How our lives change

The person who compared life to a roller coaster ride truly deserves immeasurable respect for being highly observant and intelligent because I have equally found these two similar. The really good times of our lives alternating with the bad times are similar to the sharp and steep, up and down movements a roller coaster makes. Back in our high school days, Stephen Muyinda earned himself a name “Mr. Broke” for always being financially crippled. He always had one meal a day (supper) skipping breakfast and lunch. He wore only one pair of shoes and hardly changed clothes not by choice but because circumstances did not allow him. Now Stephen earns millions of US dollars per year out of playing basketball in the NBA, owns a chain of businesses, mansions and drives sleek cars. When some of us today testify that we went to the same school with him and add that he was most of the time “penniless”, we are merely dismissed or laughed at as people trying to identify or attach ourselves to rich and successful people. In a quite similar circumstance just recently, I bumped into Doreen Kamariza, an old student of mine in elementary school on one of the streets, after 10 years. Though her facial appearance hadn’t changed a great deal, her slim and well-defined body figure was no more, this time round she looked chubby and bulky and her tummy stood out bulging, I later learnt in our lengthened conversation that she was out of school, married and a mother to two kids. It puzzles me just how swiftly tables can turn, how some people can climb the ladder up high as others are disembarking, how those who were rich can become paupers, how those who were once pin-thin can get annoyingly fat just in a blink of an eye, how those who were famed for being academic mediores can become academic giants, for people who were once dubbed “stupid and useless” becoming successful and influential later in life. None the less, there are teachings we can draw from the ordeal of Muyinda and Kamariza regardless of whether their experiences were good or bad. Those in miserable situations should not despair because no bad situation lasts forever. Secondly, for those who are experiencing good lives, should not just sit back and think life will continue riding on smoothly, life is twisted and so unpredictable therefore anything can happen, so those living good lives should work hard to sustain them. The other paramount lesson learnt from the experience is that, one should never despise or look down on the poor or helpless people since the cards can change. The last lesson , is that sometimes we are wholly responsible for the negative or undesirable changes that take place in our lives for instance, if Kamariza had not deliberately dropped out of school and eloped with a man perhaps she wouldn’t have “grown so old” just over night. ivan.ngoboka5@gmail.com