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.