Don’t accept anything free (cigarettes, soaps, foods, toothbrushes…) from other inmates. This simple gesture could definitely lead to debt and potentially bigger favors in the future.

4. Be aware of the gang inside a prison or jail. Many gangs hang and control certain area(s) inside the facility and the recreational yard. Stepping in the wrong zone could potentially mean that you’re entering into their own home uninvited or trying to disrespect/defying them.

5. Only speak when you’re spoken too and when spoken too, make sure to give them the impression that you’ve been inside before. Show confidence but no weakness!

6. If you’re serving a long imprisonment sentence, be aware that you’re not the only prisoner in that situation. You should try to locate other prisoners related to your own race. Since most inmates are segregated, a great place to begin your affiliation search is with your cellmate(s). Just make sure that the individual that you hang out with is no snitch, pedophile or hated by the whole prison.

7. Don’t gamble and bet on money that you don’t have or are not capable of paying back. The risk is way too high and you could end up losing your life over a few hundred dollars!!!

8. Respect and keep it smooth with everybody inside a prison or jail but unleash your inner demon when it comes time for fights and defending your affiliations.

9. Stay away from drugs or alcohol while serving your sentencing hence these are the worse places to get addicted with these substances. Not only the prices are higher behind bars but these substances will make you physically and mentally weak, resulting in you being more vulnerable hence clouding your judgements.

10. Do not gossip or snitch! Once you are perceived as a snitch (informant) what goes around comes around and you might just ending up putting a couples of nails in your coffin!!!

It's about a short but impactful experiment that shows the value of hope in our lives...

In the year 1950, Curt Richter conducted an experiment with rats to test how long they could struggle in water before dying. In the first experiment, he took 12 rats and placed them in a jar that was half-filled with water and watched them struggle before they drowned. One thing he discovered with the first experiment was that the rats averagely struggled for 15 minutes before they sank to the bottom of the jar. Having gotten the result of the first experiment, Richter decided to conduct a second experiment, but this time he added a little twist to it. For the second experiment, before the rats gave up or drowned due to exhaustion, Richter took them out, dried them, and let them rest for a while before putting them back into the water again. For this second time, how long do you think the rats survived?

They swam and survived for an average of 60 hours. I know it sounds insane and hard to believe, but yes, those rats survived for an average of 60 hours the second time; there was even a rat that survived for about 81 hours. What we can learn from this experiment is that a rat that was temporarily saved survived 240 times longer than the one that wasn't given any intervention. What makes the rats in the second experiment last 240 times more than that of the first experiment is a four-letter word that many people take no notice of. The four-letter word is HOPE. Hope causes us to push beyond our limits; hope can turn an ordinary man into an extraordinary; it is the greatest tool that all of us must have in our everyday life. The belief is that if we can hold on much longer, just like those rats, we will eventually get saved.

I saw in a video about a country navy training drill, where the man who happened to be now a decorated soldier said a particular night during his training course, the organizers decided to punish his class by sending them to the mud to spend the night as punishment for a rule they defaulted, and the only way for the punishment to end before dawn was if a particular number of trainees quit the training course that day. The mud was very cold, and dawn was looking very far away, but at that lowest moment of those guys' lives, someone raised a song, and everyone sang, and the mud that happened to be very cold became warmer, and dawn did not seem as far away as it was a few minutes ago, and that was how every single one of them made it to the morning without quitting. We just need to hang on a little longer and have hope because there is light at the end of the tunnel. 

Keep hoping, Keep working 

Keep believing 

Keep growing 

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