Times of reflections; The Journey.
In 2015, the 4th day of the month of August, this blog made a debut. It was a huge step, or so I thought. I remember the first article I wrote asking a very critical question, “Have the African Folktales Lost Relevance?” It was all about the art of story telling.
Almost six years later, I am still writing. This article is the 324th in this blog. I celebrated the day I published the one hundredth piece. It was a milestone. Then came the day I again published the two hundredth article; it was a major achievement. And I continued writing.
It seems I immersed myself fully into writing until I didn’t notice that I was past the three hundredth article. But is it anything for that matter? Maybe then, I was young and too eager to meet personal targets. Today, I have lost myself into the old age panoptic approach to life.
That means that what I am doing today is not a post celebratory piece on writing itself, but a broad in-depth appreciation of the transitions since that first piece of writing in terms of writing itself, my self as a person and all that encompasses life.
As I was growing up, I was in my own league. I was more like an antic collector. Only that I collected old newspapers and read them. If I came across a book, that too would end up in the collector’s net. I would then find some time, mostly in the afternoons to sit down and skim through those pieces collected.
I call them pieces because it was very rare to find me with a complete book or newspaper. I was more of a melomaniac, only that this was specifically for reading and writing which is art as it is to music. Thus, I can look back today and say i have been doing what I ought to be doing as opposed to making it look like it is a favor I am making for myself and the whole of my generation; pun intended.
I had been reading a lot in the period leading up to 2015. I had mastered the art of reading in a way. However, I had not been doing so well with writing. Despite procrastinating for some lengthy time, I had to make a decision at some point. That is, towards the last quarter of 2015. But this didn’t come easily without a cost to pay.
I was struggling with so many issues at the time. I was trying to gulp too much and be everything everyone else had become. The writing moments became the break time. I had to Sit, think, think deeply and then reflect. As such, ‘putting it down on paper,’ was birthed. Context really mattered; the tone mattered even the more as well as the setting of what one read visa vis what I wrote. It hasn’t changed to date.
Part of the writing was to be centered on my own stories, fiction, current issues and think tanking. The last one did really well for some time. It was what we called the fireside chat. We were a team of four men who met once a week for a fireside chat; a quintessential discussion for your information.
That is the time we looked at the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) as an essential tool for African growth. And we couldn’t agree any more that we had had enough of theoretically trained competent people. And now, it is time we transitioned to practical academia and African driven industrialization.
That conclusion developed the other idea that entrepreneurship is another powerful tool that Africa can exploit for her growth. We arrived at it after looking at the success of immigrants in making America a great economy. And today, more immigrants (human capital) are being sought across the globe. We are importing our most precious resource knowingly or unknowingly and developing the entrepreneurial muscle of others at our own expense.
We also looked at more potential in agribusiness and value addition, research and ICT especially for Kenyan growth. Although the singular agreement has been that corruption is perhaps our greatest undoing. And it is high time we focused all our energies on corruption now if we are to leapfrog into a hugely successful future.
The journey later shifted to looking at the lifestyle segment in its generality. It was and has been a lovely phase. Just as the journey has been on a number of transitions, so has been life itself. The journey of trying to find love and be loved.
I have written widely on matters women and men, family, religion, children, relationships, poverty, money, personal development and growth and may more lifestyle topics up to now. All these are things that revolve around the human life, are very critical and must be addressed.
I only realized that our lives can resonate so well with the man who went out looking for death, only for death to find him. In other words, you may decide to go out in search of love, purpose, passion and end up finding none. Then while you are busy minding your own business, they find you.
Again, I realized that in other times we can resonate with another man who keeps wishing and calling for death until he finally gets it. To mean that what we wish for ourselves also means a lot. And that there is not yet another route to honorable success except by hard work. Never think that working smart replaces working hard, nay, it complements it.
Within this time period of this blog, I have won and lost, I have succeeded at some things and failed at others, I have lost myself to infatuations and then found great love, I have lost friends and made more better ones, I have made stupid mistakes but again I have become wiser. Either way, I have gained. I decide to look at the positive.
I have every reason to say that I have become a better person over this period as an individual and that my writing skills have immensely improved as can be said of my leadership, communication, public speaking, technical, strategic, entrepreneurial and social skills.
This should not be confused to mean that I am already there. I am only lifting my leg to take that first step. In his book, Mastery, Robert Green says that for one to become a master, they need about ten thousand hours working on a craft as an apprentice.
When I look at myself, I have spent about 2,800 hours in my writing since that first article in 2015. It means I have much more hours to learn before I can raise my head high and say I am a master. The same can be said of my other skills. Simply said, I am in the race and at the very back. I hope to gain the momentum, win and amount to something.
However, never underestimate the power of the small steps. Make them daily. They, in one way or the other push us closer to our goals. It is the cumulative small steps that have become the journey we are talking about. They are the steps that will become your journey.
Take the small steps daily with sheer hard work, with perseverance, patience and determination. When you will be connecting the dots backward, you will realize that they were worthwhile. That the steps were the journey itself.
End.
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