22 years ago today

Today is my birthday. Yes I grow a year older, and Im accustomed to having the earliest birthday wherever I go so I always wonder in the very first year what happened from first to 29th (or maybe everyone born before then was born in China - you know, so the Chinese had a head start on the rest of the world which is why they more than double the next most populous state :) )

Anyways, events like these in someone's life usually cause one to look back and see if one has accomplished everything one set out to do. In my case, I haven't reached the first of my set milestones, which is 28. I have however, gotten one year closer to it, and so I ask myself what I am doing towards achieving my millenium development goals :). I am first and foremost in uni, which in this country should go a long way in securing a future for me. I have learnt how to download music and movies from the internet in cyber cafes. I have played both the XBOX and Playstation 2, and decided to go the Microsoft way. I have read My Life by Bill Clinton, and Im about to read it a second time. I can confidently say I have an idol in the man, BTW. I have learnt the basics of graphics editing using Photoshop. Im currently spending this month teaching, so I can say Im honing my public speaking skills which a few short months ago were non-existent. I've been to two five star hotels and quite a few 5/4-star restaurants, and confirmed what I have always suspected: Im an eat-out kind of person. I have attended three classical recitals, and liked them - but my music of choice is still rock. I've learnt to drive, and actually driven long distance (400 km) and at night, several times. I've gotten bored watching satellite TV (with over 40 channels I didn't think that was possible). I've read The Alchemist, and liked it, but didn't learn that much from it, wondering what all the fuss was about. I've watched A Few Good Men - best movie ever! I've made a foray into the stock markets.

OK, so much for things I've done. Now, what haven't I done? Obviously all the major stuff, like I don't have a house in an upmarket locale, and Im not part of the upwardly mobile young executives, I haven't launched a successful online business. Also some of the little things: I've never been to a golf club. I've never driven a Beamer. I've never been to a live rock concert. I still don't have an iPod and/or a classic laptop with WiFi (but in my defense I do have branded desktop and I also have an mp3 player from Mega Star International). I'm not in a relationship currently. I haven't watched any of the Legally Blondes. I haven't learnt how to set up a network from scratch all by myself. I haven't learnt how to serve a Windows network from a Linux machine. I haven't read Direct from Dell, Living History, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Jack Welch story, Business @ The Speed of Thought. I'm not yet a subscriber to Fortune, Time, PCW and PC Zone Magazines and Reader's Digest.

Ya, and the lists go on, both of them. These are just the things I could bring to mind at short notice. However, I make these lists now strictly for recreational purposes. I am not defining my success/failure in life according to them. And my wishes will simply remain that - wishes. Until such time as they can come true. In the words of Robert Burns (18th century poet), "The best laid plans of mice and men/gang aft aglee." so I don't wanna cast any of my plans in stone.

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it's easier to lie

So Im living on my own again. I got a job as a teacher (who knew, BTW, sometimes I shock even myself) in a college in Eldoret, and so I had to move there, probably for the remainder of the hols till March. It's not the kind of job I'd wanted, and Im not even getting paid to do it, but in keeping with the lesson I got on 1st, Im still thankful for it. The thing about living like I am now, almost always alone except during the day when Im at work, is I get a lot of time to sit and reflect on my life. And if there's a good book around I also get to catch up on my reading. Like now Im reading Rebound: The Michael Jordan Odyssey and I've gotta say it's a lot less interesting than I'd expected. Also, me being me, I listen to a lot of rock, especially from bands that aren't considered mainstream in EMEA countries (I have no idea what those are, but I know that's how Toshiba classify Ke under when dividing their laptop markets :) ) So recently I came across a new (not really new but new to me) band called Aqualung, and they have a song called Easier to lie that just went straight to the heart.

This is what Aqualung sing and say "...to bear the weight/you push me to the sky/it's easier to lie... to be the one/to be the only one/someone has to give a lot/something has to give a lot/and who am I/to give you what you need/when Im just learning how to live and to bear the weight... it's easier to lie... and do what's right/when everything is wrong/it's easier to run... and never have to look you in the eye/it's easier to lie..." and this song has got me thinking - How many people live a lie their whole lives just because they're just trying to live up to someone else's expectations of them instead of their own? How much easier is it to just play along than tell the other person the truth and possibly disappoint them? Why is it that we find it easier to disappoint ourselves when it comes to certain people in our lives? Whenever there's a conflict between our own beliefs and the expectations of people we love therefore whose opinion of us matters, something always has to give. And it usually isn't the other person, it's us. It just doesn't feel right.

The natural order of things ought to be that we satisfy ourselves first. Coz like it or not, where rubber meets the road it's we who have to live with ourselves. If it then happens that the image we see when we look at the mirror we do not like because it's been fashioned to someone else's specifications, then we really will have no one to blame but ourselves. We'll have ourselves to blame for finding it easier to lie, for finding it easier to run than to do what's right, for being afraid that living true to ourselves might have caused us to lose "cool points" with the "in crowd". Mother Teresa speaks and says: "In the final analysis, it was never between you and them anyway." How true.

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