Love for a Reason; Let the Reason be Love.

I wanted to write a story about love.

But then I was stuck at the first sentence because writing about love is emotionally involving, something I find tasking.

Earlier this week, I lost a colleague at work. A tall cool guy. He loved to laugh, a lot. He did not talk much but would be pleasant if you engaged him in a conversation. Never much of a conversation starter. He collapsed while jogging. A fit guy, he always walked home. Low fat diet, vegetable lover. Again, he loved to laugh. This is the paradox of life. That one dies while working to stay healthy. Death is mean, we try to avoid it and it lies at the very path we are sure it can't be on, shamelessly waiting. His time was a week to Valentines day. May he rest in Peace.

We make plans for this big day; hotel bookings, office deliveries and pleasant surprises for the big day but what will really matter at the end are the moments we had. Here and now is all we have, all we can be sure of. The future is great for dreams but today is a perfect day to love.

The purpose of love is to love for a reason. That you may buy her that rose, open that door, write her a love note and call her at work because you miss her.
You may not be the kind of guy to bring flowers everyday and say "I love you" in many fancy ways, but if you love for a reason and that reason is love, your smile should brighten up her mood just like a blooming rose would.Your simple ways would intrigue her .

Love is not romance. Love is friendship. Love is the smile, the glow in his eyes. The way he inspires you. The way he resists to smile at your stupid jokes because he wants to be serious around you when you are discussion serious matters. Love is wishing them well, much more than you wish for yourself. Love is not jealous I guess that is how Solomon was able to keep 700 hundred wives and 300 hundred concubines. He told them love is not jealous and they lived happily ever after. (Do not quote me though).

Life is too short to love for the show. If you love for something; seasons end, looks fade, feelings disappear, money is superficial and luxury never satisfying.

Love today, love now its all we are sure about. Love for a reason; let the reason be love.

29 Lessons I Have Learnt in the Last two Years.

Photo Credit; Here

Happy new year. It may be late for you but for me it actually feels so new now more than ever.

I began the year with a countdown to my birthday which was special because the last day of the job I have done the last two years.

After this post in which I had lost all hope, I sat down and decided to go back to the drawing board. I wanted to take a whole new direction career wise but my mentor could not hear none of it. I wanted to stop being mentored and just be let to make decisions that I thought were right for me but thank God for calm people in this world.

I came back to my senses when this question "so what is the short term plan? Because what you have is good but long term." was thrown at me. These kind of people are a bit annoying at such moments, and so I made two short term plans both of which had persistence as the main ingredient. Eventually after hard work, persistence like that of the proverbial widow and prayer without ceasing, it paid off. I couldn't hold my tears when I got the positive news. I was elated, it is not much but the joy of seeing something you have worked so hard for succeeds is always amazing.


There are a few lesson I have picked along the way and I will share them with you below. Some will make sense while some, well let us just say people have different perspectives in life.

1. In life, you need a mentor and as hard as it may seem to always ask the opinion of someone over something concerning your life, if you want to grow, you cannot avoid this.

2. Know when to walk away; not all situations have a positive side.

3. If it is draining you, it is time to make a change.

4. Your network is your net worth. Make friends at every opportunity you get.

5. Celebrate small victories but do not get comfortable in them, aim higher after every step.

6. Positive energy bounces back to you in equal measure but not necessarily same speed, give it either way.

7. Depersonalize failure ; things do not always go as planned and it has nothing to do with you. Failure is failure and so is success, it is not about certain people, it is about situations.

8. Getting a passion and going after it is a great thing. It is mind occupying and at the same time it lets you compete with yourself. The eventual result is growth as you achieve certain personal goals.

9. Things happen the way they do for a reason but that should not make us resign to fate, instead make the right choices with the end in mind.

10. Always have the end in mind and work out the plan to get there. Without the end, we are heading nowhere.

11. Read wide. I am not the best of readers but I try and I can tell you that reading makes you see the world through a different window.

12. Do not be afraid to shine.

13. Work out, It makes you feel good about yourself even.

14. Believe in the beauty of your dreams. If you can not see how beautiful your future is, you cannot convince the world to see it and you cannot work towards it. Something has to motivate you and that thing is a mental picture of what you want to be like, to have or to own in the future.

15. To thy own self ; be true.

16. If it involves pleasing people , do it but not for long because it will take away your self esteem.

17. If what you do is all you have at that particular time, love it, do it with passion. Working from a point of love is essential, it makes you happy. Happy people deliver good results. The question that you will always be asked is; how do you do it? Even if you say it is love, people will not  understand.

18. Try new things, you never know what new talent you may discover.

19. Keep time, it makes you look organised even if you are not. :)

20. Do not hate the player nor the game, hate the fact that there is nothing you are doing about it and change that.

21. Get a system to deal with anger and disappointments. Do not let it weigh you down, neither let them make you negatively affect those around you.

22. Laugh, it heals wounds.

23. Make friends across all age brackets, older people will give you wisdom, children will ask you thought provoking questions, young people will make you realize that life is never that serious and your age mates should challenge you.

24. Forgive people, yourself included.

25. At any given time , whatever you do, give your best , not for anything but so that you can leave a legacy. Let it be said, "there once worked a girl here who gave her best" about you.

26. If boiling an ocean is what you have to do to earn a living, do it. Do what you have to do to stay relevant. It is a fast paced world, if you slow down or get too comfortable. you will soon be obsolete. Remember to never sink in your ocean.

27.Never forget the days of your humble beginnings, let them inspire you to greater heights.

28. It is better to be peaceful than to be right. This is the most important lesson.

29. Last but not least, commit all your plans to God and he will make your path straight.

I Hit Rock Bottom While Aiming for the Sky.

Focus is when you put all your energy, thoughts, hopes and aspirations in something you believe in. When you focus, you hardly hear the wind pass. You concentrate, you get immersed, lost and suddenly you are defining a new self. When you believing in something so much, you start envisioning yourself in it, with it or being it. You lose yourself.

This has been me the last two to three months. I wanted this new job position so much. I chased managers across the corridors and asked leading questions. I knew the positions were opening but I dint know when and so I kept tabs on every new change. 

When you want to find a husband, you put yourself out there. It is the same thing with finding a job. I was out there more than It is needed. :)

People started to notice me, I took part in almost all group activities, heck I even anchored the news on the t.v channel at our workplace. Yes we have t.v channel . That was a good night, that night I was on air. I was almost a celebrity overnight, people poured out hearty congratulations as others were amazed that I had the courage to do that. 

The thing is, I am told I have a misleading face. People meet me and think I am uptight and serious,probably even boring but I think they are the ones who have a problem because after sometime they actually admit it " I never knew you were this talkative, or funny or whatever else adjectives they feel like using to describe my happy self. I am used to being profiled by the seriousness on my face and I keep wondering, should I go smiling around like a smiling machine or what do they exactly mean when the say " You are too serous"?

The job positions opened up and you can bet I was first to drop in my application. Five minutes after a communication was sent that the vacancies were open, candidate number one was already waiting. I did a lot of following up weeks later to  ensure that it had actually been received. On the weekend before the interview, I locked my self indoors and read manuals and websites. I was more prepared than was required as I realized during the interview because that was the first time I had been in front of a panel that nodded when I talked and one that I actually got to interview a little because I felt like they dint pose a challenge big enough for me . They were done; I actually got myself asking "Is that all?" Where was I to take all this information on Forex, FDIs, Dispora banking and all those things? I dint want to use the next time, I dint see a next time. I walked out of that room feeling proud of myself.  

Meet the brand ambassador for the night :)
Behind that smile were tears that needed to flow.

 A week later, I was selected among other people to be a brand ambassador for the new brand. It was a great feeling, a premonition of better things to come. The wait for my interview results was painful because doubt would creep in now and then. But I held on to my faith. Word on the corridors was that I was second in ranking. My competition must have been born way earlier than I was because the only thing she had above me was experience. I was happy because number two counts too. But time went and there was no communication and finally it dawned on me that the only place to be is at the top. Average does not cut it. I was not ready for such news. I broke down. It was the day were to hold the event where I doing the brand ambassador roles. I was not happy. Behind my smile were tears that could occasionally make me visit the washrooms more often than normal. I wanted to scream and curse. I wanted to hate whom ever took my job. I was not prepared for failure. I hit rock bottom .

This post comes from a point of pain. A point where self acceptance is needed but there is not enough to give. But the pen takes away  my pain in a way I cannot explain. So I thought about; it not conclusive thoughts. They were scattered all over and they dint even care to gather and make sense. I decided to write about it. 

Because in life no situation is unique to you. Some one must have gone through the same, another may need to hear that someone like you can actually fail. There maybe one wondering why she is alone in failure. Here is to those who have aimed for the sky and fallen for the stars, we have to keep trying, better still, change strategy but we must get what we want because we deserve the best. 

This is beside the point but hey, I googled the meaning of Mihas, and this is what I found: http://www.meaninglike.com/what-does-name-stand-for/mihas timely, right?

Cheers!

State of a Failed Society... Mollis

I logged on to twitter yesterday evening and I found this trending topic #Mollis, curiously, I tried to see what it was about Mollis. Apparently, he is some hero to whom a girl has surrendered. My interest was to see how far KOT had gone with raising #1MilliForJadudi, I realized the topic was trending but not high ranking, its fine anyway. I do a few re-tweets and hope this two or three of my followers will be touched and give something. My contribution was little, so I have to top it up by raising awareness.

In my WhatsApp groups, Mollis is being mentioned again, but it is evening, that time to go see what my son has been up to all day.  I hardly have time to be on the Internet at night. I dedicate these hours to my family.

On my way to work, I read then take a short nap. Once in the office, I see this Mollis thing again and now am too curious. I put on my eye phones and listen to what will turn out to be the most disturbing audio I have listened to after one where a guy did a remix of Sauti Sol's Nerea song and tells Waithera to just get an abortion because the baby she is carrying may turn out to be Osama, or Onyancha or which ever bad personality we know of in this failed society.

I am not sure I was born at the right time, my generation may be in graves by now or maybe they are grand mothers in old people homes. Because I do not understand how a woman in pain during intercourse tells the guy that she is tired and the guy asks her to shut up and stop being silly is funny. How? How do we as a society sit down and decide that this woman's pain is our source of joy and we go ahead and send the audio to other people whom we think are of the same mind?

When I listened to that audio clip, my hands trembled and I was in shock. I tried to listen to the part where it gets funny and I found none. That guy does not care one bit about the lady and he is punishing her for having human desires. Sex should be an act of pleasure and never a one man show. (Pun fully intended). This lady is obviously not feeling the pleasure.

I thought about how many times women take such abuse and assume that it is normal, how many  women suffer in silence because sex is a taboo topic in African setting.
 How men who have lost face in society are seeking to redeem their egos by abusing women sexually. My heart broke at the thought that this may happen to any woman out there and she will not voice it out because this society will side with the supposed hero. Sexual abuse does not have to be violent. Any sexual act done against a woman's will is abuse and if we can not recognise that as a society, we are a failed generation ready to birth a failed nation.
This is the same guy you will tell you are pregnant and he will tell you to procure an abortion because the baby may be a criminal, of course heartless just like his father.

Its is these small seeds of evil we are planting in society today that are growing to be tall tress in the name of rogue pastors who kill people and get away with murder in broad day light and corrupt leaders, Of course when Mollis gets a position in government or maybe he is already there he will oppose the appointment of a lady  . Because any man who aims to gratify his ego by sexually harassing women has very low self esteem and hence sees a woman as a threat. That is why he takes advantage of her point of weakness.

If the mothers of today can stand up and decide to raise a generation of children who respect human life, boys who will grow to love respect and honor women of all ages and girls who will grow with the knowledge that they are no less of a human being because they are female, then we shall have succeeded in redeeming this failed society.

Some will say that this is an exaggerated point of view and that life is too short to try and solve every body's problem, so because it has happened, lets laugh about it. But I say life is too short to celebrate evil. I may not change as many as five souls but that one soul that will have a different perspective after reading this may have been the Mollis that  may have sexually abused your daughter in future .

Dad, lets Celebrate Mum……….

Within a few hours of anyone hanging out with me in one of those meetings that always start with an unspoken “let me know you more” rule, it’s obvious for anyone to pick that I was raised by a single mother. I mention my mum probably from the third sentence.

“My mum took me to boarding school in class six.” I will start. “She took me to go to an all girls nun’s school. If am nervous around men, blame my upbringing.” My date will give a half smile and think I can’t be the shy type. My face will convince him, but my sweaty palms will be just grateful that there is not going to by a handshake anytime soon.

In the next hour, if the date is that interesting, he will be sure to know that my grandfather is my father figure. “Yes I have a nick name,” IL say when asked to give a fancier name than my first, which I must mention is fancy by all means, but to conform, IL drop Mihas. “Sounds Latin” IL probably be told. Am yet to come to terms with how much flattery can be associated with a name. IL chuckle, you can be excused to think IL be impressed. It’s a Kikuyu name but that IL not mention. What is important is that my grandfather gave it to me and I like it a lot. If he can listen to all that, he can ask me on a second one without fear of me saying IL be going home to do my laundry because I like my clothes to have a personal touch.

Today however it’s not about my date, or my grandpa. I want to write to my father. 

Dear Dad, 

The last time I wrote you a letter was in 2001. I was in class eight. I had asked you for 2000 shillings to go on a trip to the Coast. You know those trips, they give the K.C.P.E candidates just before the exam so that if they fail and get nothing out of school they can at least say they went on a trip? Yes.

You did not reply, I did not expect you to. 

For two reasons; One, you had never written me a letter, ever!! Grandpa wrote me several. Though I could hardly read his medic influenced handwriting, I treasured them and made sure I replied. He never used to read my replies till I close school and I visited him, then he’d remember the letter and wed read it together. I also don’t know why he did that. The second reason why I did not expect a reply was because it was mum’s idea to write the letter. 

Mum always had these crazy ideas that never seemed to work. Do you know she made us move into our then “new” house when the roof was half done and the doors were in place but not functional? We used the window as our entry and exit point for several weeks as we waited for the doors to dry up and strongly fit in place. I wrote about it in a composition when I went back to school and won an award for most creative piece. I was not creative, it was true. Based on the above and other crazy things she made me do, I only gave you a benefit of doubt when I wrote that letter. 

Had you replied, what would the letter have said? “Here is the money use it wisely?” Or something like, “I have worked very hard to earn this money, work as hard in your exams so that you can have a better life.” I want to convince myself that they would be kind words but you would capitalize on the money because something in me tells me you are a little bit mean. 

Thou shall not feel judged by the above statement at all. You know one can’t really know a persons’ character by meeting them an average of five times in twenty something years, three of which you were barely a teenager and the other two hardly lasted for an hour. I bet you also don’t know me. I can imagine you think am a spoilt brat. Or that I hate you. The thing is, I really can’t find the love that daughters have for their dads. Its not there in my heart. I either traded all of it, or it died due to lack of nurturing. So there is no hate, just that love is really, non existent.

  I however saved your number after you called me a few months ago. Although I must admit that I struggled with how to save you. Dad? Well the image I have of you does not fit this word. Father? Too remote. Buda? Id laugh every time I received a text from this one. Sounds very much like a sugar daddy. 

I call grandpa “Guks”, everybody does, and he’s cools with it. He actually loves it, you should hear him call me and say “Mr. Guks hapa!!” Don’t know why he introduces himself. Like I can confuse his number or even worse, his voice for anyone else? Nigga please.

So where were we? I thought of cramming your number so that I don’t have to save it but when you call I know it is you. Well, the flip side is that I sometimes have these crazy days, where I sit with my friends and we celebrate something from Durban and as the Jameson sinks in, your call may come through. Have you ever been invited to a drink up by a person who later asks “And who is this by the way?” Well, you don’t want me to be that person either. 

 I finally did settle on something, but I must make a confession. I had to ask a close pal who has a good relationship with the dad for a few suggestions. This may not be a big deal to you, but it goes to show you how much of stranger the years we have been apart have turned us into. I am not sure if we lived together it would have be any different. I still think love would be non existence, so I applaud mum for not pretending to be nurturing love where it never was in the first place. 

You see dad, it’s hard to write a letter to anyone with whom you do not have a certain level of connection. It is even harder to write to you with out mentioning mum. When people mention dads, the image that flashes though my mind is that of mum followed by grandpa.

You are getting older, Id want to be close to you, and allow you to atone for your sins. But I can’t, at least not fully. Instead I look at my mother in awe everyday. The way she never compromised on the quality of my education. By the way, so you know, I know you left because mum insisted on taking me to an expensive school which was by then a little bit beyond her means and you did not want to help financially. Well we made it through. I can proudly say that my mum paid all my school fees by herself and I was never out of school for more than two days in a term. You can dance on those two days, but that will mean nothing because to me, they were just another break from school monotony.

People make wrong choices in life. Many of which hunt them to the graves. I bet you did not imagine id turn out so bright. You also did not think chubby cheeks were beautiful. May be girls did not bring you much pride. Well, you were wrong. I am sure mum has rubbed it on your face enough times that I am a bright girl. Are you on Instagram? You can look at my pictures and if you do not see beauty, then it’s because your eyes are contaminated with hatred, it’s an ugly thing. I influence a few people in life and even though you will always tell me how you wish me well in life, I am sure you also do not believe I am that little girl you left fatherless. Well am not. I am a better person. When you left her, mum became all I had. A resilient woman and taught me to be just like her.  

This is letter is to you but not about you. Nothing much in my life will ever be about you. It’s too late for that. Its mother’s month, I hope you take this chance to celebrate my mother with me. To appreciate the woman who did not throw away the child you rejected. To thank her for her tireless effort to make your daughter a successful woman in society. She had every right to walk out on me like you did, give me poor quality education or even trade me into child labor but she chose the noble thing.Do not buy her a dress, I doubt you know her size. Don’t buy her a shoe, she will never wear it. Do not ask her out for lunch, she will probably be having a special date. Just call her and tell her thank you for raising the child you rejected. 

Happy mothers day mum. I love you.