3 Lessons in Three Months

 

I wasn't looking for lessons, but the past three months taught me skills I didn't have before.

Here are three after three.

January: Postpone the Problems

In the classic Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O'Hara in one of the chapters says :

 

There were times I would sleep at 2.00 a.m trying to solve a problem, but it never worked because I would be too tired the next morning, and my problem would still be quite active. 

Now, I set aside time to think about a problem and the solution. When I have done everything in my power to solve it, I set it aside and use my energy for other things.

Feb is for Fewer words 

I am not the guest of Honour.

As such, I am not required to say something. Whether it's an opinion, a suggestion or an idea, I  don't have to say what I think at this moment.

 There are other people here; let them talk. I have tried this one, and I like the peace it brings.

March Away.

I learned the term 'chasing energy' from Chat gpt and I was kinda embarrassed. I have often found myself chasing energy.

 I gave chat this situation where I felt like I was oversharing with a friend ( I do that often  )

Sometimes it's not even about oversharing.

 It's when you expect feedback from  a source but they are taking their time so as you wait you keep in contact hoping they will remember they owe you an answer.

In March, I learned to redirect that energy to something productive.

IMG CREDIT: LUKE CHEN VIA Pintrest

Gratitude: Remembering those who got me where I am

 I am coming to understand that, in spite of the hard times I have faced in my life, I have always had very good people around me.

Today I saw a like on my Facebook post and it was a lady who was a colleague in 2004, at my first office job.

She worked in the cyber cafe side of the business, and I was the receptionist on the Internet Supply Office. And she reminded me how I would go with pages of written stories and ask her to help me type. I was writing a column for a local Daily and would write my articles on a notebook.

She told me I was always motivated to be a writer, and she is proud of the steps I have taken. Then she sent me the number of another colleague, and when I called him, he was like, you know how you have a favourite uncle (I don't have the father experience, so we'll go with uncle). He asked if I had eaten enough to grow, and whether I am still tiny with a little voice.

And it hit me that, the reason I never toppled over were because of people like these. They would buy me lunch when I didn't have any money, and they even recommended me for jobs and scholarships. And even if they didn't know that I was going through the most horrendous period of my life, and hanging by a single thread, they were in my life then.

And I am grateful.

With a Classmate int he Library, Digital Film and Tv, LUCT, Cyberjaya

Nothing lasts forever

 Oh how quickly we forget the once familiar places

How they fade into insignificance.

How faces we loved become  memory

And new ones become the reason we exist.

Nothing Doing

 

The strange thing about life is how much of it goes on about without out direct interference.

There is the positive, like peace in the country, sunshine and rain, and good relationships with others.

There is also the negative deaths, illness, bad economic times and falling out with fellow humans.

And sometimes we spend too much time trying to ensure that everything remains at optimum.

This we do, sometimes at the expense of something greater, our time, our mental alignment, our health.

The more we try to keep all the balls in the air, the more we lose the rhythm and oft times, everything comes crushing down on us, at our feet, leaving us sometimes in paralysis.

But what can one do when being alive means  constant attention to every aspect of life
Internal and external?

Keeping still.
We limit our reactions.
And somehow, we train ourselves to cope with every changing season.

Entitlement

 When someone feels entitled to your time, your nervous system will pick it up.

some people operate from urgency and control. They think pressure equals seriousness.

People who are used to money solving access often confuse access with ownership.

Peer Pressure for the 40 year old

 I have always been stubborn. When our class prefect was away one day, in 1995, people decided to use up the coloured chalks to write and draw on the board. They wrote what they thought about her leadership, what a terrible person she was. They tried to get me to write something but I couldn't, she was my friend and a member of our fatherless race.

The following day, someone told her that everybody had written something about her and there was a plan to oust her and make me class prefect. I tried to defend myself but my voice was drowned in the crod so I took out a a book to read.

Someone tapped on my shoulder, it was my friend, asking if I could ccompany her on a teacher errand. And as we walked I started to tell her how I hadn't been involved. She simply said - I believe you- You are my friend.

I could have cried. It was the first time someone had believed me.

A few years later, when we were preparing for our final exams, some girls started to form chamas to share the latest gossip before sleep. I didn't join even after several invitations. It's not like I had something important, like reading for the exams. No, sleep was my priority.

One morning, every girl except three of us- the nerds- were summoned into the classroom. Kumbe they had been caught the precious night gossiping about a teacher and been asked to write down all their names. I was there wondering, ' what's going on.'

I tell people I had more courage at 12 that I had in my 20's, but still I have't been one to be pulled downby peer pressure. In college, there were several opportunities to cheat in exams but I didn't see the point. I failed, miserably in one of the Business Management units but there was no way I was going to copy just because everybody was doing it and the invigiletor was acting like she had somehting to do on her phone- we didn't even have  safaricom bundles then.

Anyway, since I moved to a smaller town, I am finding myself in situations where people who haven't worked on their own convictions would feel better if I didn't make their consciences ache. But me,  being stubborn me, and not interested in pandering to anyone's conscience but mine, I have found myself making enemies quick.

Conversations on The Complicated World of Humans

 I have been thinking about, how our African culture, colonization not withstanding, is a giving culture. We always serve the visitor first, we smile at the stranger and we are ready and eager to share what we have.

Sadly, it's not the same for Africans and people of African origin.

When we visit a white dominated country- Europe, The Americas, we are regarded with suspicion.

You visit a monument, ride the train and feel the eerie assumption that- this one should not be here, this is ours-. And my conclusion is, sadly, the lighter coloured sons of Adam are selfish. But maybe they know they don't have enough to share so they must keep being tight fisted. Fact is, Africa has many many unending resources, and we know it, though most of us don't realise it.

Despite many years of (I don't know what kuporwa is in English), the content keeps on generating more and more for the entire earth to use.

And my conclusion is, the only place where an African can be at peace is Africa, this is home, and we welcome everyone regardless of their origin, because that's who we are, givers and we always have enough, and more. Okay I will start a podcast 😅