What Christmas is and is not

A joker posted on Facebook a picture of a bloody Santa Claus after getting knocked down by a car. A man is weeping over the tragedy and the caption reads: "No Christmas for me: Santa is dead!" I like the underlying message: Christmas brings more misery than joy if you really think about it. And that's only because we wait to do good and be generous around this time when we ought to do this everyday. 
    
Moreover, Christmas gifts ceased being about goodwill so long ago that there is no longer shame in demanding for them. That's why somebody will be dumped for not buying the "perfect gift!" Last Christmas a friend of mine received a brand new smart phone from his brother abroad. As soon as his girlfriend saw it, she cajoled and employed all tricks in the book to own it but failed. She then threw a 'tight' tantrum, asking my friend to choose between her and his phone.  
 

"Gifts are exchanged by people who can barely sit in the same room without suffering severe nausea," wrote a Monitor journalist in a recent article, aptly capturing the hypocrisy and superficiality associated with Christmas giving. 

Well, the optimist is saying it's high time we returned to the basics of doing it the right way. The Ugandan Police shouldn't come out now to say bars will close at 10pm on Christmas. This should be an everyday phenomenon if children are to have quality time with their parents and grow up to become responsible citizens. 

 There are also those people who are clueless about the essence of Christmas.  All they know is that from mid December until the New Year kicks in, they have to let their spirits loose and party like the world is coming to an end. "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year," they holler in deep voices they believe to be flawless replication of Santa's, and clink their glasses in multiple toasts. And on the second day of January, they are broke, heavily indebted and thoroughly restless.

 It's for this and more that we should not jump on the bandwagon. Refuse to be blackmailed into buying a gift you cannot afford. Refuse to give something if you don't want to. For Christmas is not about the hullabaloo that is rending the atmosphere already. It's about loving and sharing and being there for one another all year through.

--This was first published in the Sunday Monitor of December 23, 2012

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The ladder of happiness

A television ad shows a young man saying he would buy a ladder if he won Shs200m. At first I found the idea not just funny, but ridiculous. But I have since had to reconsider seeing he could have been speaking symbolically. Maybe the ladders are the networks he would build to take him to the top and give him the satisfaction that is elusive to most of us.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised how much I need a ladder too. I need one with huge rungs to take us (family, friends and colleagues) up the festive tree in whose branches we shall pluck the fruits of happiness and connection that we missed sharing together much of this year because of the busy-ness of our lives.

Christmas with Dad many years ago

It never used to be this way. That is why you often hear of the "good old days." Today individualism has infiltrated the hearts of men and women and taken the place of communal love so much that children no longer look to elders for meaningful Christmas. Now it is a fat, mystical creature with a freaky laugh and a long white beard that children look to. In my time we never heard of Santa. All I remember is the entire clan celebrating together with lots of eats and music and laughter whose memories sustained us to the next Christmas.

And the only way that true spirit of festivity can return is if everyone makes it a deliberate plan to bless someone; not just a family member, but a neighbour or even stranger. I learnt it does not take much during a recent visitation upcountry. I asked a boy what he wanted and he said bread. This was no milk-teethed child but a chirpy Primary Three pupil who tops his class every term. He was barefooted and in shorts that needed some mending. Yet he did not ask for shoes or some expensive toy children his age dream about nightly. He asked for bread.

I'm sure every reader of this column has the capacity to return to the village with a sack of rice or a box of soap. You would be amazed the difference a loaf of bread, a kilo of meat or sugar can make in the life of a disadvantaged individual. It could make this their best festive season. So get your ladder and help someone climb to the level of happiness never before reached. It will multiply your joy too

Giving royal love a chance

"Love is so beautiful baby when you find it you gotta cherish it yea yea..." A song like this playing on the stereo must get Prince David Wassajja singing along whereever he is! The young brother of Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi recently gave Mengo a sigh of relief after finally finding his "missing rib" in Marion Nankya who he is meant to wed early next year.

The Prince and his Marion

At only 46 and with his love in her 20s, it’s flabbergasting that the Internet is already inundated with malicious stories of how he is way too old for her, and how she doesn’t love him; that the rustle of his money and the privileges that come with royality were too alluring to resist. The implication is that the poor girl is a gold-digger and shameless opportunist. The detractors went on that she may get all the silver and gold in the world, but that she will find the Prince, who allegedly is a satyr who loves his parties and women, too hard to tame.

These speculations and prejudices that people harbour in their innermost hearts are frankly contemptible. The pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right that the Prince should be left to enjoy without people picking his private life apart and pointing discriminative fingers at his age. What if he took long to marry? Must love be harried for one’s morals to find validation?

As for Nankya, she is not the daughter of a pauper. Her father is the well-off MP for Bukoto South Hon. Mathias Nsubuga who has given his daughter a good life. Besides, she is educated, intelligent and beautiful and does not therefore need to sponge off Mengo to live a good life. Rather work harder on your own relationship and resurrect the spark, or find your own love instead of blabbering as the prince and his bride-to-be seek to be happy.

The two are certainly a perfect match. Nankya should be congratulated for 'stealing the prince's heart, and the prince should be applauded for realising it's time he settled down. With his maturity, wealth, exposure and love for a life of glitter, he will make the best husband for a modern lady as "smoking hot" as Nankya.

Also, be sure that with his alleged experiences with other women, he will not be fumbling about in the dark when it comes to intimate moments of married life. The Kabaka is assured of beautiful nieces and handsome nephews to play on his laps since Prince Richard Ssemakokiro must now be too big for that.

The power of chance in the love equation

Right now, if you ask about the most beautiful woman in the world, I might be tempted to tell you with all my heart about Ruth Komuntale Thomas, but then you do not want Christopher Thomas coming after me with an American shotgun, do you? Anyway, when the two lovebirds sighed and locked hands and gazed into each faces with amorous eyes on the day they wedded, I took stock of this thing called love and by the end had agreed with American rapper DJ Maj that 'true love is mere chance.'

Thomas and Ruth after their wedding

I can relate with that because often the people we love do not love us and the people that love us we do not love them. Yet I have seen chance take precedence whereby two strangers meet, fall in love and begin to exist together as one in marriage and happily so. And for that, it is high time our conservative society slowed down on pushing people into marriage instead of letting chance do its thing.

Someone is fresh out of school and suddenly his family is on his case to get married, or is threatened with excommunication should he marry from a certain tribe. Why hasten love when it is obvious it will always come? Man would be incomplete without it- or to put it bluntly, without a wife to make love to without feeling guilty. God was not goofing when He created them male and female, not only for procreation, but for companionship as well.

But then the world has created its own dictates about love and relationships and we are better off defying them. I have said it on this page before and I want to repeat that conformity is deformity. When you love for money or to please your parents, or when you love because time is running out, that love is bound to grow cold sooner than later and suffer the fate of salt that loses its saltiness.

This is why we must oblige that invisible force that brings together two people that are meant to be. So, instead of feeling betrayed by Komutale for marrying a 'foreigner' or instead of hating on Thomas, let us appreciate that the love they found in each other has won. They were fated to find each other.

Meanwhile, stay optimistic for someone somewhere is waiting for you. Take your risk, remembering as that famous Roman poet Ovid wrote that, "Chance is always powerful. Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish."

Being mindful of one another

Two months before committing suicide, Emmanuel Kagyina wrote on his Facebook wall: "Should it be okay for someone to commit suicide if he is so much overpowered by problems? If not what should such a person do? My friend is in danger, help!"

We come out of the womb wailing and enter the tomb often after failing but it makes sense to put up a tenacious fight no matter what.

Turns out there was no "friend". Kagyina was the endangered one; the one being wooed by the grim reaper, and no one of his over 200 Facebook friends discerned and heeded his cry of help; no neighbour, classmate, relative or sibling, none at all in the whole world, reached out with a helping hand. This should make us all pause and consider. How can a man be driven by despair to the point of hurling himself down from the sixth floor of building?

It is certainly quite a lonesome way to die but since what is done cannot be undone, I will leave it at that and focus on answering Kagyina's question posthumously. It is a resounding NO for me. There is no justification whatsoever for someone to snuff out his life. Experience has taught me that rejection is the most painful thing but not even that is worth ending your life over.

No doubt there are moments when you are so despondent, sick and tired of this world that you want to give up. But you have all the reasons not to. We come out of the womb wailing and enter the tomb often after failing but it makes sense to put up a tenacious fight no matter the betrayals and affronts that confront us every day.

I grew up around a health centre and watched many men and women fighting for their lives and learned at a young age that those that fought harder and longer would live to see another day while those who gave up the ghost too soon would be folded immediately and carried home for burial by their weeping relatives. So, like a proverbial frog that fell into a bucket of milk and kicked with all the might in its legs till the milk churned into butter atop which it stepped and jumped out, we must believe in the green light with all our hearts and put up a relentless fight till we rise victoriously against the current that's meant to drown us.

Meanwhile, let us be mindful of each another; reach out with a smile, a pat on the back or a compliment – it could mean the world to somebody who is alone and scared; it probably would have saved Emmanuel Kagyina.

The Barack Obama magic!

 It is in the language he speaks- the language of relevancy, simplicity, and universality. It is also in his ability to inspire hope and a new thing among ordinary mortals. That is why Africa loves him rapturously even after relaxing his stance against homosexuality and abortion. We do not love him because he has some African blood; we love him because he has demonstrated what authentic optimism can do

Yeah, that's me gushing about Obama; he's made history twice for God's sake!!

And it is this optimism that we need to break from the pomposity of demagogues and the terror of autocrats who would rather be driven into rat holes than hand over power voluntarily. We also love the lanky president because he understands the language of Twitter and brags about his wife and daughters in public. This and his easy-going demeanour is the opposite of most of our inept yet self-important officials who think life revolves about wearing drab party colours and licking the president's boots.

There is something greater connected with the man. I call it the magic of love. Sarah Obama captured it succinctly: "He has got the knowledge to love all people; he doesn't have the knowledge of division." This is even better than hope. When we have love, we can walk the talk of togetherness and accomplish much. "Yes we can" then ceases to be another political slogan but words of firepower that inspire the average man to rise up with conviction and start making history as well. We enter any ring fiery like a meteor man and turn the Mitt Romney's of this world into roast meat Obama style!

Then the world will listen when we stand strong like pillars and share about hope and idealism that works. Not about the "blind optimism" which Obama said "ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path" or the "wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the side-lines or shirk from a fight" but that "stubborn thing inside us that insists despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting."

Basically the Obama magic comprises courage, hope, love and action. With these we are unstoppable. It doesn't matter the odds against us, whoever we are and wherever we might be, we too shall get there to the very top when we give it our best.

Doing it for your country

Abraham Muganzi returned to his former school and donated a mathematical set, two pens and a pencil to every PLE candidate. The gesture provoked mixed reactions from the online community with some branding him another crafty Ugandan homing in on some political office.

Abraham Muganzi giving back to the school that made him

But I'm with those that see nobility in his deed. In this country as everywhere else, genuine charity is hard to come by. The mantra is quid pro quo – I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Still, many whose backs are scratched do not reciprocate even when their cups are full and running over. Thus whoever returns the favour, moreover for a greater cause, deserves more than plaudits.

Muganzi's effort is also a welcome addition to the punches that will smash the fallacy that the social responsibility act of giving back to our communities is exclusive to big-time firms or to filthy-rich individuals like Sudhir or Wavamuno.But just as it's not the size of the dog that matters, but the fight in the dog, it's also not how much you give but the heart with which you give that matters. One compliment can turn a low-esteemed person into the most confident, and one word of optimism can prevent someone from committing suicide.

Evidently, doing good is akin to planting a small seed that sprouts into a giant roadside tree that not only serves as a reinvigorating shade to weary travellers but also supplies them with life-giving fruits. Muganzi may not even be aware of it but I bet one of those who received a mathematical set will one day in retrospect remember his benevolence and be inspired to do likewise and better.

This brings me to words of a former president that have continued to resound ever since they were uttered 51 years ago. John F. Kennedy challenged fellow Americans thus: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

I don't know about you but there was a time when those words haunted me as I spent day and night asking myself what my role on earth is and what I was created to do for my country. Today I know it's through motivational deeds like Muganzi's, and the implementation of our creative ideas, as well as living responsibly and with integrity that we serve our countries better and provide the spark for others to do the same.

On beauty that lasts

Suddenly, I catch this smiling looker doing her thing on TV, and I'm like, "wait a minute, isn't this the veritable knockout that used to disorganise our hormones back in the day?" You know how circumstances can swing people in opposite directions sometimes never to meet again even in the next world!

Reminds me of Junior and Kasigwa – where are you guys? We were inseparable in kindergarten but ever since my father was transferred from Kabale to Rukungiri, I never saw them again. The certified optimist I am yet sometimes I can't help feeling I might never see them again.

A woman with a ring on her finger should remain a no-go area however much she affects your emotions

But back to the television girl, the phone rings. It's my OB asking if I have seen the girl on TV, and if I can hook them up seeing I'm in the media as well. I call up a few people and gather that she is now married with two children. I tell my friend, but he insists he wants her. What is wrong with some men? Sure she is more beautiful than ever; complete with the killer smile and the super-model figure, but a woman with a ring on her finger remains a no-go area however much she affects your emotions. I cannot even ask you to wait like the protagonist of Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera; waiting for her husband to die so you can pounce. You might wait eternally. Moreover the woman might go first.

See, this assumption that nothing kills chemistry between a man and woman that truly loved is all baseless. I speak reality. A love fired up by outside looks will die instantly if the hand of fate messes up that beauty. For that I advise my friend to be patient. This world is full of beautiful, untapped things. With a little patience, he will meet the woman whose outside looks may not trigger lust in the hearts of men, but whose inner beauty you will live to cherish.

Inner beauty is lasting beauty that oozes from the inside out. You can read it in the woman's eyes, in the way she smiles and even the way she carries herself. And it keeps growing and glowing the more you get to know her. This is the kind of sunshine beauty that warms up the path of the lucky man. So my friend, forget the taken woman; take a chill pill and let providence provide the one that will complete you.

The winner's style

"Fear is not fear until it is seen or heard." That is something profound I heard on the telly recently. The speaker was arguing the point that each one of us has some inherent fear and that it is only when we give that fear some voice or shape that we pave the way to our failure and disillusionment.

Think like a billionaire, become a billionaire

It's very common to hear people say in Uganda you cannot get a job unless you bribe somebody. So, many apply for jobs sceptically so when they fail the interview they will be ready for the classic excuse, "I told you..." Such excuses, like I come from poor background, I know nobody or I cannot land a job on the radio because of my 'local' accent are classic examples of giving fear a voice, and it sure will heed you and work in your disfavour.

I do not need to reiterate the significance of positive thinking as propounded by motivational speakers. Instead of giving your fear a voice, say by saying "She is too hot and sophisticated," dress your faith instead by telling yourself you can charm her and win her heart if you give it your best shot.

When Barack Obama first contested for the US presidency, it was at a time when many could not even imagine a black person ever becoming the president of the most powerful country on earth. But he gave his faith a voice by saying again and again, "Yes I can" and soon after, the electorate believed him and in him. That is how he made history.

I'm here to inspire you today as an optimist. Resolve to deny fear a voice by refusing to allow people with negative information into your circle. Instead, surround yourself with those that believe in you, those that compliment you and say positive things – because that will spark creativity and action. It is what will help us scale even the highest mountain.

I recently heard some words of a movie soundtrack to this effect, "In all my fear it is hard to see who it is I am meant to be…" Exactly! So, uproot that wrong belief system of doubt and replace it with a champion's mentality. Move towards your desired destiny by speaking like a winner, dressing like a winner, walking like a winner and relating like a winner. As Scot Anderson captures it in one of his book titles, "Think like a billionaire become a billionaire."

The great paradigm shift

In the movie The Great Debaters, when James Farmer, Sr. (Forest Whitaker) asks his son James Farmer, Jr. (Denzel Whitaker) what the greatest weakness of man is, the answer is prompt: "Not believing; doubt" – that’s man’s greatest weakness.

In high school, I witnessed first-hand how doubt can be debilitating even to students with first-rate intelligence. All my classmates that used to say with a tinge of resignation in their voices that Makerere University was a reserve of students from schools like Kings College Budo sure did not make it to the "Ivory Tower" on government sponsorship while those who refused to be infused with self-doubt did.

I had forgotten how lack of faith in our ability to deliver in the hour of need still affects us as a people until Zambia left Uganda heartbroken following the October 13 showdown at Namboole Stadium. Our lack of faith was evident even way before the match. Everybody was looking for two goals. And when they did not come, we moaned what a "cursed" nation we are. Sports scribe Fred Kaweesi was the winner: "It seems Uganda needs some sort of ritual cleansing to overcome a jinx that has now become legendary," he wrote.

No, man! What you and I, and indeed what this nation needs is to aim for the sky. There's nowhere we are going without great ambition and the tenacity by which extraordinary stuff happen. It is said that in his heyday, Mike Tyson "hit with bad intentions" – it’s what got him into record books as the youngest heavy-weight boxing champion of the world at the age of 20. Similarly, American boxer Rocky Marciano was at 187 pounds a man of "diminutive" physical stature’ compared to most of his opponents yet he retired from heavy-weight boxing in 1956 with 49 wins and no losses, because he would never allow the thought of defeat to cross his mind.

That is the faith we need. No one is jinxed. Uganda has the most brilliant brains and the most gifted people but rarely do we let our "light shine." When James Farmer, Sr. says we must do all we have to do so we can do what we need to do, he’s talking about the great paradigm shift in our thinking, approach and practicability as the only cure to this averageness from which we have failed to awaken.

To put it simply, extraordinary ambition and extraordinary belief is all we need to touch the sky.

The value of knowing your value

The art of negotiation is one that continues to elude many yet it determines the level of your success, once you have risen above your fears and forayed into self-employment. Did you know that you might be the best person for the job yet fail to nail it on account of not knowing your value?

I know my value. How about you?

I learnt the hard way. The day I quit my boring and financially unrewarding government job, I received a call from a "big" lady who runs an annual film event. She wanted me to head their public relations team for three weeks. When she asked how much I was willing to work for, in my naivety, I said one million shillings. She said she would consult, and when she got back to me she said they had decided to go with a marketing agency instead of an individual. An insider later divulged I lost because I asked for "cartoon money instead of professional payment" so they would not trust me to do a thorough job.

A few days later, I got another offer – to write some report as well as edit material for a company website. I completed the job in three weeks and was blown away when I was paid more than double the amount I was earning a month at my previous job. When I told a friend in excitement, he laughed and said I had still been ridiculously cheated.

"A consultant would have earned no less than Shs5m for that work," he said factually.

The next time the lady called me, I told her I was busy, to which she immediately responded that she would double my payment if I left everything for her work. The smile on my face said it all; it was an epiphanic smile; of recognizing that I had skills some were in desperate need of; skills that would actually pay the bills. That exciting discovery earned me a level of confidence that will never let me look back again.

I tell you, there is nothing better than knowing your value. That intimidating girl ceases to be, and you do your work with a certain charm that spills over and sells you like a hot potato; a charm that will have you asking as much as you want, and looking for opportunities sync with your style. Clearly, knowing your worth is all you need to achieve big time.

Golden jubilee reflections

I was born in the month of independence. No wonder mixed feelings tumble up and down in my being two days to our golden jubilee celebrations. Visualise with me what bubbled in the hearts of those who were present on October 9, 1962 when the Union Jack was lowered and the Uganda National Flag hoisted, officially ending 68 years of slavery.

Patriotic Ugandans bedecked in the National Flag on golden jubilee eve

Patriotic reverberations of "Free, free, thank God we are free at last" must have rocked the foundations of this country, and, probably no words are apt to capture the emotion and promise of Dr Apollo Milton Obote picking the mantle from the British imperialists. It was the day we began running our affairs—the most optimistic day in the history of this country.

Yet what do we have to show for it 50 years later? The capital city still has no smooth roads, and you must be "somebody" or know "somebody" to get panadol from the National Referral Hospital! We are stuck with an autocrat who bought legislators to knock term limits from the Constitution. Misappropriation goes on, ghosts earn from the hardworking tax-payer while our devoted teachers and doctors languish on miserable and delayed wages.

Sorrow becomes my companion and tears sprout from the corners of my eyes when I think of that and the homeless children that still share the gateman's curse of romancing the dark cold night. At least the gateman has a jacket and earns a wage. Then there is the pain of watching our rugged fathers and poor mothers in the countryside grappling with poverty in spite of all their toil.

It is on days like this that I want Sir Winston Churchill to resurrect so I can correct him that we are not the "Pearl of Africa" but the "pale of the world" instead. Yet my heart still leaps with hope and a sense of belonging when I see the National Flag fluttering in the wind and hear the National Anthem playing. I close my eyes like a mzungu being injected with Vitamin D from our morning sun and open them again to peer into the future.

I see the marvellous light we will bask in if we divorce the darkness of our hearts and hassle with integrity to earn our country civility and respectability. Then we will sing romantic ditties and forever remember the kiss of independence on the luscious lips of Uganda! Happy golden jubilee! For God and my country!

Make your resolve and just start to move

When President Museveni advises young graduates to become job creators and not job seekers, they dismiss his advice as a clichéd refrain from a decrepit leader. But I think it is high time we considered his words seriously.

There is a lot of disillusionment for the unemployed and the underemployed. The two groups have everything in common. They have dreams of driving nice cars, building your parents a house, marrying a girl of your dreams and taking your children to good schools to give them a solid foundation to compete favourably at a global stage. But all that costs money, a lot of it

The writer (right) with Moses Bagonza

And in a country where mediocrity is rewarded on nepotistic grounds, and meritocracy unappreciated, even the ambidextrous and nobly-intentioned have accepted a corrupt system and underestimated their ability to challenge and defeat it. They have accepted the view that unlike in the times of our parents when a high school certificate was a license to a good life, today not even a doctorate is guaranteed to get you a financially rewarding job unless you know "someone". So they have become proponents of the ends-and-means theory by bribing and doing everything including selling their souls for a job, a promotion and commonly for perishable riches.

Yet all that is bound to change with a new mindset. It is time we recognised that each one of us has a brainpower to do something worthy for his country and for self. It takes some hard thinking and the guts to go all the way. A friend of mine, Moses Bagonza, did it, and agreed to share his story to encourage you:

"I quit my job in July because I have a really bad attitude for employers that don't value employees. Since I set out solo, opportunities have not ceased coming my way –it's just one immediately after the other, mostly from foreigners. My first project was a compostable latrine in Iganga; many laughed at the mere fact that I was building a latrine but I made some good money and some good friends too that are sending me more projects, including building a maternity ward in Fort Portal…now I'm working to incorporate my firm and start bidding next year. My experience has taught me to believe that you will encounter your blessing when you make your resolve and just start to move."

On Anger Management

Woman or man is born crying and contends with struggles until (s)he is lowered into the grave. That is not an optimistic way to start an article, but the stresses of everyday life are inescapable. However, psychologists say having a positive attitude is an antidote to anger or stress before it even strikes you.

This man's foot was chopped out of anger

Anyway, how do you deal with stress? There are days I would lap up ice cream but it got so nauseating I made a covenant with myself never to lick that stuff again. Then I discovered popcorn. It is a perfect balm to conventional workplace stress particularly familiar with some of us in the writing business who spend a bulk of our time punching the keyboard while editors breathe fire in our faces over unmet deadlines.

Then the subeditors have this eerie habit of omitting a letter from your headline or replacing it extraneously, or even scrapping a paragraph without your involvement, thoroughly murdering the aestheticism of the article. Now, that is infuriating! But rather than smash walls, these days I buy me a big bowl of popcorn and close my eyes listening to the onomatopoeic scrunch in my mouth till the bowl's empty. It has such calming effect.

Jogging or walking from my workplace all the way home helps too. But nothing beats the beat! I mean the music. It is said to mop from the soul the dust of everyday life, and it is true. It is in times like these that you appreciate the sophistication of your phone; you plug the earphones into the right places, and before you know it, you are bopping like nobody is watching – all the stress gone. It works magic especially, if, like me, you have arranged your favourite hits in consonance with certain moods. My playlists are for instance labelled “Soothing, Inspiration, Dancing, Worship” , meaning I listen to each depending on my mood.

Now, I have heard of uncouth people who scream like psychos and give vent to their anger by turning their wives into punching bags or smashing the windscreen of the hubby’s car. These need the intervention of an experienced counsellor, or better still should enrol in an anger-management school. I cannot help them!

But I certainly can deal with the easy cases. Stress psychotherapists advise that you get physical, the intimate way. That wife can nag and that hubby can infuriate, I know. But before you go berserk and kill somebody or smash something, grab your spouse, and say you hate fighting with the one you love. Follow that up with a kiss and go all the way. Not only is sex a fantastic stress reliever like other good exercises, the deep breathing involved is said to oxygenate blood. Advisory: this is strictly for married couples.

Redefining greatness

The recent death of Neil Armstrong, the first human to step on the moon, attracted significant eulogies, including one from Barack Obama who called him one of the “greatest American heroes – not just of his time, but of all time.” I wonder if Armstrong’s career as an aero engineer would have been found wanting had he not commanded the Apollo II Spacecraft. And how about the rest of the crew that made that space mission possible; are they on Obama’s list of America’s greatest heroes as well?

Neil Armstrong

No doubt, Armstrong was great. But generally, the world’s definition of greatness is twisted. Often, those that do not deserve are put on a pedestal because of the weight of their pockets or the prominence of their offices. So the pot-bellied minister notorious for elongating his arms into public coffers is given a special front seat in church or at the wedding party while the artiste that preaches violence in his lyrics and is a shameless dope head and philanderer is the “icon” mega companies fly into the country to entertain us, and the one newspapers laud on the front page!

Rarely is the spotlight on the hardworking person who embraces right and just; pays their taxes, is faithful to their spouses and brings up their children as responsible citizens. In my opinion, pure value is a major earmark to+ define greatness. If you give your enemy a glass of water because you genuinely do not want them to die of thirst, you have a great heart. This is what it means to do unto others as you would like them to do unto you, and it is the stuff greatness is made of.

Greatness is also in finding your life’s vocation and fulfilling it regardless of global cameras shifting on you or not. If you are called to become a night watchman and you perform diligently and passionately, you are great. Consider Jesus Christ who lived in obscurity for 30 years as a carpenter’s son, and throughout his ministry, never acquired a spanking convertible or a lakeside mansion. “In fact, He had nowhere to lay his head yet He’s not only the embodiment of matchless wealth, but is also the greatest man to ever live. Why? Because he was faithful to his calling even unto death!”

I end with Thomas Dreier: “To be popular at home is a great achievement. The man who is loved by the house cat, by the dog, by the neighbour’s children and by his own wife, is a great man, even if he has never had his name in ‘Who’s Who’”

Sharing roasted groundnuts with the king

I went to visit Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi of Buganda and found him waiting to receive me outside the palatial gates in Bulange. I was surprised to find no characteristic pomp of royal musicians and drummers, prostrating subjects, intimidating guards or snarling dogs at the king’s feet ready to pounce on anyone who would threaten royalty!

Kabaka Ronald Muwenda-Mutebi

It was the beginning of more surprises, for there was nothing ‘regal’ inside his office except a simple wooden chair behind an equally simple table – the kind you find in any ordinary man’s office or home. The king was reading my mind because he immediately said, “Simplicity; the trick is in simplicity!"

He then excused himself and returned with a saucer of roasted groundnuts which we slowly enjoyed and drank black tea in long cups made from clay. We talked about many seemingly insubstantial things until the king assumed a grave tone and said, “I want to tell you about industrialization in its unadulterated purity.”

Gesturing and talking with an emotiveness I found a little embarrassing for a king, he argued, “Museveni’s idea of industrialization and modernization is skewered. It’s empowering foreign impostors named investors at the expense of local entrepreneurs. Look at those magnificent supermarkets and factories in the city – how much are Ugandans who work there paid for their day-long back-breaking toil? Can they make a living out of that pay?”

The king then recalled the old days of blacksmiths, potters and rare artisans, and the incredible stuff they used to make: “If you go to places like Katwe today, you’ll still find the remnants of those creative luminaries you so-called modernists don’t want to give a chance. The influx of foreign capitalists have made their lives impossible as the government looks on. Why for instance would the country allow importation of sofas say from China when our boys can do better? That’s why you’ll never find posh furniture in my office or home!”

We talked till the evening sun beckoned us outside. And all through, the Kabaka was as impressive with his ideas as he was with his simplicity and friendliness. We were still talking when I woke up. The dream had been so vivid and funny it made me laugh in the pitch night. I was still thinking about it the following day, and failing to crack its mysteriousness, decided there was nothing in it except a lesson on humility, humanity and foresight.

Pushing the limits

If you got a ‘promise’ cling to it for it is that roadmap that gives you faith to work out your way to the end,” a great quote from my friend Moses Tusingwire, that got me thinking. Just what is this “promise”? Then it struck me that the “promise” may not necessarily be about what you’ve been promised but what you expect to reap from “working out your way”. We’re talking about endurance here.

Hard work with endurance mightily pays

This life being a wrestling match, there’s no way you can achieve unless you’re willing and ready to endure while pushing the limits. That said, endurance carries a price tag too. It’s the stuff of those who accept themselves and quit chasing after validation from others. Only those who endure witness the dawn that precedes the dark night. The young woman that couldn’t endure the agony of pushing ended up killing her baby. The other gnashes her teeth and wails through the roof as she pushes with all her might. And when it’s all over and the baby is in her arms, all the labour pangs are forgotten as the smile on her beautiful face testifies.

Evidently, good things come through enduring through the wrestle and hassle. The ground is cursed and a man must earn his living by the sweat of his brow. But the beauty about it is that God loves a drenched face. Sweat represents toil and persistence. And when you’re verging on surrender, when you feel nothing will come of all that tussling, He moves in and wipes that sweet sweat away. You start enjoying.

Consider the price Kiprotich had to pay as he left his beautiful wife and two lovely children and went to Kenya to sweat it out in the cold morning. He woke up earlier and toiled, and perhaps no one gave him drinking water. Like him our pot-bellIed government may see you and only shake its head at the poor man jogging his poverty away.

But you remember the famous Cus D’Amato tip that to allow yourself to be distracted is to allow yourself to fail. So you ignore the naysayer and toil on. Suddenly, something spectacular happens. Cameras swing on the golden boy. You’ve arrived! All the sweat; the endurance has finally paid off! Those that thought nothing was assured now turn around shamelessly and become your praise-singers, asking to kiss your gold medal.

The reason you and I must seize and cling to the old ‘promise’ – hardwork pays. Hardwork that goes with endurance, mightily does.

The race may not be for the swift but it sure is for the optimists

After that golden touch at the Olympics, I’m not sure we shall tire talking about Stephen Kiprotich soon. I have read everything about the latest sensation and have concluded he is Uganda’s living number one optimist. This means he has always believed and nurtured his desire to become great.

“I want to be a legend. I want to be great and I know I can achieve it,” he told sports journalists in March. This is the optimism and self-belief I’m talking about. It’s the kind of optimism that has the endorsement of God since the Bible says a man is what he thinks. You think destiny owes you greatness, it sure does. You think you are an unlucky wretch who will never get anywhere in this life and sure you will rotate in one place and miserably watch your friends get ahead.

Impossibility may be just a word in the dictionary but it is very destructive if you give it a chance. Equally, it will flee from whoever rejects it. Inspirational writer Robert Schuller captures how devastating this “impossibility” word can be when uttered aloud: thinking stops, progress halts, doors slam shut, projects are abandoned, dreams discarded and the “brightest and the best of the creative brain cells nosedive, clam up, hide out, cool down, and turn off in some dark, subterranean corner of the mind…

“But, let someone utter the magic words ‘it’s possible’, Schuller writes on, “Those stirring words, with the siren appeal of a marshalling trumpet, penetrate into the subconscious tributaries of the mind, challenging and calling those proud powers to turn on and turn out new ideas! Buried dreams are resurrected. Sparks of fresh enthusiasm flicker, then burst into new flame…”

It is what happened to Kiprotich during that climactic marathon. The moment the word possibility penetrated his mind, his brains went to work and helped him at that bend to break away while his enthusiasm doubled, and there was nothing his challengers could now do to stop him.

This is as real on the running track as it is in life. Achievement is not dependent on present circumstances, but on drive and the positive conviction that we can make it. Greatness is a lover of optimists, not pessimists. When you keep hope glimmering even in the midst of the rot and the betrayal, against all the odds, you will do things others have long given up on, and you’ll be a gold medallist in this race we call life.

In the ghetto but not of the ghetto

This goes out to popular culturists, particularly artistes that have navigated out of the ghetto to the front page. Your songs play on our radios and your videos beam on our screens everyday while your concerts draw multitudes. Well, I’m challenging you today to use your influence to help the lost generation.

Artistes like these can use their platform and appeal to transform lives

Let me begin by saying I'm not going to congratulate you on that popular video in which you are surrounded by half-naked women taking turns to rub their bums on your crotch. You are swinging and swigging on a hard liquor bottle only pausing to smoke a Cuban cigar and exhale its smog through your nostrils. You are wearing a buggy t-shirt with words "Baad Boy" below the picture of a man with a pointed pistol. I'm not congratulating you because that projection may seem right to you but it actually is destructive.

I know you have got to hunt your meat, you know, put food on the table. But there is a better way of doing it than promoting alcoholism, drugs and debauchery. If the ghetto is colourful like you glorify it in your songs and videos, why do you live in a mansion and drive a Lexus while your ghetto friends have nowhere to lay their heads?

Before his spiritual metamorphosis, a friend of mine then known as Badda was so obsessed with Tupac Shakur that he smoked weed and started the Anti-Bitch Club (ABC) at school because his icon was a dope head that cussed and called women bitches. Just like Tupac was to Badda, you are role models to many and your conduct on and off stage has a profound positive or negative impact on your fans for which you’ll continue to be celebrated or disparaged.

I know it has been tough and the haters are many but that is life. Since the fall of man, the world has known nothing but violence, poverty, disease, unfairness and death. The rich and the poor alike commit suicide or get ravaged by all forms of intoxicants and substances. But your success and survival is testimony that even though you were born in the ghetto, as Jesse Jackson once put it, the ghetto was not born in you.

It is therefore your moral duty to use the platform and massive talent God has endowed you with to inspire the uninspired. Beef is not helping us. Give us love and encouragement, and we shall sing along into a better world and future.

The Ebola Scare: Lord have mercy!!

A couple of days ago, I was walking home when I met my friend Morgan and extended my hand in greeting.
“No handshakes, man,” he said with a nervous laugh, “have you forgotten?” He was alluding to the Ebola scare. I quickly understood, and we chatted on the unpredictability of the times. Earlier that day, a friend we went to campus with had collapsed in his office and died instantly.

Ebola has killed many Ugandans but few are taking precautions

And now with Ebola cases reported in Mulago, we had to be extra careful for sure. But being optimists, our conversation soon drifted to the brighter side of life, and we were soon cracking jokes and crackling. Suddenly Morgan looked at his watch and whistled. He had a date and was already late.

“I gotta run, man,” he said grabbing my hand and shaking it vigorously before he hurried off. In his excitement, he had forgotten we were not supposed to shake hands! I found that simultaneously funny and scary but not strange. It’s typical of Ugandans and Africans generally. Remember the story about Jacob Zuma having unprotected sex and diving into the bathroom shortly after to rinse any viruses off? One moment we are prudent, and another, incredibly imprudent.

First we come with all our guns blazing against HIV/Aids and become a model on how the pandemic can be outwitted. But a few years later, abstinence is forgotten, being faithful laughed at, and the condom mocked as an inconvenience as men and women go on rampage devouring each other. Now the infection rate is so alarmingly soaring that the other day the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton voiced her worry on our behalf. It is incredible how nonchalant we are about it.

Back to Ebola, you ask yourself what precautionary measures the government or other institutions have put in place since it was first announced the virulent epidemic had stormed Kampala as well? We were advised to avoid shaking hands but why are night clubs still operating? And why are people still hugging and shaking hands at church when they have been told they will contract the epidemic through close contact?

The absurdity of our recklessness or sheer stupidity brings me to the only conclusion -- that God is really doing a great job of protecting us.Otherwise we would have long been wiped out of the face of this earth. But how long will He wait for us to grow up? Because, evidently, even in the face of the most deadly plague, the word “precaution” is non-existent in the Ugandan dictionary.

The "Proposal" Question

Should a woman propose to a man? The youths of Makerere Full Gospel Church debated this question last Sunday. To some, the idea of a beautiful woman going on bended knee to pop the question to the man of her dreams would be exhilarating, and to others, revolting.  

Does it really matter who pops the question?

One young man argued: "Feminists like to say whatever a man does, a woman can do even better. Let them get better at proposing to us too!" Of course such arguments drew prolonged hilarity, but more importantly they got me examining the relationships I know, have read or heard about. And my conclusion: today's women have taken over the dating world and are the ones proposing to us, even though it has not robbed us of our virility. 

A woman sees a handsome man and decides she wants him. She rummages through her closet and pulls out the most flattering lesu, wraps it around her curves and starts strutting in front of the man. Men being visual beings can be easy to nail that way, even all the way down the aisle. 

Also consider the cohabiting cases of today. Most women deliberately get pregnant and use their pregnancies to blackmail men into marrying them. Those are some of the subtle ways women are proposing to us. They have perfected the art of proposing so excellently that massive numbers of men are living in the delusion that they are the ones that loved, wooed, popped the question and conquered! It makes me laugh to think about it.

 But when all is said and done, it doesn't make you less of a man just because a woman proposed. If you like her and want to be with her, the rest of your life and vice versa, does it really matter who pops the question? In countries like India women have the official duty of being the chasers of men after all. As one debater put it, "The only thing a woman cannot do in India is to become a man!" And marriages there are probably more stable than marriages in Uganda where the man takes the lead. 

In all, I choose to be a rationalist. If a woman has no problem proposing and the man has no problem being proposed to, let them be. This scenario will not make a woman grow beards neither will it make the man lose his manhood. Moreover, "proposal" is only an eight-letter word. Conformity is sometimes deformity. Also remember the road less travelled oft makes all the difference.

The Power of Taking the First Step

I want to inspire somebody that has been debilitated into passivity because of the prevailing circumstances. The times are tough, no doubt, and there is a lot of griping. People are complaining about the weather, about heartbreaks or unrequited love, about underpayment or unemployment and so much more that has left many on the verge of surrender.

Taking the first step makes all the difference

Most of these people think it is the job of arthritis to paralyse but nothing paralyses faster than living under fear. We must inoculate ourselves of pessimism and reawaken the firepower within to take on the world and live the fruitful life we all desire.

I have heard stories of those that die impoverished and embittered because their employers didn't reward them in accordance with the loyalty with which they served. At the risk of sounding insensitive, I will say that your employer is unbothered about your welfare beyond the workplace. You must decide the life you want and strive to attain it.

Some look at their apparent lack of "connection" and at their background and give up before even trying. In his latest book, The Breakthrough, Nicholas Aruho talks of how most of us dwell on the past while the present is leaving us too. He sites the common form of greeting in the morning - "how was your night" instead of a simple "good morning"” that the English man likes to use, meaning the latter focuses on the future (morning) and not the past (night).

The moral is that we must begin to focus on the present as we walk into the future with optimism. Those who dwell on the past are fated to become useless slabs of salt, figuratively speaking. The world is tough but we are tougher since upon creation, God gave us the right and wisdom to subdue it.

To live meaningfully everyday is to become an action-oriented man because action is what we need to shape the rosy life we want. If for instance you want to go for further studies, go pick forms and file an application now. If you've been admitted but have no tuition, start knocking on doors of financial aid. Out of 100 people, 99 might shut the door in your face but the one that admits you in may be all you need to make your dream come true.

The significance of taking action now is best captured by Robert H. Schuller when he writes: "You won't start winning without a beginning."

When A Man Is In Want of A Woman

To a man that is in want of a woman to marry, achieving the "American dream" is winning the woman of his dreams! If you've not yet attained the considerable means that girls today look for in a man, spates of panic set in. You know getting her to say yes; sliding a ring down her finger is going to be possible only when you're among the lucky few that find a woman of foresight; one that will not judge you based on your present circumstances. 

To a man, getting her to say "I do" is the real "American dream" 

That would be pretty cool and the sooner you're hitched the better. You remember the first time you saw her. It was a night you knew (without any shadow of doubt) that woman with her arcane proportion of elegance and the rare self-assuredness was going to be your wife. It was also the night you became a man; the night you realized you had to put away all the playing and get real. It was a good sign seeing you roll your sleeves and stand in front of the big mirror to take a long, studious look at yourself. 

"That girl's going to be my wife," you told your reflection in the mirror even when you knew it was not going to be easy. Not that you care about being accused of having no ambition. You're a man of easy circumstances that loves spending time reading books and it got you wondering whether she would understand. But even if she does, you can't get married and retain your routine because where there was only you, now is a woman. Moreover if she's a big man's daughter raised on bread and butter, can she live happily with a rough-hewn son of a peasant without the security of a posh apartment? 

You hang on to that old bit about unlike poles attracting, and you know she likes you yet the prospect of losing her to the richer and more sophisticated guys strikes you. The anxiety even seeps into your sleep as you start dreaming fighting off men and doing everything to shield her.  

"You're all mine and no vulture will take you away from me," you tell her and reach out to kiss her only to realise it's a dream! You get down on your knees, man, knowing that the Creator of marriage knows what's in futurity and grants all who trust Him the desires of their hearts.