Chill & Read

Short & Sweet

Mama Waiyaki — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 20:23:25 +0000

“Mom: People get Knowledge and Wisdom mixed up too often. Knowledge is knowing how get away with murder. Wisdom is knowing when to use that knowledge or when to let someone else murder for you.

Me: I thought Wisdom was knowing that you shouldn’t murder people?

Mom: No that’s Integrity. That has nothing to do with Wisdom.“

“TOTO’S ‘AFRICA’” BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Mama Waiyaki — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 18:10:31 +0000

BY ANTHONY SAMS

- – - -
[Originally published July 1, 2011.]

- – -
At the airport the young man heard far-off drums echoing in the night. He imagined the young woman in the plane sitting still, hearing whispers of a quiet conversation near the rear of the fuselage. He glanced down at his father’s wristwatch—12:30. The flight was on time.

The plane’s wings were moonlit and reflected the stars. The moonlight had guided him there, toward this salvation. He had stopped an older man along the way, hoping to find some long forgotten words, or perhaps an ancient melody, for such an occasion. The old man had said nothing at first, and instead stared cryptically into the sodden earth. Then he raised his head and turned slowly.

“Hurry, boy. It’s waiting there for you,” the old man had said.

The plane was almost gliding. The young man looked at the wristwatch again. His head spun from whiskey and soda. She was a damned nice woman. It would take a lot to drag him away from her. It was unlikely that a hundred men or more could ever do such a thing. The air, now thick and moist, seemed to carry rain again. He blessed the rains of Africa. They were the only thing left to bless in this forsaken place, he thought—at least until she set foot on the continent. They were going to take some time to do the things they never had.

He stood on the tarmac and watched as the plane came in for its landing. He heard the sound of wild dogs crying out into the night. The man thought the dogs sounded desperate, perhaps having grown restless and longing for some company. He knew the feeling. The crying of the dogs reminded him that he would need to do what he knew was right now that she was here. Of this he was as certain as Kilimanjaro rising like Olympus above the Serengeti. He had traveled and sought to cure what was deep inside him, what frightened him of himself.

The plane landed and stopped. He hurried. She would be waiting there for him.

Series21: Solitude is Key

Mama Waiyaki — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 20:13:05 +0000

Dear Waiyaki,

“ Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. And intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you’ll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.” -Janet Fitch.

This year, I have learnt that it is alright to be lonely. No. It is healthy to be lonely. Before you decide to throw stones, let me add that it is important to channel solitude. I have learnt that loneliness is a human experience as much as social interaction.

As much as you mingle with other human beings [when you start existing], I would also like you to take sometime to learn about yourself. As much as this sounds crazy, have a conversation with yourself. I am not telling you to start ‘high-fiving’ yourself as you review last night’s episode of ‘Lies That Bind’ on the road! All I am saying is that you converse with yourself in a way where you can test yourself; test whether you are as interesting as you think. Would you sound intelligent in a conversation with yourself or would you be sharing a lot of nothing with the world? Do you actually think before you speak? Ask yourself such questions.

Also, smell some roses. Or even some dirty shoes. Whatever tickles your fancy. Listen to some new music. Crawl into your own space and empathize with Swedish House Mafia lyrics. Read more books than usual. Challenge yourself to a reading marathon. This year I did a Nora Roberts marathon. Write some lyrics about how peeling potatoes with a blunt knife is not as easy as it looks. Write some short stories that will never be read by a living homo sapien. Sure, because dead homo sapiens can read them as you type, because they have free access to people’s computers in Purgatory. I digress.

Solitude lets you do several things that you can only enjoy when you are not around a mass of people. Learn how to meditate. Know what you are praying for. Why you are praying for it. Do not get soaked into a generation where following trends is the only trend. Want to grow. Know good tea from tea made with cheap Masala. Loneliness, I learnt is a freedom. A freedom that few people get in the chase, the grind.

Go dancing alone. Wait, do boys go dancing? Just look like a fool. [And] yes, you are guaranteed of a high IQ from my genes.

Just in case you will be this hot-shot guy in campus that everyone cannot resist to talk to and crowd, I will refer you to the video below. [But] to tell you the truth (Kiswahili direct translation), with my social skills and hopefully your father’s shy self, the likelihood of that happening is well, highly questionable.

Oh, but don’t get lonely to tweet like this:

[...]

Godspeed,

Mama Waiyaki.

Series21: Over & Above

Mama Waiyaki — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:28:16 +0000

Dear Waiyaki,

4.) Gratitude over Pride

For the short period that I have been blessed to live in this world, I have learnt that I ask for a lot of things. Either from my family, God or even myself. Some of the things I ask for I do not receive for one reason or the other, and some come to me in abundance. When I ask for these things, I tend to show a lot of humility to the source and even sometimes promise that I will do something in return for the thing asked.

I count my blessings each day for the gifts that I have been awarded or even the chances I have been blessed with. All I ask is that you remember to be grateful for where you have reached and what you have. It is so easy to ask, but it becomes a little task to be grateful after you receive. As humbly as you asked for something you did not have, be even more humbled when you receive it. Perhaps it takes a purer faith to praise God for unrealized blessings than for those we once enjoyed or those we enjoy now.

One of the main reasons that we lose our enthusiasm in life is because we become ungrateful .We let what was once a miracle become common to us. We get so accustomed to God’s goodness it becomes a routine. This also applies to other human beings. Son, as I’ve mentioned many times, humility is key. Don’t let it get to your head. Be grateful. Human beings have a tendency of remembering all the bad things that have happened to them and forget the good and positive things that they have around them. Sometimes I wonder whether God finds it amusing or just irritating. Do not be that person who is always complaining about having a lot of food in the fridge and lack an appetite. Be the person who is thankful for having a meal. If it is too much, share with those who don’t have. Discontentment and dissatisfaction erode the human heart & creates a cloud of filth in place.

Just in case you do not get whatever you ask for, maybe you can try to think that it was not meant to be yours, at least for that period of time. That might be an encouragement of some sorts. Also, cultivate the virtue of patience. Son, I also learnt that sometimes we pray and ask for big things and forget to be gracious for the ordinary things around. Be joyful for what you have. Why? I will quote Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica,

“Joy is thankfulness, and when we are joyful, that is the best expression of thanks we can offer the Lord [...]” and even to other people.

In the commencement post of Series21, I told you that I changed my prayer that you, my son, may get what you need and not what you think you need. Do not feed off greed. Appreciate and be grateful of blessings and people. We are more than asking. We are grateful.

[..]

Godspeed,

Mama Waiyaki.

Series21: Let’s Try Something New!

Mama Waiyaki — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:00:58 +0000

Dear Waiyaki,

In case I have lost you, let me remind you what I am writing to you about. Series21 is a chain of posts on 21 lessons I have learnt in 2012. We are on numero ithatu.

3.) Try Something New

Son, this year I learnt that nobody should ever be afraid to do something new. Whenever you do something new, you explore new ideas & indulge senses that in your day to day living do not exhaust. New experiments open your mind to empathy. Empathy, in that you start understanding what other people who have a profession in other fields do and appreciate their efforts.

This year, I set out to do 1 thing: Play the Harmonica. I saved up some cash and purchased one Mr. Kagwi, my harmonica.

This was about two months ago, and I immediately started working on some tunes. I posted two of the covers on Soundcloud:

Being comfortable with routine is not as good as it sounds. Son, do not be comfortable with the same ol’ same ol’. Try something that you are not used to and explore your creativity. Even if you suck at it, all you should know is you embracing a new environment or a new discipline is you opening up to new ideas.

[...]

Godspeed,

Mama Waiyaki.

Series21: Forgive the Mortal

Mama Waiyaki — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:37:20 +0000

Dear Waiyaki,

This year I have learnt that people are a variety of things. A mash-up of emotions, intentions and vocabulary. You will run into so many people in this world. At my current age, I am assuming that the few I have met are just a drop of water in the ocean, considering my anti-social hibernation behavior. Each human being has a characteristic that sets him/her apart from other Homo sapiens. You will learn that you must harbor patience and humility to accommodate others.

People will hurt you. You will hurt people. Intentionally or not. We become unreasonable sometimes and we forget that we are meant to control some of these emotions and actions. When you do something inconsiderate to someone else, apologize. This might seem as the usually Pre-school Survival 101 but it is generally how you are going to survive the world in its whole entity. Even after you graduate high school or university, you will find out that bullies still exist in college and at work places respectively. You need to learn this basic idea of forgiveness to cope with whatever environment you will be in.

Forgiveness is known to be an attribute for the strong. Strength, you will learn is much more than toned biceps. I will quote Alexander Hope,

” To err is human but to forgive is divine.”

As much as you can, be the ‘bigger man’. And this is in faith that when you wrong others, you will be humble enough to ask for forgiveness. A characteristic that is shadowing #GEN is that we are expensively pampering our egos with embellishments of money, pride and mere achievements. Son, be strong. Strong is being knowledgeable enough to know when you are becoming vain. Empty.

“Not everyone deserves my apology.”

What? Since when did you rise to a position of Deity and become too good for someone, let alone something? We can outgrow clothes, technology and even language, but we can never outgrow being mortals. Sit down and seek humility.

I learnt that some people are difficult. On standards that I, as a mere human being cannot sustain or live by. Those are the people who will not receive your apology or even take time to hear you out. What to do with such people? Let them be. You will not be that person who will be kissing their feet and waiting upon their every need just to get approval. They are mortals, just like yourself. Let no one ever make you feel like you are their peasant. Apologize & walk away. [And] that chapter is closed.

Forgive yourself too. You can start a fresh any time you want.

[...]

Godspeed,

Mama Waiyaki.

Series21: Speak. Communicate.

Mama Waiyaki — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 07:46:05 +0000

I am a series of small victories and large defeats, and I am amazed as any other that I have gotten from there to here.

Dear Waiyaki,

21.

The century that I’m writing to you in.

The weight, in grams, of a human being’s soul according to Duncan Macdougal.

The Mark of Adulthood.

The date the Mayans reckon the end of the world to be, on December 2012.

Son, it is also the number of days before the year 2012 ends (from today). Exciting, not very sure. Thought provoking, maybe. My intention to write to you today is not to tell you something inspirational and out of this world, because I do not have it yet. I would therefore like to share with you some few lessons that I have learnt this year that courtesy of age, I have been enlightened. That is all I have.

21 Lessons from 2012:

1.) Learn how to communicate.

Son, if you do not learn and know how to communicate, you will leave a lot of thoughts unexplained. I would like to state carefully before I write further that there is a difference between talking and communicating. Talking is simply the oral projection of your voice. This is where you find people project a lot of things but they are not making any sense. Communication is the interactivity of information. The goal of communication is getting a message across, either orally, visually or even literary as I am doing writing to you.

“nfboiebf eojpfjfnfh hnfenvenfeihfen.”

If that was intonated or had a voice projected along with it, talking would have taken place. I would then have talked a lot of nothing, just to put it lightly. Nothing has been communicated as no message has been put across.

This is where verbal diarrhoea comes in. You might be as eloquent as the characters on Dangerous Liaisons but you might be sharing with the world a lot of useless gibberish. Think before you speak. Make a civil conversation which shares a message. Ask where necessary and consider other people’s feelings when communicating.

In the generation I live in [#GEN], we have a lot to say. We have been raised to be opinionated and sentimental. That is a good thing. (But) then it comes to a point where we feel like we need to have opinions about everything, everywhere & anywhere. Courtesy of Social Media, I assume.

This leads to sharing of opinions of things we do not have facts on. Most of us speak because we have a voice, or an electronic device that is connected to the Internet. Communication involves education: education on the subject that you feel so objective to speak about.

To communicate you must have three things:

1.) Information on the topic you want to speak about.

2.) Good language to act as a medium between you and the person or people you want to speak to. P.S: This doesn’t mean using Globish English. It means using a language that the two parties understand, from Sheng’ to Morse Code.

3.) Humility and intelligence to let the other person or people speak and put their opinions across.

I learnt that knowing how to communicate with others is important as it shows you are easy to share ideas or even converse with. It also shows that you can express your emotions; not by fists but by words. This, of course erodes insolence in extreme situations like brawls.

Read a lot so that you can be able to communicate with a diverse audience. Listen keenly so that you can know when to share your opinion and how to share your sentiments.

Also, you do not have to speak all the time. Listen, as I earlier mentioned. Your patience grows. Your opinion of others grows. You gain respect from others because they also want to listen to you. You gain a lot of knowledge. You also get to differentiate stupidity from knowledge. [And] lastly, you keep a store of stories. Why? [Because] every story is unique.

[...]

Godspeed,

Mama Waiyaki.

Shared Perspectives

Mama Waiyaki — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 19:59:17 +0000

Dear Waiyaki,
I hope you know that not everyone will share the same perspective as you. Though how brilliant your idea may be, someone somewhere might think it is a piece of used toilet paper. This, your Grandfather Sam told me yesterday, after instigating a certain question. Let me break it down for you so that you may understand.

Yesterday afternoon, your grandparents, your auntie and I attended a Fund-drive at Quest of Happiness Academy, which I wrote about here. It is the school cum children’s home I was telling you about. It was the kid’s thanksgiving day which was also meshed to help raise some money for the next academic year. It was nice to see the kids. There was a good attendance and a nice plan set out for the day, with the kids presenting some songs, poems and skits. It was their day. The school happens to have a board, which I humanly judged as I will explain. Also, there were several well-dressed ladies and gentlemen in attendance. Good for them.

Some while back, approximately two weeks ago, the manager of the school called your auntie. She explained to her that there was no food at all for the kids, and that she needed a little help to feed them. So your auntie helped out how she could and for that period of time, they got some food. The question that I had as the event went on was: Where were the board members when the children did not have any food? Where were all the people that were around on that day when the kids lacked one of the most basic necessities?

That, after a few minutes of contemplation, made me angry and a little confused. I therefore took the advantage to ask your grandfather that question. He thoughtfully took a short period of time before sharing his opinion and giving me a viable answer.

“You might have a vision, a really good and inspiring vision that will help save the world and even prevent thieves and crooks to avoid the gates of hell,” your grandfather said, “but if you work with people who do not see the relevance of that vision, or even can hardly visualize the good that it will cause, you have nothing shared!”

He continued to state that if you decide to work with people who do not share the same perspective with you, though the idea is an upright method to get rich in 3 days, you will not see the actualization of that vision, if you do not make it your assignment to implement the plan. You can judge as much as you want to, but if you write up really amazing proposals for your company and they just see errors and bulk loads of mistakes, you clearly do not share the same perspective with your superior or co-worker.

This is no way means that people who do not necessarily agree with you do not ‘understand’ you, just to put this lightly. It is in specific contexts that you have a viable vision and simple help cannot find its way to your door. We can only do so much in such situations and look for other alternatives.

Son, people are difficult. If they do not share your sentiments, they may just interprate everything you say as garbage. All I’m asking you to do is know that this happens and homo sapiens have a tendency to act in such a way. This does not mean that you should quit your vision, choose not to go through with your idea or commit suicide!

In such situations, you can only encourage so much harm. Work with like-minded people. If they do not exist for that project you are working on, work around some positive people who will share some positive words of encouragement with you. The goal is: Do not quit just because someone does not share your perspective. Make your idea happen and show them how tangible success looks like. It can only go uphill from there.

On the positive note, the fund-drive raised a good amount of money which is hopefully being invested in a sustainable solution for food provision. I also wished you were there to see the kids sing! Fatuma and Elsie were so adorable.

Till our next conversation son!

Godspeed,

Mama Waiyaki.

P.S: I watched a video on childbirth today and I think I might be procrastinating the time that we will meet. I hope you are comfortable up there.

Tinker

The Last Step

Mama Waiyaki — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 21:07:40 +0000

Dear Waiyaki,

Many days I have waited to hear something. The voice of God. In that Morgan Freeman tone, because I still do not want to believe that God doesn’t look like me. Or my ancestors. I have been waiting to hear the voice of God to tell me that it is alright. Son, I changed my prayer today. I may have grown up a little today too. I pray that if you ever want to hear the voice of God, that He may tell you what you should hear, and not what you want to hear.

It has been a long time since I wrote you a letter. My sincerest apologies. It is not that I stopped believing that you might never exist due to my lifestyle choices, but it is because this semester that ended yesterday was a bit too hectic. I took up an internship this semester as I simultaneously studied. It wasn’t all that but I had my peaks and pits. And that is what I will share with you today.

1.) It’s never that serious
As a sophomore in college, I was pretty organized and focused for the few things that I offered to the place I was working at. Your grandfather Sam always tells me to give 100% of my energy and concentration in everything I do. Waiyaki, that is what I did. And after roughly 3 months of doing so, I did not see the need to in my scenario. When you are young and filled with an expensive and often nonexistent tank of energy, do not always give that 100%. I’m I advising you to be lazy or do things haphazardly? No. All I am saying is do two things: Measure your requirement and how much effort will be needed to take on a task and then act upon that measurement.

One lesson I took quite literally from high school was ‘Give it your all’. Well son, whatever it is, give per the fraction that is required. Never forget that you are the moderator. Whatever is in your tank, measure it per the distance you are willing to go, and run with it. This will help you avoid circumstances where you feel like you invested too much of something in. Make mistakes even when you know what the right thing is. This is, of course in those circumstances that you will not bite yourself in the behind! Sometimes even when you know the way, stop and ask for directions.

2.) Work & school = Bad combo
Unless you have to do it, avoid working and going to school! If you have to, organize your timelines so that you can give maximum productivity in the two fields. Also if you have to do it, do not succumb to the pressure. One thing that I am grateful for, from where I worked from my boss let me work around my school schedule. It is one of those agency perks that people in the corporate world can only wish to have. Well, at least some corporate offices.

My favorite classes [journo classes] took place on the days I used to go to the office. I was never excited about this because I knew I was not going to give my maximum participation in those classes. All in all, I am happy that it worked out. Son, maximization is the key to super productivity. Either avoid this situation or plan your hours well.

3.) Pessimism has a Pro.
Optimism is great. Now imagine someone continue with that jabber. But to tell you the truth, pessimism saved me a great lot for the past 2 and a half months. You know how in movies and sadly other real life organizations the intern is treated like trash? Well, I went in with the same attitude. Well, the people there were pretty cool. Too cool in fact. Before I lose my relevance, the pessimism was a pro because almost everyday since then I wonder, “What if they actually locked me in one of the cabinets and set it on fire?”.

Therefore, I set the bar so high in pessimism that if they wanted to be evil and trash me around, at least it wouldn’t be ‘that’ bad. Are you going with the flow son?
Now, I have to take this space and appreciate everyone I met and shared an office with. They are genuinely good people with intentions of actually saying hi to you when you enter in the office! That still shocks me. Your mother is currently going through a phase of trust issues and somewhere in her mind does not believe people in the 21st century can be kind to you and not want anything back. Enough of talking in third person.

4.) Get your feet in the water.
Son, you will learn a lot of things in life. All I want you to know is that to learn some things, you have to go on the ground. Learn it first hand and not as a rumor. I enjoyed seeing the perspective from the ‘working view’, to hugely exaggerate it, but I got the feel of how it actually is ‘out there’. I am so glad that I have a clue, though rough, of what I have an option to sign up for after my 4 year course in college. I may not be cut out for it yet, but I am glad I know a tad of what is going on.

What most college students in Kenya and maybe other countries do not know is that in that 4-year course, you are supposed to take a semester off and have a self-initiated internship. This is not the one you do in your last semester. It gives you a clue of what you are signing up for. I would advise other students to take that break. Who said education is only found in books.

That is all I can tell you for now. I do not want to bombard you, who is not yet born with a lot of information that might be regarded obsolete in the next 15 years.

I hope they are feeding you tasty baby formula up there. More letters coming. Let’s get this Post-man working!

Godspeed My Son,

Mama Waiyaki.

Last note: In case you bump into this on the interwebs, Soraya, Angie, Sue, Gerald & Muree; Adele & K1 you’re really cool people, though we met for a brief period of time. I hope other people meet you and appreciate how genuinely nice people you are. Peace, love & success your way!

Short Story: Driving Humility

Mama Waiyaki — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 12:03:02 +0000

In the City Bus, you have to observe some manners. Manners in this context does not necessarily mean good one, but you must have some general ones. With general manners, it helps you distinguish yourself and others that you have some personality of some sorts. Personality, again in this context does not mean anything complex like giving someone kleenex to someone with a runny nose, or even giving way to an elderly lady who is in a hurry to go somewhere you do not necessarily care about. Personality in the City Bus just differentiates you from human beings who are fluent with Klingon, and those who can yell out at the conductor for their change when his put on his busy maroon jacket.

For sometime now, I have been a consistent City Bus commuter but some two weeks ago, I was inclined to use a much different mode of transport. For some two weeks, I was using the infamous cab transport to get from one location to the other. Apparently, I got to learn a lot of things, have very interesting conversations and observe different things from using cab transport. Just to get this out of the way, I like using the City Bus because my day can never get too interesting to want to miss out on whatever random encounter on it. Being observant has got me in a lot of trouble in the past but I have had some few good days. Making sure to take with me this characteristic, collecting unwritten data and non-conspicuous interest in a particular topic was all I could embrace.

It was on a Tuesday morning when I prepared myself to tick the required to-do list and head out to the field: a raw world flooded with imagined dreams and drowned hopes. I hold on to my khaki brown bag and hop in to the cab that was five minutes early enroute my then destination. Avery good marketing strategy I must say. Having picked up a very antisocial lifestyle lately, I included not having talked to more than a handful of people on my prayer items to God that day. When I did a review of the day in the evening, I felt that maybe, just maybe God was a little bit too busy to put that ‘prayer’ to his answer list.

“Well, if that’s the one prayer Your not going to answer,” I said, “You better answer my vain ones. You know it get’s worse, dont You?”.

I digress. As soon as I got inside the car, did he begin to brew up a conversation. Here, ladies and gentlemen, is a clear difference between the City Bus and the cab. In the City Bus, conversation does not just begin as soon as one takes their sit. Why? Two reasons: In the City Bus, everybody knows that there is a ‘all ya’ll are weird’ attitude flying around. Please do not confuse it with the breathe of the loud man shouting on the top of his voice, of how M-pesa should be used to pay for bus fare because, “Pesa ni nyingi! Mfuko bado ni kidogo!”. Anyone in the City Bus interested in starting a conversation with a stranger, knows about unwritten City Bus rule #29: Talk to strangers after the bus has been ignited, and the wheels are turning. With that occurrence, the person you would like to converse to has to work around what you are bringing to the table. I have learnt this rule the hard way. In the cab atmosphere, you just have to converse or lightly be introduced to the salutations immediately. Some people have a forced opinion that since you have [dearly] paid for the ‘situation’, you have to converse. I say it’s forced because people might just be paying for the convinience of not having one, right? So politely I listened to what he had to say, because Mother Dear says, “You might just learn or be informed on something that not even I can get the chance to tell you”.

As Mr Erastus talked, I found myself in the quite often ‘Mother knows best’ situation. Mr Erastus kindly sayed hello and introduced himself very humbly, I must say. He ignited the car and increased the volume as he slowly drived down the exit. As I removed my phone to answer the mind-blowing question of whether to share my location on Fousquare or not, he said that he likes listening to local Swahili stations in the morning. My antisocial reflex hardly had not noticed what station he had tuned into. I put my phone on my lap not to listen to what he had to say, but to figure whether he was way older than me, so that I can officially make the decision of whether to really pay attention to him or not. That might just be a definite characteristic of a snob, but I will blame my generation and pick the young and ignorant characteristic from the category. Fell free to judge. His face was still firm and no thanks to anti-age creams. The creamy smell would have terrorized the interior of the car. His hairline was intact but proved to be on slow transit. His short sleeved shirts exposed some long marks of healed wounds from what seemed a tough struggle. His English was alright, influenced by his vernacular language- but he talked with such affirmation that you would believe a mispronounced word was meant to be pronounced the way he did. His green shirt and grey khaki put across a businessman’s simple style. In no time, I found myself listening to what Mr. Erastus had to say. Carefully.

“As a businessman is supposed to learn from formal and informal setups.”, Mr. Erastus said. Ignorantly but very consciously I asked him why so. He did just what I expected him to do; look at me like my query was obvious and straight forward. Straight forward, yes. Obvious, I do not think so. He then took a few seconds before he responded, just as I expected. He then ‘gave me an example of his life’ which is generally what I call his application of the lesson rather than why he found the lesson true. They may sound similar but have their definite differences. So I listened. Mr. Erastus used to be a manager at an investment bank in another county. He had a steady pay and a very consistent routine. He insisted that he never complained about a lot of things that his fellow employees complained about for a long while. As he continued working and training other younger employees year in year out, he noticed that he was lacking something: a challenge. He was very comfortable with his routine. He also noticed that he always had the same response from his colleagues. He insisted that their responses became vague as the days went by. There was nothing much that he expected from going to work rather than his cheque at the end of the month. His facial expression suddenly changed for some seconds as he looks at the road. I looked out with the hoping to see those starships Nicki Minaj has been talking about landing on the highway. You would not imagine the disappointment I had after realizing that it was just traffic. An army of tiny cars facing the skyscrapers farthest into the city. On the bright side, I got some more time to listen to what Mr. Erastus had to say.

After apologizing for the traffic (such a polite man), he went on explaining how he lacked spontaneity in his life then as a young man.

“I do not mean the kind of spontaneity that include partying and women. I already was doing that then and there was still something missing!”, he emphatically explained. He explained that he grew up with a very business-minded family and that influenced most decisions he made in his pursuit for success in his trade. He then said something that my father told me after I graduated high school; Knowledge will give you power but character will give you respect. He told me it was either he took the highway or no way at all. He talked to his boss and explained his reasons for resignation in a week and gave himself a one month to think and regroup. He also insisted that his family was not for the sudden change but they gave him enough support. Enough support in this context did not necessarily mean that they were excited for the move, but they would provide a roof under his head for that specific period of time. I could not help thinking the humility that this man had to go back home in that stage of his life.