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.