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Here is an email forward that I would like to share with you:

A Cherokee tribal elder was telling his grandson about the battle the old man was waging inside himself. He said, “It is between two wolves, my son. One is an evil wolf: Anger, envy, sorrow, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is the good wolf: Joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.” The boy thought this over for a minute, and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee replied simply: “The one I feed.”

I had been noticing it much too often for a while, and so when I saw another blind man, I asked the business man from whom I was making a purchase, “Am I the one who is seeing too many blind people or is it a fact that there is an influx of blind beggars in town?” The business man straightened and walked towards me from the back of his shop as he said, “You are right that there is a sudden increase in the number of blind beggars in the streets.”

If you live in Nairobi, you must have noticed the blind beggars being dragged by hand from place to place by young school going children. The beggars usually have a small plastic container with a few coins that they juggle periodically in order to attract the attention of any sympathetic well wisher. Perhaps you might even have been bothered by the fact that the young children seem to be wasting their school going days after being forced to accompany their ageing relatives on begging missions from street to street, inside businesses, and from drivers stuck in traffic jams.

As he smiled, he added, “Begging has become a business just like this one I run.” And as he laid down the merchandise I had requested on the counter he continued, “Don’t be fooled into thinking that the children are relatives of the beggars. The are usually hired for the day to accompany the baggars.” And on seeing the bewildered look on my face he added, “There is a place where the beggars pick the children every morning for a standard fee, and so you see, both that boy and that blind old guy are in business.” He finished as he made a gesture with his lips towards the duo that was disappearing down the corner. With that, I made my purchase and walked in the direction opposite the one that the blind beggar and the boy had walked. Without a doubt, I knew I would be seeing many others in the course of the day. In Kenya if it is not business as usual, then it is business as unusual.

Last night I dreamt that my neighbor had become the president of Kenya. In the dream, I was there when he got the news and vividly remember the look of bewilderment that crossed his face. And so I asked him if he expected to become president to which he replied “I have been thinking about it since the beginning of the year.” When I woke up, I thought that it would be good if I could be able to share it with him. When I looked out of my window, I thought I might not get a chance since I saw his wife leaving the house and so I assumed they would leave together. And anyway, I have not seen him for several weeks.

Three hours later when I was walking towards the road to town, a strange car pulled up to where I was and the passenger window was automatically wound down. I realized that the driver must be someone who knows me and who wanted to give me a lift. And when I looked, I saw that it was the neighbor from my dream. From my experience about the way ‘coincidences’ play out, I was not really surprised that it was him. And after exchanging hellos, I excitedly told him; “You are just the person I want to see…last night I dreamt that you became the president of Kenya.” To that he said, “Really?” with just as much excitement to match mine. He then said, “That’s a very good thought!” And from the way that he was fidgeting on his seat I could see that he was actually imagining himself being the president of Kenya. I continued to tell him the rest of the dream and when he drove away after I declined a lift, I could see that what I said had a positive effect on him.

I suppose what struck me was the fact that he did not for a moment talk or act as if it was ‘just a dream’. The fact that he said “That’s a very good thought!” instead of “That was a very good dream!” made me realize that our dreams do not necessarily have to originate from us. It makes me smile to think that today I might have planted a seed in my neighbor’s mind that might blossom and make him the president of Kenya. If that comes to pass, I know it is not the seed, but rather, how he is going to nurture the resulting shoot until it becomes a whole tree. It is not the dream, but how much he is going to cherish the thought and work towards making it a reality. For even when I talked to him in the dream, he told me that he had been thinking about it for some time.

During one of my very first visits to Addis Ababa, I was given a traditional Ethiopian shirt as a present. The heavy while cotton fabric was hand woven and the embroidery had the yellow, green and red colors of the Ethiopian flag. I treasured it immediately, and thought it was the perfect outfit to wear on the day I was invited for the Ethiopian Easter celebrations at a friend’s house. When I arrived, the compound was crowded with guests and I soon lost sight of my friend soon after he welcomed me. But I didn’t mind since I felt quite at home and immediately began heading for the counter where I could get a drink.

But before I could reach the counter, I was beckoned by a guy in a group of about 5 Ethiopians. And even without a hello, the guy started pouring out an order for drinks in the Amharic language, pointing to each person’s drink as he mentioned the name of the drink. When he finished, I politely told him in English that I did not understand the Amharic language since I was still new in Addis Ababa. With that, he immediately looked acutely embarrassed and profusely apologized while saying that he thought I was an Ethiopian. As I walked away, I was smiling to myself thinking that with my looks, I would not have trouble blending in with the people I was going to live with for the next 3 years. And as I was walking to find a place to sit after grabbing a drink, I felt a touch on my elbow and another Amharic order for alcohol was repeated.

I was to later learn that during such social functions, waiters usually wear the traditional Ethiopian shirt in order to distinguish them from the guests. It then followed that whoever saw me wearing the shirt immediately assumed that I was a waiter and hence the order for drinks. When the host finally caught up with me, he was very amused by my unexpected experience and we laughed about it and hastily made a round in the compound as he introduced me to the other guests. Thus ended the short lived career of my Ethiopian shirt as a favorite wear during social occasions.

That memory came back when I looked at the waiters at Ronalo Restaurant in Nairobi. They all have differently colored sleeveless sweaters to distinguish their various roles, with green for the ones who serve food, red for the ones who serve drinks, yellow for the ones who clean the tables and black for the supervisors. If you call a green topped waiter and send him for drinks, he will immediately summon a red topped waiter for you to send. Similarly, a yellow topped waiter can never agree to be sent for food since his job is to clean the tables.

These waiters at Ronalo Restaurant often make me understand the power of labels in our lives. What’s in a label? A person who is defined by the name ‘waiter’, only does the job of waiting upon tables while others enjoy their meals or drinks. As long as he bears that label, he has no right to sit down, or mingle with other people, or seem to be enjoying himself by laughing with other waiters. Despite the fact that the waiter is simply an ordinary person such as you and I – and maybe just as brilliant – it would seem like his life is severely limited by the role given to him by the label. When that same person leaves the restaurant, he is at liberty to become whatever else he wishes. It would not be surprising if he was to transforms from a humble servant of the people to an aggressive member of the human society capable of doing and saying much. He can even become a customer in a restaurant to be waited upon by another waiter.

What about the labels that people give themselves or are given by others and that define their performance in life? If one believes that his label is ‘rich’, then it is automatic for him to live in affluence in order to conform to the label. On the other hand, a person whose label is ‘poor’ will do whatever it takes to live in conformity with the definitions of the label. Incidentally, a person can only act out a particular label only if he accepts for it to define him regardless of whether he labeled himself or was labeled by others. The waiters at Ronalo Restaurant were labeled by the management as red, green, yellow, or black and accepted to play out the responsibilities that those colors carry.

Fortunately it is a good thing that a waiter will only have that label for the period that he is working in a restaurant and drop it as soon as his shift is over. Labels that people accept in life like, ’successful’, ‘wealthy’, ‘loser’, ‘lucky’, ‘godly’, ‘important’, carry a more weighty significance since they define us in all our waking hours. So, whatever label that you choose to accept, make sure its definitions are worthwhile to you and the kind of life you plan to have.

Back at the university, I once found myself in trouble after mixing up with the wrong crowd. It happened when I was caught doing the senseless vandalism and destruction of property that university students are infamous for after a drinking spree. Several days later, I was summoned to the disciplinary committee after which I was suspended from the university halls of residence for a month with a heavy caution against such behavior. But the appearance before the group of university dons and administrators did not worry me half as much as facing my father. And since I knew he had been contacted by the university by post, I knew it was just a matter of days before I faced him.

I think I was worried because I had generally been a well behaved student and had never had any kind of disciplinary problems from school before. How would I be able to explain to him that I had to wait to get to the university in order to do the foolish things that I could have done and gotten over with at nursery school? I decided that I would just tell him that I allowed myself to be influenced by others and it would not happen again. Anyway, when the day came, I went before him with all the courage I could muster. He was sitting from across me with a table between us and the letter from the university open before him wearing his spectacles in that ominous way that tells you that a hurricane is on the way. As I took my seat, I braced myself for the tirade and rehearsed my defense in my head one more time.

But quite unexpectedly, his hot gust of words failed to come and instead he told me about the dog and its tail in a soft sorrowful voice that I hear in my head till today. He said that since time immemorial, the dog has had a tail. He added that always, the dog had wagged its tail, but never once did a tail wag the dog. Then he added, “You can decide to either be the tail or the dog.” I suppose the shock for me was in the approach that he took and what it meant; he did not ask me for the circumstances or the reasons as I would have expected. Neither did he give me a lecture about being a good citizen of the university or about right and wrong. He just asked me to make a decision that if made correctly was going to guide my life successfully from that time onwards.

When I look back at that day, I realize that what he did was to throw my life at my feet and forced me to look down and decide what to do with it. It was a huge challenge after having been used to doing things to please him, and often doing others while looking over my shoulder to see if anyone was looking. The thought that I was now alone to guide myself through life was frightening and I even felt abandoned despite knowing that he was still there whenever I needed him. But since then, once in a while I will pause to examine myself to see if I am the dog or the tail. And whenever I hear an exasperated woman in a talk show exclaim, “All men are dogs!” I want to reassure her that the actions of one person do not characterize what all the others do and so she should probably look out for the men who are not dogs.

In my primary school days it was imperative that one passes the exams for a certain class in order that they may be allowed to move to the next class. If a student failed to pass the exams, he or she would be forced to repeat the class all over again sometimes for several times until they passed. As a result, it was common to find a class of youngsters with one or two grown men or women who had been repeating their classes for many years. Right now there are many arguments in our school system for and against repetition of classes by students as a result of failure to make the pass mark with the opponents preferring for the students to continue with the next class whether they pass their exams or not.

If you look at it, you realize that when it comes to personal development, life seems to favor the old system from my primary school days rather than smooth sailing from class to class regardless of the score sheet. That is why many people have asked the question, “Why does this happen to me all the time?” many times over, each time that they find themselves in the same trying circumstances. The circumstances keep repeating to the same person when he or she fails to analyze the problem and find the lesson that they are supposed to learn from it. As soon as the person learns a lesson that life is presenting to them and musters it, it automatically follows that the challenge is over and they rarely have to struggle with it again. On the other hand, when someone sees the challenge as life’s persecution of a good person for no particular reason, then they do not deal with the problem and hence it is bound to come back again. In other words a person fails to take responsibility for their own lives and leave it up to fate to decide what to do next. And since fate tends to be a strict class master, it does not allow the student to move to the next class and hence one is forced to repeat; the person is made to experience the same situation and once again is heard to moan, “Why does this happen to me all the time?”

Whenever we are faced with a problem we usually react to it in one or more of the myriads of ways available – maybe getting upset, running away, crying, asking for help, passing it one, and sometimes even blocking the problem. It would therefore not be fair to ourselves or to others to claim that we are not doing anything to solve a problem. It would be more helpful therefore to recognize that when a problem persists or escalates it is usually as a result of reacting in an ineffective way for solving that problem more or less in the lines of the saying that goes, “When all you have is a hammer, then all problems look like a nail”. It would therefore be an excellent idea for each one to examine his or her life and identify which “hammer” he or she is holding in their hands. Anger is one of them, so is denial, blaming, violence and many others that are readily available to various individuals. Stopping to look at a problem that keeps recurring might enable a person to choose a swat to kill a mosquito, rather than continuing to cause havoc in the bedroom by trying to bring it down with a shotgun.

Each time we find the same thing happening to us all over again, or recognize a cycle in our lives that we do not particularly like, we should stop and ask ourselves, “What should I do differently this time?” That might save us from the trouble of using the same ineffective tool to deal with it, and keep us from the heartache of experiencing the same situation repeating itself all over again. Of course one has to strongly desire a graduation from his or her current class in life and into the next. And as strict a class master as fate might be, you will find that she will readily smile at you if you do your homework well.

One day, Auntie Rose from my mother’s side visited our home for the weekend. What impressed me most about her visit – even much more than the presents – were the shoes that she was wearing. It was at the time when plastic shoes had just hit the Kenyan market, and ‘Sandaks’ were all the rage for the people in the lower income bracket. For the first time in the Kenyan history almost everyone could now wear shoes thanks to affordable plastic. Auntie Rose was wearing white plastic shoes that were molded like a moccasin. Again, it was around the time that moccasins were all the rage for teenagers from rich families much to the envy of boys from ordinary homes.

It happened to be the weekend that my sister and I were going to visit my brother at his boarding High school and so in my most polite voice, I asked to borrow Auntie Rose’s shoes for the day. I did not like my leather ‘Bata’ shoes much, especially since one of the laces had been joined together in a knot after breaking. Auntie Rose was much older than I, but her feet were smaller. However, she had a large heart and so she readily agreed to lend me her shoes. And so after managing to stuff my feet inside the plastic, and smiling broadly to hide any sign of discomfort, we set off to visit my brother. In my eagerness to prove that the shoes were a prefect fit, I forgot to wear socks and being a hot and dusty day in February, I was in trouble as soon as we left the house.

If you know about plastic ‘Sandaks’, then you know that wearing them at all was a blunder. And so putting them on without socks on a hot day was similar to walking inside a thermos flask filled with steaming mud. The reason is because the sweat from the suffocated feet mixed with the dust and created a quagmire that would make the shoes noisily slip on and off as I walked. Being a tight fit, the on and off motion was made excruciating by the fact that the toes were being pinched mercilessly with each step. To make matters worse, we found that my brother was away on an impromptu school trip and so we had to walk back as soon as we arrived hence missing the chance to rest my feet after walking a mile with my sister seeming to be oblivious of my ordeal. Of course she had warned about the tight fit, but I could not miss a chance to show off moccasins for once – even if they were plastic – had the formidable village council of elders been summoned to discourage me.

When we got back home, I gave Auntie Rose her shoes back after cleaning them and thanked her profusely as if everything went perfectly. The next day, she seemed just as dashing wearing the white plastic shoes and she had when she arrived. And as I escorted her to the bus stop, she seemed surprisingly comfortable in her shoes and I could feel the blisters on my feet that came with a lesson that will last my whole lifetime.

Often when we look at others, we tend to see what looks so good on them and in our envy, we imagine that the same would look just as good on us. I think it might take the form of what is called keeping up with the Joneses in some parts of the world. However, as I came to learn that day, the shoes that looked good on Auntie Rose were definitely not as good looking on me. Worse, they actually were much more uncomfortable than my ‘Bata’ shoes, despite their plain style and a knot on the shoe lace. When I look back at that day, and at life in general I understand that once in a while, we have to walk for miles in fake shoes in order to appreciate the true value of our own good pair of genuine shoes that we left back home.

The only toys that I have in my house are turtles. I now have 3, but I remember that I had more than that but reluctantly gave them away to kids who needed them more than me. I bought the toys some time ago when I had a project that required me to critically look at the features of a turtle. When the project failed to take off, I was left with a living room with many turtles and a drawer stuffed with materials for the project.

Looking at a turtle, with a shell on its back I start thinking about our human condition. No one likes getting hurt. And that is why we sometimes become so afraid of feeling the pain that we create a tough amour in order to protect ourselves. Like the turtle and its hard shell that it can withdraw into, we create similar protection by erecting a wall that we can hide our hearts behind when we see danger approaching. And just as no one might know what really happened to the tortoise that it has to carry a bunker everywhere it goes, we feel that others might not quite understand why we have to erect the walls no matter how hard we might try to explain. When someone is concerned about us and wishes to spend time to listen to our side of the story, then we feel that we have a friend and it is easy to lower our guard and talk to them without running behind the wall.

What if turtles really have shells in order to hide something from other turtles? Then if turtles were to have a consensus and decide to remove their shells one day, then they would all realize that what they had been hiding and protecting so fiercely all this time is simply flesh and blood. And not just the ordinary turtle would get this revelation, but also the king of turtles, the preacher of turtles, the blogger of turtles and all the others turtles that live. They would perhaps realize that they had all been hiding their turtleness, just as we often feel obliged to hide our humanity. Finding someone who looks at you with the same eyes with or without a shell on is a true blessing from God. And so I thank you my friend.

I was recently talking to my grandmother who is celebrating her 90th year of age about a fact that seemed to surprise her; the fact that she now can sleep any time that she chooses at the drop of a hat. As she put it, God seemed to have given her back the sleep of a baby. And she is perfectly happy with that arrangement since she is getting sickly and being awake for long does not make as much sense as it used to. The sleep pattern and other new feelings she did not have before seemed to mesmerize her and she said audibly more to herself that to me, “I guess all this is new to me because I have never been old before.”

When she said that, it caught me off guard because it never occurred to me that one would consider the discomforts and inconveniences of old age as a learning experience. As you know, nowadays old age is mostly viewed as a nightmare rather than a blessing and in the process of fighting it off, few would have a moment to sit in its classroom despite the fact that joy and peace of mind in at least a quarter of their lives depends on these lessons. But one might argue that this is the only way to look at the situation considering that the days of having an eager brood of grateful children, grandchildren or even great grandchildren to watch over you and take care of your needs as you wait upon the Lord are slowly coming to an end. That is one thing that my grandmother has, and which she attributes to her faithfulness to God since she was a young girl.

All this reminds me of a time when she explained to me about what it feels like to be as old as she is. She gave me an example of an old person who would want to run to accomplish an easy errand such as a pressing bathroom call but cannot, and has to contend with the slow hurried gait of the elderly even as he feels the weak bladder give up its dignity right in the middle of the carpet in a living room full of people. She made me understand that for such a person though the spirit remains ageless, and the mind might be as active as ever, the aged body will not allow him or her to do the things that would have been easily possible when younger. And that is why old people are often filled with bitterness when they remember all the things that they could have done when they had the chance but didn’t. It is also the reason why the advanced in age see folly in many things that the young do, since they have the knowledge of what really matters in life, plus the experience to back it up. Unfortunately, it is to such people that the young do not listen to.

If a person takes time to find out what truly matters in their lives, then they can choose it and move on with life with the confidence that whatever the discomforts of old age, they will not have a moment to look back and regret about the decisions they made or failed to make when they had the chance. May God make it easy for us to make the choices and accept the decisions that will propel us to where He wills for us to end up in this life and beyond.

Each day that I make time to go and see my grandmother, I often find myself learning something so profound that makes the visits to the ailing 90 years old woman extremely worthwhile. Take the day before last as an example; she told me about the origin of the tradition that requires any groom marrying into our family to present the parents of his prospective wife with a blanket before betrothal. That story took us back to the time my grandmother got married to my grandfather in 1937.

When the two did their wedding, she was 19 and he was 32. However, they had to overcome many hurdles even before they could walk down the isle. For a start my grandmother had many people – especially her age mates - discouraging her from getting married to him because of the age difference. There was also opposition from her own family since the man was very poor and came from a background of poverty as opposed to her wealthy upbringing. More opposition came because she was a saved Christian and he was not and also due to the fact that he had been in a marriage once before that did not work. But all that did not matter because both of them were determined to live their lives together.

She told me the reasons why she decided to get married to him; because he did not take alcohol, because he was not the kind of man that fooled around with women, because she believed that they could become partners to rise above the challenges of life including poverty, and because she trusted that God had shone her the right man for a husband. With a smile, she told me that my grandfather was smitten by her beauty and the fact that she was what he was looking for in a wife. He was so determined to catch her fancy that he enrolled into school for the first time in his thirties in order to learn how to read and write, just so that he could be in the same school as she was. He also started taking an interest in Christianity and even got saved after they were married.

In order to frustrate their efforts to get married, her family imposed very stringent dowry conditions such that it took many installments and a long time before my grandfather could ‘afford’ to walk away with my grandmother. My grandmother’s family would ask for some seemingly impossible payment after another, and each of these required my grandfather to go and find casual labor in Nairobi until he could earn enough money to pay for what was required. She told me of an occasion where he was asked to bring a sheep for a ‘get together’ slaughter, but it was rejected on the eve of the occasion on account that it wasn’t fat enough. Luckily, his determination had earned him enough goodwill from the village folks and the man with the fattest ram offered it to him for the slaughter.

When he finally met all their conditions, it was time to take him wife. However, her parents said, “It is not fair that you should take away our daughter who used to light the fire to warm our aging bones without giving us a blanket in return.” And so once again the frustrated man had to go to Nairobi to find money for a new blanket. On the day that he bought the blanket, he was in the presence of his bride to be and he said loudly, “I swear that if we ever get daughters, each man that wishes to marry any one of them will have to buy us a blanket!” And so it was that the family tradition was born.

God blessed them with 5 daughters that are all married. Apart from one of my aunties who eloped with her husband all the others had a blanket ‘paid’ for them at the right time. My grandmother explained that one day, my auntie got very sick. He legs were swollen and she could not move for the pain. When my grandmother saw her, something told her that the reason why she was suffering was because of the unpaid blanket. By then, my grandfather had been dead for years. Being a saved Christian, she was at a loss at what to do since she did not want to contradict her faith by talking about superstitions. At the same time, she could not demand for a blanket since my aunty and her husband were very poor then. And so, she decided to call the mother of my auntie’s husband and requested her to convince her son to buy a blanket and present it to his wife’s family as a matter of urgency. Luckily, he obliged even without knowing the reason, and my auntie got better soon after.

That story got me marveling once again about the power of the spoken word. However, what was really my prize from that story is the prayer that my grandmother used to say before she got married. She told me that she would simply pray; “God, choose for me a husband that is suitable for me.” I found myself thinking of all those times that I dictate to God what I want in a situation, and then end the prayer by asking for His will to be done in my life without even considering that which would result from God’s will might not necessarily be the same as what I asked for. I suppose if we were to analyze our prayers and look critically and the requests that we sometimes make, we would realize that the reason why our lives have not turned into catastrophes is because those prayers were not answered at that particular time. I now think that making a prayer for God to choose that which is suitable for us at any moment would not only align us with God’s will, but it would also save us a lot of anguish. For as Mother Teresa rightfully said; “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.”