Where do you want to go?

A weary traveller reached an intersection and asked a sage he found there which road to take. When the sage asked him where he wanted to go, he was clueless. Take any road then, the sage shrugged and advised, what difference does it make?   

Know where you want to go first

This story rings a bell because in my journalism work the question that disturbs most interviewees is the question of where they want to be, say in five or ten years. They often give hazy answers, meaning few people have a vivid mental picture of where or what they want to be some years from now. 

That's what complicates the progress of many; we are struggling because we have not sat down to determine what it is we truly want in life, and how to get it. There's no corporation or institution without a vision and mission statement around which its business revolves.

We must do the same, for to live without vision and mission is to live purposelessly and meaninglessly. We will be like a man who on his wish-list wants to be rich and live in a castle and marry the most beautiful woman in the world but never really wakes up to do something about his dreams. 

Thomas Jefferson said, "If you want something you have never had, you must be willing to do something you have never done." To be a man or woman of great attainments, one must live life with singleness of purpose – waking up everyday with an idea and execution plan in line with one's life goals. It begins with a grasp of self; the inherent power and intellect and how we can use that to define and fulfill our aspirations. 

Like the story of the traveller who reached the intersection but realized he had no idea where he wanted to go, it is self-defeating to go to work everyday without a true purpose. Is it to save enough money to build a house, marry a woman and start a business or do I work merely to feed without ever pausing to think about tomorrow?

The man without life goals is the man in a rocking chair that keeps him in motion but gets him precisely nowhere. Life is filled with meaning if we realize we all are visionaries not focused on just fulfilling personal ambitions but ones that have the mandate of leaving this world better than we found it. 

Fight like an impala

I recently watched a documentary in which an impala fought for its life against a cheetah and won. I immediately learned that in life, the battle is not necessarily to the strong but to those who give it their all.

I was amazed by the tactic of the impala. When the cheetah sprang on its neck, there was a lot of flexing, but as it discovered it was weaker for the bigger cat, it crouched on its knees and seemed to have given up the fight. The cheetah then made the mistake of trying to get a better grip of its prey's neck. It was a mistake it must still be ruing, for in that instant, the impala plunged and pinned the predator to the ground with its iron horns, and goring and jagging with all its might. The cheetah panicked and released its enemy who then leaped to safety, leaving the cheetah nursing a bloody a gush in its side.

Kiprotich fought hard on his to winning an Olympics gold

It was a memorable battle that reminded me of the common analogy that it’s not the size of the dog that matters in the fight, but the fight in the dog. That little, vulnerable-looking impala was nothing compared to its foe, but my God! what a tough heart it had. Wherever it is, that little impala deserves a medal for varlour extraordinaire.

It taught me that in the jungle of life, those that survive, those that make it, are those that keep pushing, keep fighting no matter the pain. Those who are willing to fight to the point of death are the ones who have greater chances of winning, not those who give up quickly.

Remember all of us have crosses to carry. Some struggle daily against poverty, others against rejection and others battle very painful sicknesses and so on. Even those who seemingly have it all often are battling deep emptiness and try to find solace in alcohol, women and drugs.

It's very rare to find someone to whom everything is alright. There are battles of the flesh and of the mind that every human being wrestles against. Some give up the fight and commit suicide; others stop fighting and wait to die.

It's those that keep fighting that test the glory of winning and give life its meaning. It all comes down to choices really. And I choose to be that little but indomitable impala that wrestled with a vicious cheetah and won.

Growing a tough skin

What does it mean to grow a tough skin? It means appreciating that challenges are part of living, and taking them on without murmuring. Those who refuse to accept this truth are chewed up and spat out like gum that has lost its taste.

The waves of life will always roll. You must row on no matter what!

I will never forget how fascinated I felt when I first read the story of how a then nobody named Abebe Bikila won the 1960 Olympic Marathon without shoes!Ugandan athletes blame the government for their failures on the track, but the Ethiopian runner was not going to be stopped, track shoes or no track shoes! If you say it was easy because he probably was a poor African who had never worn shoes, and could therefore not run and win in them, you are wrong because he returned four years later, and raced, this time with shoes, and won again moreover by the largest margin in Olympic history (four minutes 8 seconds).

The fact that he was still recovering from appendectomy proved this guy had grown a tough skin that made him unstoppable. One commentator said Bikili's "Olympic marathons galvanized the running world and heralded the era of African dominance in distance running…He is forever captured in Olympic history as a slender figure running barefoot through the streets of Rome."

Muhammad Ali is another inspirational character who in his heydays developed such a tough skin that the idea of losing never even crossed his mind. He used to taunt his opponents saying, if you sleep and dream beating Ali, you had better wake up and apologise.

In the true life based movie The Pursuit of Happiness, Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is abandoned by his wife. But he confronts his misfortunes without backing down and eventually becomes an enviable winner. It is a story that wonderfully epitomises the cliche that when the going gets tough, the tough get going, and Robert Schuller\s classic book title, Tough Times Don't Last But Tough People Do. 

There is also a blind man on Kampala streets who plays the guitar so passionately so he can feed his family. I admire him because the challenge of lack of sight has not stopped him.

I challenge us too to grow a tough skin. Remember this: the darkest hour of night is shortly before the break of dawn. Similarly, the greater the challenges the greater the destiny if you don't give up.

Living life deliberately

"I love paying rent when rent's due," is a line from a 2Pac Shakur song that captures the sentiment of every man who is not a crook. Men have a natural instinct to run the world; we love to have lots of money in our pockets to pay all the bills.

Chatting with British author Jane Rogers. She has lived her life deliberately.

But as living costs shoot up, as employers pay so little for so much, as banks and shylocks loot everything just a day past the payback date, men are losing their confidence and becoming mere shells of their former selves.

Gone are the days when a simple education guaranteed one a job that meant living comfortably thereafter. My father was a District Health Inspector for many years with just some post-secondary school certificates, but educated all 12 of us, his children, to university on his meager salary, without being corrupt.

He just lived life deliberately; which means planning every move, including the people you associate with. You cannot expect to win by hanging out with loafers, wasteful and pessimistic people always. Otherwise you get initiated into their philosophy that life is too tough and unfair; that one must therefore strive not but wait to die.

If W.E.B. Du Bois had had that mentality, he would never have risen above vicious racism to become the first black to earn a PhD from Harvard University, and go on to become a scholar and writer of enviable influence.

Even when Theodore Roosevelt said the most important ingredient in the formulae for success is knowing how to get along with people, he didn't mean you get along with just anybody. I grew up seeing my father kick smokers and drunkards out of his home because he could never allow anyone to contaminate his children.

He often invited successful men of integrity home to dinner to inspire us. These were the trusted friends he went to whenever he failed to raise our school fees. Living life deliberately also means saving a portion of your earnings however little, and investing it in alignment with your goals, when it accumulates. Remember a man without goals is a lost man.

In all you must become a genius, which means according to that inventive man Thomas Edison, is "one per cent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." It certainly calls for dogged strength but as it's the secret to not just paying rent when rent it due, but to greater attainments as well, it\s worth it

Light reigns over darkness

The party coincided with the end of semester two exams and Vero, 20, decided to celebrate her end of freshman year with oomph. So when she was handed a glass of wine, her smile made one of the young men recognise her nubile beauty. After the third glass, Vero flew to the dance floor and enjoyed herself like Madame Loisel at the ball in Guy de Maupassant's The Necklace.

That life growing on the inside of you could be a future president

"She danced ecstatically, wildly, intoxicated with pleasure, giving no thought to anything else, swept along on her victorious beauty and glorious success, and floating on a cloud of happiness composed of homage, admiration, and desire she evoked and the kind of complete and utter triumph which is so sweet to a woman's heart."

The young man watched and sighed and planned. Soon Vero was in his arms; lost in his caresses and whisperings. By the time he drove her back to her hostel in the wee hours of the morning, she was not the same girl. Her innocence was gone but the radiance on her face said she didn't care. She had no clue the one-night had left her with a pregnancy that would alter the course of her life probably forever.

It is three months after the party and Vero finds herself between a rock and a hard place. The young man refuses the responsibility and is engaged to another woman whom he loves to death. The thought of the shame and betrayal that will confront Vero's parents when they learn of the plight of their daughter is something Vero dreads most.

Her eyes well up with tears every time she weighs her options. Keeping the pregnancy would mean quitting her course at the university and struggling to raise the child on her own. She has also contemplated abortion but it makes her cringe because she is a radical catholic who believes abortion is heartless murder.

Vero is basically alone and very frightened. This is where the optimist comes in to say stay strong. It's true the silver lining is there at the end of the dark tunnel. Vero, you have to conquer your shame and fear and tell your mother. Terminating your pregnancy is absolutely out of the question because life begins at conception and that life growing on the inside of you could be the future president of this country. I will be praying for you.