Saturday, August 13, 2016

With age comes wisdom

‘Let me tell you one thing; with age comes wisdom. To run a country like this, with all its problems, with all its complexities, to put this country in the hands of the inexperienced, It will be a fatal error’-Victor Rivera in Our Brand Is Crisis.

It’s my birthday this month(on the 15th), I am growing old, the horror!!, I am joking, I am so very grateful for this blessing and pray for a long long happy life.My skype account thought I was born in July, I am rarely online on Skype and I use it mostly for work so, you can imagine my utter shock one day when I logged on and I had 20 messages, my first thought was, log off now, something is up, only to find people and their wishes for happiness, long life and health (all really nice and kind messages).



The truth is the older you grow, the more things you learn through the experiences that you go through, some happy, some sad but they all teach you something and the things learnt from the same exact circumstances could be different for different people, thing is, everyone is different and what you think is a key thing you’ve learnt can be so trivial to others and vice-versa .

I know all the things I have learnt aren’t anything new and I have always known them but they are all becoming clearer each passing day because with age the noise dies down and you begin to realize what really matters.


Be obsessively grateful


All of us are blessed differently and we all want for something (even the most blessed person) because that’s just our nature. You might look at another person and think they have everything but this person who is being looked at is also looking at another person and thinking this other one is more blessed than me, they have all I want, such is life. Therefore be grateful for all you have because the more grateful you are with what God has given you, the more content and happy you will be.

There is this story that is told in jest and it goes something like this; In heaven there is a post-office for receiving all correspondence from human beings and there are two desks, one is always busy, receiving so much contact and correspondence from human beings and the other is not busy at all and on most days they get no correspondence at all. Do you know which two desks these are? The busy one is the one receiving prayer requests and the not so busy one is the one that receives the ‘thank you notes’ when prayers are answered/blessings received. So how about all of us try and send as many thank you notes to heaven, everyday, everytime you pray before you ask for all the things you normally ask for just say-‘Thank you God for all my blessings, I take nothing for granted’.

Fearless be yourself



People are different right? Because of genetic make-up, social environments they grew up in, things they hold close to their heart and all that but the world as it now has these set standards for what a perfect woman should be or what a perfect man should be. This is ingrained in our heads both consciously and unconsciously through programs on TV, characters in some books, friends, acquaintances and we all try to be the nearest to society’s perfect which is wrong because then we deprive the world of our true selves and worse we loose ourselves, what is important to us and what makes us happy.

I know this is not the best of examples but it’s the most appropriate one that I can think of now; I totally cannot eat chicken, any kind of chicken, I find the smell not too nice, but the person I go eat out with most of the times (because there is no way I am cooking it) thinks chicken meat is the shiznit and because I am the captain of team fitting-in, I will always also get chicken but extra crispy and spicy and even then I would end up exchanging my share with their fries all the time, until one day it hit me, it’s not a crime to not like meat or chicken because I know people who don’t eat cake and I don’t judge them so now I just say I don’t like chicken and I eat what I want.

Do not compare yourself with others



Everyone’s journey is different and for this reason only there is no point in comparing yours to that of others and crying about it (or feeling yourself). Of-course if is something you can have control over and can change, change it, but only because it makes you happy and it is what you really want, not because so and so has it or has done it.

Social media is good for keeping in touch with family and friends but it’s not a true measure of how well one is doing because trust me people post what they want others to know and in most cases they only want others to see them happy and doing well.


Read




What school did to most of us is that it made reading a chore and a difficult one at that because you had to read a lot, memorize stuff and apply it to pass exams and passing exams was the only thing that mattered and still matters even if I decided to go to back to school today.

Therefore reading was the thing that you did when you had no choice and a lot of us after school never read again, but as I in the recent past have discovered reading is good, it informs you, you learn new words (big words that you might never use, but you know them),you write better and if you read self-help books and books/documents related to your profession you might rule that world so to say. I think for me it has opened up my imagination because all the characters in the books I read I seriously have this idea of how they look and most times I draw different endings to the books.

You don't believe me,this article should make you want to read or find someone who reads :-).

Travel




I don’t know about speechless but I am sure travelling turns people into story tellers, how else do you explain all the travel blogs out there :-) :-).

If someone ever checked my Google search history they would honestly just find me a travel plan because the number of travel blogs I read and reviews on Air BnB I have been reading off-late!, I could easily tell you where to sleep for 1,500 KES per night in Lamu and has good reviews (yes I am a bargain hunter like that). I don’t necessarily want to go to far away. I want/my plan is to do all those touristy sites in Kenya starting close to home because Lewa is in Isiolo, Meru national park is our neighbor, Marsabit, Samburu, Ol-Pejeta then Nairobi and all it has to offer and on and on like that because really, charity begins at home. Now lets hope and pray that these plans actually happen and when they happen this blog will turn into a ‘travel blog’.

Point of all this is; travel, go places and you will learn something new like; people play football on the sea or camel liver is cheaper than goat liver or something more profound than this. Also that you don’t have to break the bank to travel because truth be told expensive hotels are nice and all but at the end of the day, you pay all that money and you don’t carry the bed home :-D :-D.

Live your dreams (or works towards your dreams)






It’s expected  that at a certain age, you will have your life figured out and everything, some people might be lucky enough to have their lives figured out but if you are like me, you will constantly wonder what it is you are doing but when you take a serious look at your life,you realize you may not be where you want to be but you are definitely going there.

What I have learnt is you can want everything but as one Pintrest quote says-the dream is free, the hustle is sold separately, if you want to travel the world( or Kenya and it’s neigbours like me), plan, prioritise which place is most important to you, save-up for this and be patient. Even if your dreams are big like I don’t know becoming president plan and start small and build political capital.Most importantly always have a plan and stick to it.

Take risks




Take risks, small risks, big risks if you are courageous but take risks because you might have some regrets but they will not be nearly as bad as if you didn’t take them and risks taken make for really good stories. Do you want to be that old person who has no intriguing stories to tell? I sure don’t want to be that person.

Believe in yourself





Don’t let anybody tell you, you cannot achieve your dreams, everything can be done if you are passionate, are willing to put in the time/resources and pray about it. I have learnt things can take years to happen(patience is major key people) so you can work hard, pray, sacrifice a lot and still not see much progress but one day everything will fall into place and all the hard work and sacrifice will be forgotten.


In everything you do give your 100%.




In everything you do always give your best, it might not be what someone else thinks is the best but let it not be that you did something half-heartedly, go in and give your best, if it works out then you will be so proud and if it doesn’t you will have no regrets. You might learn what you didn’t do well to improve on but it will never be on the same level as the regret knowing it didn’t work out because you only put in 75% effort.

Learn to say No.




It seems pretty easy right? but for me it has to be one of the hardest things to do. The more you say No and are able to be guilt free after the easier it becomes and then suddenly you are free to say yes to  only the things you what you want to say yes to and that comes with so much freedom.

Be kind.




More than anything it’s important to be kind because kindness is such a gift in a world that is increasingly unkind. It’s in the normal things like buying your groceries from the market women and not bargaining for a 10 bob cut, calling a friend whose child is sick to ask about their child or better yet going to visit the child in hospital, talking to that stranger who is willing to talk to you, sharing stuff, Whatever your version of kind is be it.


Find joy in the ordinary, everyday things




People think that to make memories you have to go to some exotic place,far away or do something really big. Yes this will make memories but the happiest times you will be surprised are when you are at home doing the simplest of things like one of the memories I hold dear is me and my niece watching Mresh’s wedding video and dancing so much and Mresh sitting there with this dreamy look in her eyes :-) :-) .Do people consider other people at home watching TV and dancing (by dancing I mean moving from side to side because I can't 'dance')  to what is on TV out of ordinary, I’m sure nobody thinks it’s anything but boring,

Another one I hold close to my heart is long time ago my mum used to come to the bus station to pick us each time we went home, now she doesn’t (why, oh, why) but arriving and looking out the window and seeing her there, waving is a memory I cherish,  even now each time I go to home, I see a lot of people picking their loved ones,  is it out of the ordinary?, no it's not but it sure hold a big space in my memories cabinet.

So you might go out to faraway places and spend huge amounts of money to make memories and yet if you look hard enough inside your head(the memories cabinet) what is there as memories you cherish you will be surprised.

Chase opportunities,chase people




If you really want something(or someone for that matter) go after it/them because we loose so much to fear and pride.The worst that can happen is you might not get what you want but you will not have what ifs, which trust me should be listed as the number cause of stomach ulcers and sleepless nights.

Choose your friends wisely



You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with, therefore be wise in who you choose to spend your time with, because in-time their character will rub-off on you. If they have good character ,are intelligent ,kind, religious and good people you will become like them but if they are the opposite then you might just become unrecognizable even to yourself.

Take care of yourself


Look at Iman, 61 years old and looking like this, there is hope, there is hope and the secret is out too.

The older you grow,the more you need to take care of your body,by eating right,exercising,taking care of your skin and hair.I am not playing,you know when you are younger and every thing takes care of itself well unfortunately that time comes to an end,you eat cake,your tummy sticks out, and that’s not even what scares me the most,what worries me is skin and it loosing it’s elasticity,now here I am googling skin care products with anti-aging properties, foods that are sweet but non-fattening and stuff like that (sometimes I laugh at myself).

Seriously though drink loads of water, exercise a bit and find products that work for your skin and hair and stick to them. This is my plan to staying/looking young forever, if it works I will be sure to let everyone on in the secret. Reading this you will think I actually exercise right? It’s an ongoing struggle and what I call exercise is skipping rope and doing two round on this 7 minutes exercise app on my phone.

Here is to many more years Insha aa Allah and I pray that my best years are yet to happen,

No comments:

Post a Comment