So the New
Year is here and you don’t know what to do with it, right? Okay, I’m gonna help you with that… just a lil
bit…
Oh! Happy New Year! by the way!
Right from the end of 2012 to this time and
maybe into the depths of January, there has been (and there still will be) many people showing us their expertise on how to
handle new things – new things like a
new year, a new job, a new relationship...
bla bla bla… I love them – new things - but
about these experts… nope. I don’t love experts. I don’t love them just in the
same way I don’t love people who talk about money as if it is grown somewhere
like carrots in a field – a field they have no idea of the price at which it
goes, and carrots they have never planted…
And many of these so-called experts have
been telling you (or are going to tell you) things about this year and the
previous one that you will end up wishing you had not known or heard of. In
short, they are going to nurture your levels of anxiety to heightened altitudes
–and maybe, just maybe – break you from the auditorium, through the proscenia
to the theatre itself. That is really impressive, right? Being the actor
instead of the audience, huh? Okay wait…
I won’t mention their titles. Not even
their names. That will be offensive. Being offensive on the second day of a
good year like 2013 is not fair. I choose to make them remain incognito as far
as I am concerned. But although they may remain incognito for the time being,
they have been doing the same things they have done to you to me – the
so-called experts of new things – so
we all know them. They have been telling me things about how I should drawn the
Year 2013 in a bucket full of hope, while kicking out the other pail full of
the miseries that I picked up in the Year 2012. I have wanted (while at the
same time not wanted) to believe in them, leave alone do (or not do) whatever
they have been urging me to do, and in the end, I have somehow managed to
ignore their good advice…
Just look at what they have been convincing
me about: that I should dream about things that are yet to come – which is a good
thing because I do that often (even the Bible wants us to do so) – but they
have altogether insisted on me pretending that what happened in 2012 did not
happen at all. They have reiterated that in order to succeed, I should say I am
not Bonface Morris anymore, but wear another garment of a profile, and become
another person – a somehow new person – maybe made new by their ‘good’ philosophy. Good confessions, huh?
They have refused to tell me that if I have
spent all the monies I had during the festive season in December, I will;
-
Be
too emotional by January 2nd
-
Be
moneyless by January 5th
-
Be
anxious by January 10th
-
Be foodless by January 15th
-
Live by wishful thinking
by January 18th and;
-
Have perfected and amply
fueled my disappearance skills by January 22nd
They
have somehow twisted that around and called it “normal of an average man”. I
have tried to want to believe them, but I have failed.
On
the same note, look at what they have done to you: they refuse to accept that
your marriage or relationship will not mend itself come 2013. They
[pretentiously] deny that you will still be having (or that you still have) a
broken marriage or relationship this year – unless you miraculously worked on
it on December 31st; or that you need to forgive someone; or yet
still that you can’t prosper through saying, “It is the year of Jubilee!”…
Yeah,
most things in our lives don’t change overnight – they just don’t jump into a new world when a new year comes in. Only dates DO change maybe; but
people, status, conditions, governance… and so on… can never be changed by just
declaring, “This is the year of Jubilee!” Never!
The
so-called experts forget that most of us are still savoring hatred and
animosity in our souls against people who wronged us in the previous year, they
want us to wish that away. No way. It does not work that way. They forget that
some of us did not even accomplish one of the many resolutions we had made in
the previous year. That we failed - or that some people very close to us failed
us. They just want to tell us how we can become better without looking at how
bad we already are doing as we enter the New
Year. They want us to hide the truth and flatter it with hopefulness. They
don’t want to teach us on how to DEAL with our failed goals in the previous
year. Most of us still have those burdens – burdens that have somehow managed
to overcome these experts’ well-meant oracles. Burdens that have just refused
to go away. These burdens my friend, are still here. These burdens are continuously
demanding us to speak to them in truth and not out of wishful imaginations. These
burdens: the lack of money, the dwindling of health, the failing families,
retrenchment, lack of school fees, addictions and obsessions, bad behaviors…are
realities someone can’t just do away with on December 31st! Unless
God had been working on them for a while until then… or unless a miracle just
happened…
You
don’t wish or pray away a mosquito, no matter how tiny it may be. The clumsy
thing will keep on being a nuisance until you kill it in real state. You have
to kill it – by use of your palms, insecticide or something – it needs action
and not your “jubilee” words…Or to be fair – it needs your “jubilee” words
joined with action…
That
is why I hate these so-called experts
of new things... I’d rather talk
about you and me… and the New Year…Because
that, to me, makes more sense…
I
know that we are all familiar with new things.
We know how to handle new dresses, new shoes, new gifts, new this and new that… because newness always comes
with its share of excitement. And with a new
year already up our sleeves, we want to feel that excitement that comes
with newness, right? My take on this is that we really don’t have to feel excited
about a New Year. We don’t have to be
excited at all – maybe just a little bit for the sake of it…
I’d
rather we felt excited about improving ourselves than the change of dates and
years. Our one and major resolution for this year should be to become better in
everything we do. Everything. That is the only thing we can handle alongside
the obvious. I am of the conviction that If we can’t become better [in
anything], then we can’t do better [in anything]…Doing anything new (or better)
needs a will that has already known and dealt with its weaknesses and nurtured
its strengths – and that is what becoming better is all about.
So, I am neither going to tell you on how
to make resolutions nor on how to keep in track with any. That is not my work. My
work is not to give you tips on how to make so-called New Year resolutions, nope. I know my work, and part of it is to
enable you to know if you can (or are in position) to make any resolutions at
all. I am here to point you towards what you can or you can’t do. And you have
to see it yourself without me convincing you on various possibilities…The rest
I leave it to the so-called experts. I am no expert.
So let’s just do this…Here is the aid;
- Talk to God
about you and your past - deal with it first. Talk to those you offended and/or
those who offended you - deal with that too. Talk to yourself about you –
deal with your past and all those failures or success stories. Clear all
those life bumps. This will help
you be at peace with yourself and your environment. Great and workable resolutions
only mature in a safe environment.
- Be old enough
to know what a resolution is. You don’t make any [resolution] unless you
know what it is and are ready to wind it into your path of success
- Plan your
life. God needs you that way. People around you need you that way too. You
are in a better place when you can plan your life than when you are making
resolutions. A well planned life is more likely to keep in touch with what
is in its schedule than a confused one
- Be sure that
you have fully mastered the art of consistency in anything you do. It
matters a lot as a pointer towards your maturity and your ability to make it or make it
- Be faithful
and fair to yourself first before expecting fairness and faithfulness from
others (including God). A failing man is that one who thinks that
perfection is harnessed in one day.
- Dream, but not
too much – literally, you may just die in your sleep. Speaking about what
you aspire to become helps but it never keeps the dream(s) alive. Dreams
make more sense when they are worked upon. Dreams fade away and die when
they remain in your ‘sleep’.
- Find a
brotherhood. We always become better by learning from others and through
working alongside others. This helps us understand how to create, live in,
maintain and mend relationships.
Don’t make any resolutions until you are
ready to fuel them – until you have dealt with whatever failed in the past year
and are ready to move on. Maybe then you can gladly embrace 2013 – even if it
may be at the end of it, you would have embraced it!
Bonface Morris.
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