Re-writing my story
Do I want to die like my parents — before making enough money to support my family and helping more people? I have limited time to change the story.
One of the greatest breakthroughs in the life of humankind was the invention of timekeeping devices. Timekeeping was invented after the invention of writing, between 3500 BC to 3000 BC by the Sumerian geniuses. Writing helped humans to store and process information outside their brains. Before the invention of writing, Sapiens had to store and process all of their information in their brains (you can imagine how tough this was, huh?).
Humankind had some limitations brought about by the lack of a place outside the brain to store and process information. The three main limitations that humans of that time faced include:
- Limited capacity. The human brain can only store information up to a certain level. According to research published on Livescience.com, humans can only handle 4 things at a time.
- Humans die, and their brains die with them. In less than a century, all the information stored in a human brain will be erased when he/she dies. Through science and technological advancement, it is possible to pass memories from one brain to another, but after a few transmissions, the information tends to be garbled.
- The human brain is adapted to store and process only particular types of information.
Egyptians divided the day into two 12-hour periods and used large obelisks to track the movement of the sun.
Ancient China, Japan, England, and Mesopotamia used candle clocks as timekeeping devices.
Today, we have more advanced timekeeping devices. The SI unit for time, seconds (s), is defined as about 9 billion oscillations of caesium atom, has been split into milliseconds, microseconds, and nanoseconds. Human’s curiosity and intelligence has led him to explore more about time and timekeeping.
Time has been dubbed “the most precious resource” by man.
I know the date my parents passed away because of time. I know the day I was born because of time. I know my age because of time. The study of history is relevant because of time.
I decided to write this article because I’m competing against time. I know I’m not here on Earth forever — One day I’ll die.
My parents (both dad and mom) died in 2001 when I was just 4 years old (thanks to time!). They didn’t assemble enough resources to take care of themselves, their children, their parents, and the society at large. My dad was a primary school teacher. My mother didn’t have a job — she could not afford to attain higher education. All in all, I consider them financially poor people. They both died as poor people.
Dad died not more than 7 years after starting his career as a primary teacher. He didn’t make enough money to raise the standard of living of his family. We were below the middle class living standards, as far as the government data and standards are concerned. The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics defines a middle class as any individual spending between 23,670 KES to 199,999 KES per month.
I didn’t experience the poverty of our family for a longer time because I was still young. I didn’t easily notice the lack of food or clothing in the house. But my elder brother, Francis could easily notice. In fact, he is the one who shed light to my eyes about the poverty level of our family. He recently told me a story that caused me to shed tears. He told me that my mom’s coffin was not in good condition. The coffin was made carelessly. It did not fully cover the body of my mom — when one side was pulled and nailed, the other side forcefully opened up.
The above story illustrates how poor our family was. My dad did not leave enough money and other resources to sustain the family. My mom had to hustle hard to make ends meet. Within a period of 9 months, when mom’s death followed that of dad, we literally didn’t have anything left.
Since the death of our parents, my two brothers and I were taken care of by a loving and caring grandmother. I’ve lived with my grandmother until 2012 when I finished my primary education to join high school. Immediately after finishing primary high school, I literally didn’t have any means of joining high school — my grandmother could not afford to pay the fees. Fortunately, through a family friend, I was introduced to Dan, the director and founder of ROCK Kenya. Through ROCK, I secured a high school scholarship.
Now, it is time for me to change the story…
Back to the start of this article — I have limited time to change my story.
- Do I want to die before making enough money to support my family?
- Do I want to leave my future children with burdens as such being sent out to look for school fees week in, week out?
- Do I want to die before creating a legacy by helping more young people to overcome the problems I went through?
My answer to all these questions is “NO”.
I strongly believe that I have much to deliver to change the story. I can spend an entire day explaining how I’m planning to change the story. Most importantly, I would like to touch people’s lives by sharing content like this blog that aims to motivate and inspire. The diversity of content forms has made it easy to create and share content. I’d like to make good use of technology to boost the spread of my content. The promising increase in the number of Internet users has made curation and sharing of content easy. I’m using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to share my story. One of my goals this year was to start a podcast, although, I haven’t done much concerning it, I’m still thinking about it.
I’ll be happy to see less privileged young people navigate through their hardships and emerge as winners, and then use their stories to inspire and motivate other less privileged people.
One of the best books that I’ve ever read is Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl. The book chronicles Frankl’s experiences at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. He also describes the psychotherapeutic method that helped him to stay positive and find purpose in life. Some of the important lessons that I learnt from the book include:
Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible. ~ Viktor E. Frankl
We should not get frustrated with life during hard times. When something bad [or good happens] to us, that’s life questioning us. We need to responsibly answer by reacting in a positive way. Getting frustrated with life doesn’t help us during times of crisis. I’m responsible for whatever happens in my life. When we reach a point where we all understand that we can’t solve our problems by merely getting frustrated, then we’ll be at a better position to solve our problems.
So live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!
I strongly believe that I’ve surrounded myself with great people who are helping me and will continue to help and support me to reach my full potential.
My mission in life, therefore, is to help less privileged young people in the society. I’d also like to create financial freedom (by providing solutions to the world’s problems) to help sustain my future family and myself. I wouldn’t let my future children miss some of the things and opportunities that I desired when I was young but could not afford because of lack of money.
As Baltasar Gracian once said:
All that really belongs to us is time; even he who has nothing else has that.
I promise myself everyday to work hard and make good use of limited time because I can’t achieve all that I’ve said above if I can’t walk the walk. I’m committing myself to daily challenges without a plan of giving up. I’m trying as much as possible to learn new things on a daily basis to gain new knowledge that will hopefully help me achieve my goals.
