Embracing the simple but valuable things

One of my favourite movies is Citizen Kane (1941) about a media baron whose dying word, "Rosebud", is the name of a toy car he had as a boy. This way, the film powerfully sums up the truth that riches and power are not the source of fulfillment. Simplicity of life is what gives us lasting joy.

The simplicity and joy of uncorrupted childhood is what made him long for his boyhood toy.

As Kabaka Ronald Edward Fredrick Kimera Muwenda Mutebi II of Buganda celebrates 20 years since he was crowned, I cannot help thinking how wrong people are to associate fulfillment in life with riches and power.

I believe knowing who we are and why we are here is what makes life worth living. For example, I was not born in a palace, but it fills me with joy and purpose to know I am created in the image of God, the King of kings, and that nothing can take that heritage from me. Thus I do not need a scepter in my hand and a golden crown on my head and enraptured loyalists prostrating before me and shouting "long live", to know how important I am to fellow humanity.

Each one of us is God's masterpiece and only those who have not discovered their inherent royalty get compromised. They believe possessions and positions will earn them the coveted reverence, comfort and class that come with royalty, only to be received by loneliness and misery in the "higher station" where their consciences poke them and the voices of those they trampled upon on the way up accuse them incessantly.

Also, each one of us comes from a womb and lives for a while before descending into a tomb. A grasp of this would give us little attachment to the things of this world as we would get busy living our lives to the full. Oh what simple but memorable delights there are in doing one’s household chores, tending your garden, walking to work and devouring boiled maize with close friends after a long day!

I tell you there is more health, power and untold beauty in such simplicity as there is in living a life of friendship and integrity. You don't have to wait like citizen Kane to be on your deathbed to realise that the abundance of life is not in riches and power. The simplicity and joy of uncorrupted childhood is what made him long for his boyhood sled.