Mr Nicholas Sengoba
One prediction you can take and cash in at the bank on any day, is the fact that life is unpredictable.
When you are young, full of life with enormous hope and big dreams, you have a long checklist of things to do in order to be ‘successful’. Likewise, there are many things you would not want to be associated with probably from experience, culture, tradition and social pressures which define failure.
As you grow older the checklist may grow longer for some time then circumstances and reality set in and you start trimming or re-shaping that list. For many the desired trajectory is finish school with a degree(s). Build a dream house. Get married to preferably one spouse (for Christians) before you are 27 or 30. Have children brought up in a good religious setting. Climb up the career ladder and be at the pinnacle of your profession. Or run your own business, invest and make good money to afford you an independent and peaceful life.
One that enables you to provide especially for your aging parents. Take holidays to great destinations and build good memories for you family. Socially and may be politically, be a leader of repute and relevance to the community, etc. Fast forward to today. Some people tick, if not all, then most boxes and are happy at least on the face of it and in the eyes of the ever prodding and critical society. They even tell it on social media with lovely filtered pictures which make many envious though. Some may even begrudgingly send congratulatory messages. ‘We made 6 years of love and marital bliss! ‘It has been God all the way. After sleepless nights the Phd is in the bag.’ ‘The weather here in the Maldives is for World Cup. What is money for if you don’t live life to the fullest.’ ‘Time to dump the Range and jump into the G-Wagon.’ ‘The dream house is ticked.
Now #MissionRetirement.’ Then there is the one entering middle age or is already there and has not yet found their footing. Their challenging situation is a premonition that they may never get to where they had envisaged. They rent on the edge. They are unemployed or hustling downtown, doing anything under the skies to keep their skins together.
Some are working for an Indian or Chinese investor who occasionally shouts and threatens to fire them from the favour they are provided through employment. Another is not yet married. Or he is already the polygamist that he was told, as a good Christian boy, never to become for it was shameful and evil. Their second ‘wife’ might be the tea girl or house help or their daughter’s Kindergarten teacher, in whose midst they found themselves when the devil tempted them.
Yesterday’s dashing beauty may now be divorced or the second wife or side chick that they used to despise when they met with her girlfriends some years ago and laughed out loud. Another might even be an unemployed single mother with a child or two from different fathers; one of whom is a married sugar daddy or other who pays the bills in exchange for sexual favours. Yet when she was younger, she always wondered what girls found in such ‘bi old, ugly, potbellied men.’ Some people have suffered great setbacks and misfortunes that are rationally not of their making. The bank loan that took everything when Covid-19 struck the economy. A fire, robbery, debilitating accident or a mental breakdown that has turned a life that began with promise, into a nightmare. We are all children of society and the way this uncertainty is handled determines how we live with others.
While some will live a lie and do everything to seek validation showing that they are doing well, others have followed the dictates of the Serenity Prayer. They have asked God to grant them the serenity to accept the things they cannot change, courage to change the things they can and the wisdom to know the difference. They are at peace far away from the lime light.
Others have left the country to try their luck elsewhere. They have settled into humbling but rewarding occupations, far from what they envisaged when they were graduating.
Unfortunately, many have resigned into depression, drugs and alcohol especially those who are stigmatised for suffering from chronic illnesses, like HIV. Society by nature is very competitive. Everyone wants to be better than the next person. This is not a bad thing per se. It is healthy to work to stay ahead. But there are those whose understanding of this aspect is not looking at those ahead but those behind them; the less fortunate ones.
It is often the people who do not fit in the generally accepted societal sphere of success; that get to know their friends and the darker side of human nature. There is that person who makes it their preoccupation to gossip and kick such people. Their conversations are dominated by the personal ills and failures of others. They find pleasure in exposing them, often with sinister embellishments. They know who is about to die because ‘this disease’ is eating them. They laugh at those who are struggling when life forces them to climb down economically and socially.
Unfortunately it is usually people, one calls friends who rejoice at their misfortune behind their back, with envy, malice and sadism.One very generous gentleman; now deceased, found out too late that most of the time and money invested partying with his ‘friends’ was wasted when he contracted HIV.
They claimed he used to show off when he had money; the money they drunk and enjoyed. He spent his last days drinking and died depressed. The lesson here is that if you have friends, watch the way they deal with especially those who are considered struggling or failing. If they can’t provide for them financially or materially (which is not an obligation), they may pray for them; which again is optional.
If the above are considered too heavy a price then they should simply leave them alone.A (wo)man who takes pleasure in speaking ill of the less fortunate is not to be taken lightly, especially if they are your friend. It is only a matter of time that they will make you the topic for laughter and ridicule. They are fake friends. Run away from them.
Mr Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues X: @nsengoba
