BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE

"Be the Change You Want to See"

These words emanated from the following words by none other than Mahatma Gandhi. “We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”

The advantage (or disadvantage depending on what you think of your life) about being 50 plus Joel Emisiko, Wacango Muguro Kimani as you continue to celebrate this phenomenal number, is that you have made many mistakes, some that cannot be undone and some that you can correct with the time you have remaining, of course unknown to us. The greatest thing is that you have had time of reflection to decide if you want to learn from the mistakes to ensure you never repeat them again but one thing is for sure - life is a learning experience if you open your mind to it, listen to constructive criticism and ignore nay sayers, but most importantly, the ultimate decision lies with you - do I want to make the rest of whatever I have left a time to regret or a time to look back and remember lessons learnt and mistakes never to be repeated again, or live with regrets all your life? Do I want to wake up and smell the roses keeping in mind that they have thorns but the sweet scent of these beautiful flowers surpasses the sting of the thorns as you pick a rose from your garden. One of the greatest lessons learnt is from this story: "Why you shouldn’t avoid making mistakes" But I still would not be afraid to make mistakes because I would learn from them as expressed here so rightfully - http://hometimes.co.za/…/why-you-shouldnt-avoid-making-mis…/#

In the past two week as I always do during celebration of my many years on this earth, I have had time to reflect on the goings on in my country Kenya, in my life and specifically following an incident a week ago that did not turn out as expected and instead of working for the greater good of those it concerned did the complete opposite and left me asking - "was it worth it"?. The words of Mahatma Gandhi have continued to scream at me somewhere at the back of my mind and I have had time to ask myself - "was it really, really worth it? If given the chance, would I do it all over again? My answer is: "I would gauge the situation, the context, the geographical area, the sample population :-) the wider expected and unexpected implications and possibly look the other side like many of us do and do nothing about something or do something about it and live with the repercussions!."

Thank you Kevin Kariuki for that chat we had last evening, not only catching up on the past that started in Nakuru Day Secondary School some 45 plus years ago and post school, college, life, but some lessons you taught me in word and in deed that I had not thought about or thought through - it was phenomenal and trust me, one of those talks that will linger in my mind for a long time as I make several major decisions soon.

All said and done, life is a learning process and in the words of Hunter S. Thompson in "The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman I exclaim: “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
"Wow! What a Ride!”

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