In that fabulous novel, The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway begins by revealing the advice his father gave him as a teenager: "Whenever you feel like criticising anyone," he told me, "Just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."
That has in a way become my philosophy on life. I was looking at the resolutions I made at the beginning of this year and was shocked that the most important didn't work out. I didn't get to complete my Masters degree, didn't buy my first car and didn't even slide an engagement ring down the finger of the gorgeous woman God has preserved for me.
But I'm not going to gripe and blame myself and smash things because of the plans that worked out not. As Bebe and Cece Winans sing, I'm rather going to count it all joy because the trials that confronted me left me with a maturity of character that can only be learned in the school of hard knocks.
Besides, when I look back at where I've come from, and the advantages I've had such as having a father that so believes in education that he did everything to see me through school, and when I peer at the golden promises hidden in futurity, I lift my hands to the Almighty God with a grateful heart.
That's why December is my favourite month because in it the sun sets on the year and rises on another in January with fresh expectations. It's almost synonymous with finishing a great book and picking another with hopes of it being a greater read. Better still, it's like making love to your wife for the first time on the nuptial night and knowing the second will be about more discovery toward perfect consummation!
That's why you won't catch me brooding on the melancholy that defined this year; the sickness that almost shoved me into the jaws of death, the choking teargas following the (in)famous walk-to-work protests, the economic crisis and the unpleasant brokenness it birthed, and Umeme's capricious power that ruined my electronic gadgets.
The optimist is approaching next year with the fervour of a meteor man! Like Nick Carraway at the end of the novel musing on the "green light" that his departed friend Jay Gatsby very much believed in, we must "run faster, stretch out our arms further" till all our dreams come true.
That has in a way become my philosophy on life. I was looking at the resolutions I made at the beginning of this year and was shocked that the most important didn't work out. I didn't get to complete my Masters degree, didn't buy my first car and didn't even slide an engagement ring down the finger of the gorgeous woman God has preserved for me.
But I'm not going to gripe and blame myself and smash things because of the plans that worked out not. As Bebe and Cece Winans sing, I'm rather going to count it all joy because the trials that confronted me left me with a maturity of character that can only be learned in the school of hard knocks.
Besides, when I look back at where I've come from, and the advantages I've had such as having a father that so believes in education that he did everything to see me through school, and when I peer at the golden promises hidden in futurity, I lift my hands to the Almighty God with a grateful heart.
That's why December is my favourite month because in it the sun sets on the year and rises on another in January with fresh expectations. It's almost synonymous with finishing a great book and picking another with hopes of it being a greater read. Better still, it's like making love to your wife for the first time on the nuptial night and knowing the second will be about more discovery toward perfect consummation!
That's why you won't catch me brooding on the melancholy that defined this year; the sickness that almost shoved me into the jaws of death, the choking teargas following the (in)famous walk-to-work protests, the economic crisis and the unpleasant brokenness it birthed, and Umeme's capricious power that ruined my electronic gadgets.
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| Keep walking no matter what |
The optimist is approaching next year with the fervour of a meteor man! Like Nick Carraway at the end of the novel musing on the "green light" that his departed friend Jay Gatsby very much believed in, we must "run faster, stretch out our arms further" till all our dreams come true.
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