This Rat is out of the Race.....

All my life I thought I was living my life then a few months ago I meet someone who bursts my bubble.  I have actually been existing.  Not funny at all.  She explained how I’ve been a human doing and not a human being.

You see, it took me a while to understand what she meant and when it sank in, man didn’t I feel cheated.  All I’ve been doing is well……doing!!! And not being.  Let me explain this to you.  We spend our lives doing things, chasing things well basically rat racing and we don’t take time to be, you know just be and feel and enjoy the moments. And yes I felt really cheated.  You see we are meant to be human beings not humans doing.

When I finally stopped trying to go around the being and doing thing and accepted that I had been doing I started to realize and see some things that would make me laugh out loud and I mean literally laugh out loud.  You need to understand the kind of person I am to really appreciate that statement.  I am the kind of person who is always thinking many days ahead, I cannot sit in the jam and not think of what I need to be doing instead of sitting there in the jam.  I actually power up my laptop and work in the jam!!!  I dream of  pending tasks and have nightmares of unfinished or imperfect projects.

So, one Monday I decided to be and not do.  Anyone who knows me, knows I hate, actually abhor jams. So here I am in the jam on Mombasa Road and I automatically switch to doing mode and start planning my day and cursing. And I check myself and decide to try this being thing.  I sat and enjoying the music blaring from my car stereo, which I normally don’t quite get to hear because I’m too busy doing. Then I noticed the skyline, the birds flying around, the bushes and flowers on the roadside, the people around and it was fun.  Believe me when I tell you, sitting in the jam and watching the people around you is mad fun!!! And before I could recover from being I was in the office.  I have no idea how long it took but I was on time and happy.

All through the day I consciously decided to enjoy the moments.  I had crazy meetings, had to deal with people and reports but because I was in the moment it was an awesome Monday.  I can’t remember when I last enjoyed a Monday that was not a holiday.  So basically, I figured being was better than doing.  I have been pushing myself to be and not do and it has been an awesome experience.  Actually continues to be an awesome experience.  I am one of those people who is terrified of doing things by myself.  I always look for company to do stuff but now I actually enjoy being by myself. 

I love eavesdropping.  I can’t think of a hobby more exciting and entertaining than eavesdropping.  In my moments of being I have eavesdropped on so many conversations I actually literally ROTFLMAO and yeah, everyone thinks I’m insane.  Yes I know I’m insane if being not normal is insane.  Normal is boring and normal is doing and no I don’t want to be normal.  So I have embraced my insanity and weirdness and the world looks absolutely different.

Today I went ice skating with the kids and no I did not get onto the rink.  I have fallen way too many times to try but I do enjoy watching the kids falling flat on their arses.  I decided to let go and just be.  So I put on jeans, a t-shirt and sandals.  Then my son gives me his baseball cap to put on and someone tells me ‘you look like such a tomboy’.  Now that reminded me of the days when I was just being and I didn’t care what anyone thought about how I looked.  I played some game with the kids and I enjoyed screaming and beating them at it….well most of them.  And as I drove home I watched, listened and smelt everything along the way. That was the best drive home.  I have decided that much as I was made in Gods’ image, I am not him or her.  In being I have learned to take things as they come at the moment.  I have learned to let God do his job while I do mine of being.  I have no time to judge people because I am busy being and enjoying it.  I have absolutely no time to worry about what people think of me because I am too buy enjoying the miracles of life.  I cannot not forgive people or myself because who am I to hold onto grudges yet I am always asking to be forgiven. I cannot explain how much fun BEING is.

Not only is it fun, but it is refreshing and exhilarating.  I am free.  I love Mondays as much as I love Fridays.  Alone time has more meaning, the conversations I have with myself are more present.  And letting God do his work as I do mine is just the best part.  Everything is finally falling into place.  And I love this beautiful amazing place.  And I can finally find time to write more J

Lies, Open Deceit and Hypocrisy.....

So, I’ve heard people blaming the devil for everything and anything and I’ve heard people turn to God to help them be evil.  But here’s a story about life.

It’s interesting and quite amazing how people can pretend and fake a whole life.  I have always wondered why people actually think they would get away with pretense and evil.  Don’t people get the fact that every action has a consequence?  Good or bad?  Really, it goes without saying: you reap what you sow.  There is absolutely no way you are going to plant cheap maize and expect expensive wheat!!!! 

Well, I digress.  Here’s the story J So you make an evil plan which you think will work your way.  And you realize that the person who you are planning against is not reacting the way you expected them to.  You know what? They have the mustard faith seed in God, so your plans don’t really work at that point….well they don’t work at any point really.  So you go ahead and make a really evil plan…well actually it’s eviler than your first plan.  And you lose something extremely precious.  Well we thought it was precious, but given that you could get rid of it, it wasn’t really that precious to you anyway. 

Well, clearly today I am prone to digressing, but so be it.  So here’s the real deal.  All this is about people and character.  I was unfortunate enough to be put in a situation where a child asked me not to be like his daddy.  That absolutely broke my heart.  You see, his dad was once an amazing person.  The kind of person who you’d want to be the father of your children.  But when his own son asked me not to lie like daddy, I was flabbergasted and I did not know what to say.  So all I could say was ‘I promise’.  And needless to say the look on his face made me keep my promise.

So here’s the deal: with children, all it takes is integrity, reliability and commitment.  You cannot be a part time parent.  That never works!!  You can buy your kids all the lollipops, candy and toys you want, but you know what? Children never learn from what you tell them or by them, they learn from watching you.  They see who you are.  We always think that children do not see who we are and we can pretend.  But they do see and they know.  Unfortunately for us adults we never get to understand that until it’s too late.

Parenting and marriage is never about all the sex you can have, or all the attention you can get.  It’s never about the love you have in the beginning, it’s about what you have left in the end. It’s about the good you bring out in each other, never about alienating each other from family and friends.  It’s never about putting a rope around someone’s neck, it’s about letting them free and loving them unconditionally.

This almost sounds jumbled, but it’s all because I am quite confused and shocked at how inhuman parents or rather people who pretend to be parents can be.  So here’s the real gist of this story.  Being a parent is not a part time job.  It is a full time job and seriously if you can’t be a full time parent then just get the f*** out and let the people willing to be parents do it.  Seriously, kids in children’s homes have more love and attention than children in a home with both parents pretending to be parents.  It takes a real man and a real woman to be parents.  The Swahilis have a saying “kuzaa sio kazi, kulea ndio kazi” (giving birth is not work, nurturing the child is the work).  Anyone can carry a pregnancy, which is why surrogates work, but it takes work and commitment to bring up a child.  The society has to many boys pretending to do a man’s job and even more girls trying to do a woman’s job.  That is never going to work.  You have to grow up and mature.

Bottom line is: to be a parent you have to grow up and realize that you are responsible for someone else’s life.  You are not the center of the universe at that point, your children are.  You brought them into this world, they had no choice, so you basically owe them that.  Oh and by the way, you do not wake up one morning and your children have a good character.  You work at it!!

So that’s about the children and I think I’ve done this upside down.  When it comes to marriage, you cannot in any way be married to a person who does not value their lives.  Marriage is two complete people coming together to become one.  It is never about one and a half people coming together to become one.  That has never worked and will never work.  If you have to baby your spouse, then you are in serious trouble.  A marriage based on lies, open deceit and hypocrisy will never work.

When you get married to a man you become part of his family much as he becomes part of yours. If you get into a family and it disintegrates, then there is something so wrong with you even the devil who we blame for everthing will disown you. What I am getting at is this: Children have never been and will never be stupid. They see you as you are, even if they cannot say it at that point.  You fake love for them and parentage and they know it and they will pretend to love you because they may have no choice but when they do get a voice, your life will be turned upside down and inside out.  And when one parent has shown them respect, love and proper parentage you cannot take that away from then no matter what you do.  Secondly, you may have a man or woman or your families absolutely confused about who you are.  But you know what?  It won’t last too long.  Sadly all this normally ends when you need the children or your spouse or your family the most and they will not be there for you because you told too many lies for too long.So all I am trying to say is this: you have to be the person you want your children to be and the person they would proudly call mum or dad.  And you have to be the person your parents are happy to release into the world.  The rest are details.  Money comes and goes. Beauty fades after a while.  But character lives on forever.

So question is: Do your children think you are a role model? Does your family see you as their sibling who loves them unconditionally? Are your parents proud of you regardless of the childhood you had? 

This has to be the most confused piece I have ever written, not because I cannot write but because I am absolutely shocked at the extent of human cruelty to their own children and family.  And for this, we cannot in any way blame the devil.  Deliverance will not help you.  It’s about who you are and who you chose to be.

Most of us would love to hear our children telling people, I want you to be like my daddy or my mummy, never 'please do not be like daddy or mummy'.  The choice is basically yours.  Make a wise choice.

I believe.......

One of my first ramblings on paper.....I absolutely love it (if I do say so myself)

I believe every person is born a plain, white piece of paper then your parents inscribe on it....
I believe you are your parents creation until you are old enough to create your own masterpiece...
I also believe tht God created a masterpiece in each one of us, that masterpiece keeps trying to out shadow the creation of society

I believe that one of the hardest things in life is being yourself in a world where every1 is trying to turn you into some1 else...
I believe that every life has a purpose and a reason...and that same life has it's own path, drawn and mapped and directed by God the creator...

Therefore, every season has a reason, you're born crying and the rest of the world is laughing: you're a child who has faith smaller than a mustard seed (in everything and everyone): you're a teenager who thinks you can parent your mummy and daddy: then your a young and reckless, bold and beautiful adult (hopefully you learn from these experiences and mistakes): then you're a parent who's paying for all the shit you put ur parents through: then you're the parent who's teenagers are trying to parent: then you're the mature, careful, bold and still beautiful wise adult. then you should die smiling as the rest of the world cries...gotta Love that cycle! :)

I believe that everyone and I mean everyone has a load of good in them (they just haven't had a chance to show case it to you yet): just look hard enough. So every1 has a reason for doing the stupid shit they do. I must admit I have a serious case of impatience in this regard, even though I believe, which is why I'm not God, thank you!

I believe that only God can be God, coz believe me only he has the patience and unconditional love to love us all the way we deserve. So I believe that people need our love most when they're not deserving (as we humans so many a time decide when pple deserve love).

I believe that Love makes the world go round but unconditional love makes the world go thrice as fast (round that is).

I believe that Love is not about feelings or compromise or sacrife. Love is beautiful and enjoyable. It's action and a way of life.

I believe that everyone deserves a second, third, tenth and whatever other chance they need. Our mistakes teach us Grace and Grace helps us empathize with our fellow men and women of course..

I believe God gave us free will for a reason (and he has a whack sense of humor I repeat). that is why I believe that you only you can decide the fate of your life becoz I belive for every action there is a reaction. So when some1 reacts to your action, don't dumbly act surprised and especially when God sends Karma to do some ass kicking!!! duh!

I believe in miracles: the rising of the sun, the stars in the sky, the smiling moon, the flowers that bloom (the other day my pal was surprised that I could smell the flowers in his garden, now what better miracle is there): the birth of a child, the singing the birds the list goes on: so in short i believe in the little everyday miracles that make life blissful.

I believe a stranger is a friend waiting to happen :)

I believe people are meant to be enjoyed and things are meant to be used, so I don't believe material things measure your success or happiness.

Oh and I believe happiness is a way of life...it's about wanting what you have, making the most of what you have.

So, what do you believe......

Cleverly disguised as an adult

I’ve been following a thread on Facebook basically about how men are like babies and I shudder.  If I was a man I’d totally be insulted.  I mean here I am strutting around calling myself ‘the man’ then get called ‘baby’!?!?!?

So anyway, what is this business of your man, hubby, boyfriend being your baby, and not baby as in sweet nothings but baby, child, toddler?  At the risk of sounding crass, how does the man I have sexual relations with be my baby? We nurture our babies not have sex with them.

I’d like to believe that when I meet a man who claims to want a relationship with a woman he’s a grown up. He is afterall out of diapers, potties and all baby stuff.  Therefore, being an adult  I believe he’s gone through the motions of life and understands or at least knows what grown ups do. 

It doesn’t make sense that when a man goes wrong the woman has to pussy foot around the issue because he’s sensitive and doesn’t like noise.  Seriously, we don’t even pussy foot around our children because we want them to learn, so how now do I pussy foot around the person who’s expected to help me raise the children?!?!?

So here’s how I see it: a man marries a woman he has responsibilities.  Yes he can go to the bar but honey if you think the wife has now become you door opener and food warmer at 2 a.m. you have it all wrong. And really, if you’re coming home at 2 a.m. please  be sure to carry your keys and be able to operate the microwave. 

You make me mad, I am going to react, oh and when I make you mad, please react don’t sit there pretending that it’s all good.  When we met you used to dress yourself, honey if I had a problem with your style I’d have told you. So NO I’m not going to wake up in the a.m. to put out your clothes.  I have the babies to do that for.  So I’ll make sure the clothes are clean and ironed in the wardrobe, period!  

We are partners in a relationship.  I am not your mother and I will never come close to being your mother.  You’re a boyfriend, husband, father whichever but you need to play your part as a responsible adult.  And when we have children they need to see how adults operate and what life is really about.  It’s no wonder kids don’t understand responsibility and consequences.

Cut a long story short, seems the problem we have is too many boys running around trying to do a man’s job. And I don’t understand how their egos can take that.  I would think it would be extremely satisfying to know you are The Man!  Not just physically but psychologically.

So I think much as women are always being told how to handle their man’s delicate ego, I think the man has to grow up and realize he’s actually a grown man.  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  Deal with it!  

And women, your man is a grown up, unless your dating a 9 year old, please stop making excuses and treating your man like a child.  Find a man who is a man and knows what a man does. He lies, call him out on it. He treats you wrong, call him out. You’re not his mother!

Bottom line is men need to stop cleverly disguising themselves as adults and be adults.

Diagonally parked in a parallel universe?

I believe every person is born a plain, white piece of paper then our parents engrave on it.  I say engrave because what our parents etch onto that white piece of paper makes a lasting impression and like we all know, to remove an engraving you need to sand down the surface.  Every parent is expected to have their child’s interest at hear, right? And sometimes this includes having your kids live out their dreams, the ones they didn’t manage to get.  What most parents don’t understand is that the kids are not them.  So here’s how the engraving goes:

Most parents would love to control the path their children take in terms of career choices, life partners and basically all life choices.  Not necessarily maliciously and sometimes parents think by controlling the path then the kids will not make the same mistakes they made.  And of course they have the bragging rights.  Aside from controlling their paths, all kids learn more from observation than being told.  So parents engrave their characters and personalities onto their kids.  Picture this, your child watches daddy disrespect and abuse mummy what are the chances that that child will grow up thinking that that’s how life goes. Disrespect and abuse are the way to treat people and it doesn’t matter how many times you tell that child how wrong it is.  The actions are stuck in the subconscious.

I believe you are your parent’s creation until you are old enough to create your own masterpiece as you relate with other people outside the family.  No one lives in a bubble.  So now you’re out in the world and you mingle with people from various walks of life. You meet people who are totally different from what has been engraved by your parents.  You are suddenly expected to respect people and treat them right.  Huh? How now?  The only thing you know won’t work for you out here, so now what?

You watch people relating with each other; you hear stories of how other families work; you start to feel the consequences of your actions.  That is when you start drawing the blueprint of who you are.  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so you learn from the consequences.  You treat people disrespectfully and they don’t want to hang around you and who wants to be ignored, unpopular and lonesome?  So the masterpiece that is you starts to take shape.  It’s tricky and sometimes painful.  Kinda like being sanded down to remove the rough edges, but it is worth it especially because no one is an island.

I also believe that God created a masterpiece in each one of us, that masterpiece keeps trying to outshine the creation of society because I believe one of the hardest things in life is being yourself in a world where everyone is trying to turn you into someone else.  So now you know who you are and what you’re about.  But the media and society keep throwing these images at you that throw you off.  The pretty girls are the freshest; the guys with swag are the in thing; thin is great fat is so not in; casual, underage sex is the way to go; underage drinking is cool.  So if you’re curvy, you’ve tried every diet on the internet to lose the curves. 

You’re hanging out trying to fit in.  Society has decided, on your behalf, that who and what you are is not good enough.  And you’re trying really hard to be what society has decided is cool or good enough. You are who you are and if the people around you cannot appreciate and accept that, then they are not worth your time.  You will be called insane, mad, not cool, plain and ordinary. But guess what, normal and cool are boring that’s just my opinion.  Why would anyone want to be like everyone else when being different (read you) is much more exciting and easier?

Being who you are takes a lot of courage and self-love.  Knowing who you are and loving that person unconditionally is the foundation of self-confidence and self-assurance.  Granted, society will always try to control how you carry on but who says you have to let them.  You are who you are, make no excuses.  No one can tell you what level of self-esteem is good enough; or how much to self-love is acceptable.  I believe this is a black and white situation.  You are either you or a confused creation of society.

On being you, I do not believe in finding balance or compromise.  Your individuality is important to you and to society.  Can you imagine living in a society where everyone is prim and proper, thin and dolled up? I can’t.  I kinda like the challenge of extreme personalities; they make life more exciting and interesting. 

Sorry you have insufficient funds...LOL!!!

We so often treat people badly because we think we'll never want them or need them ever for that matter. We somehow think we are better than the next person. In our little wisdom we believe that because we are better than the next person, they do not deserve to be treated humanely.  Then God, with his whack sense of humor and infinite wisdom sends Karma the bitch to kick your ass. And you realize, that same person you didn't think was worth anything is now worth a lot more than you ever bargained for. And sadly, that same person who was not worth the dog shit on your shoes suddenly becomes your new found source of relief and hope. And in our even littler (me being creative with the English language) wisdom we expect that person to come running to our rescue: oh, he has been sad and miserable without me so now that I'm back, begging for forgiveness or not, he'll drop everything and come running back into my arms.

Really, the prodigal son story was in the bible! Only God can be God and instantly forgive and forget. The rest of us are only but human and we don't forget and it takes us longer even to forgive. So please don't think that we evolved into God at some point in our measly lives. We're still the same humans that hurt, laugh, cry, get annoyed and mostly do not forget the pain. I am not saying that we should not forgive and forget, but for crying out loud give people time to go through the motions before you rain yourself on them.

I get miffed when people expect instant reconciliation! Come on. That is not how life works. Time may not be the healer, but it sure gives you space to get over it and decide what you want to do next. There is no guarantee that even after forgiving and forgetting I'll want anything more to do with you. After all the saying goes: 'you fool me once you're a bad person, you fool me twice I'm the bigger idiot'. So please be prepared to move on with your life; make new friends and hopefully you'll have learnt how to treat people.

People are precious and special: we operate like bank accounts; emotional bank accounts. You cannot make a withdrawal if there is nothing deposited into that account. It's as simple as that.  

So to all the people who have not made any deposits into the account, quit trying to make withdrawals. You have insufficient funds!

Drinking to forget you drink?

As the saying goes: Alcohol has been helping ugly people have sex since 1862! Oh and it has apparently helped the white man dance (the jury is still out on that one J). But the one thing we’ve tried really hard to prove is that alcohol drowns our sorrows and problems. Wrong!!! We need to realize that the damn buggers learnt how to swim and it would seem, like some alien form, they replicate more in alcohol.

How many times have you gone to the pub to drown your problems? I know I’ve done it many times until I got tired of them always getting the better of me.  It always started the same way: it’s been a long hard day, I have this many issues so off to the bar.  After a couple of pints I’m so on top of the world it would seem my problems have all abandoned me.  Wrong!!! The morning after becomes a nightmare: I wake up and I swear I can see my problems standing over me smirking as if they’re saying ‘hey, miss us’.  On top of that there’s the hangover and my wallet is empty!!!

Then there’s the other nightmare: you wake up wondering when you bought a bigger bed.  And oh wait a minute you don’t own black bed sheets. So you roll over and damn!!!! Who is that in your, oh wait, not your bed!!  You try to remember the events of the night but needless to say they have been alco-erased.  Then it hits you: did you have sex with this person whose bed you are lying in?  Well, clearly you did. Then it hits you harder: did you use protection? The guy eventually wakes up to you rummaging through the room looking for that used condom.  He doesn’t quite understand why you are ‘overreacting’ and the rest is history. Now that experience should scare anyone into ‘almost-teetotaler’ mode right? Wrong.  Somehow it doesn’t and we keep going back. 

But thing is alcohol is not the problem.  We are the problem.  We are supposed to drink as we have fun and socialize.  Drinking doesn’t take our problems away or make us better company or cooler people.  Well, it really does make it easier to have sex.  As the saying goes, the first thing in human personality to dissolve in alcohol is human dignity.  Alcohol just makes it easier for you to do what you’ve been doing only in your head….We all have at one point blamed something or other on alcohol…I was drunk so I don’t remember insulting you or hitting on you or throwing the condom away. 

Now here’s the deal, I am not about to preach on about not drinking.  Alcohol has become part of our lives and we have to deal with it.  I really have no beef with alcohol, afterall it is said that beer is proof that God loves us. But I do have beef with underage drinking and people who do not know what they do when they’re drunk. I mean how many times do you go into a pub/club and you begin to wonder exactly what they meant by age limit? Sometimes I think the limit is to keep me out. So basically alcohol comes into play at a tender age.  It’s the in thing!! All the cool kids hang out drinking so if you’re not doing it there’s something infinitely wrong with you.  But here’s the catch.  You’re not nearly old or mature enough to maintain self-control once you’re high. 

Alcohol basically makes you feel on top of the world, that is the number one reason for drinking.  Along with that feeling inhibition flies out of the window.  We have almost all been in that situation where after a coupla pints you get enough courage to hit on that hot skirt which is dissolved enough to let you hit on it.  Suddenly that hot dude you couldn’t even look at is now very approachable.  So, you hit it off and set ground rules (read: condom use, whose place) as you continue catching pints. Thing is by the time you get to your shag castle you are at that place beyond cloud nine and condoms are the last thing on your mind.  And even if you do think of them chances are you’ll either wear it wrong or put it on the wrong thing.

When did it become cool to drink yourself into oblivion? When did ‘my car knows it’s way home’ become the in thing? And when did drunken mysterious sex become hip?  Because really, in my opinion if you cannot drink responsibly you are absolutely the un-coolest (if there’s a word like that) person….

We need to understand that much as drinking is fun there is a time for it.  And the time is when you have enough strength of character to control the alcohol and not the other way around.  You need to know when to stop and when to say no.  When you’re having fun and enjoying a drink and not drinking so that you can have fun or fit in. 

Sad thing is that adults make the same mistakes.  I mean how many times have you as an adult woken up next to a strange man/woman? Running to the chemist to get the morning after solution.  Our children see and understand what is going on and there is no way you’re preaching to them water and drinking wine.  That doesn’t mean we should demonize alcohol, we just need to explain to our kids what drinking is about and how to drink responsibly and I don’t just mean not drinking and driving.

Bottom line is: Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin with, that it's compounding a felony – Robert Benchley