If you don’t know where you’re going........

Then any road will take you there, you will never get lost because you have no direction. In fact, if you ever find direction you will be lost, or you won’t even know where you are. This week I decided to banish a concept from my vocabulary and it is “one way or another.” We all say it; it has come to suit our post-modern age of optimisation, where you have options galore, it is actually just as bad as having no options because none of us is prepared with the decision-making skills to make a valid choice. So, I left University, then somehow my CV was sent to the wrong company, they hired me by mistake, I worked for this company for 3 years. Then I wound up at a hospital doing admin, then back in Rwanda, then numerous failed business attempts, back to employment, back to business, and round again. All the way I said “one way or another” and I always saw options when others saw none. This gave me such a problem-solving mentality that I came to expect and even love problems, but it has its downside. This year has tested me beyond my normal limits, I branched into farming, and it has been a total failure. For example I harvested less than I planted, it has been a costly lesson in perseverance and sacrifice. Instead of “one way of another” I am going to pick a definite path and stick to it, no more drifting and twisting to the wind. The truth is that accidental success is rare and impossible to maintain. My generation is spoiled for choice, even choosing soap is so complicated let alone a university or job, then there is the pressure of the hopes of a nation resting on a young educated generation! There is an epidemic of death hitting the young here in Kigali, hardly a month goes by without someone I know dying. They are dying of random causes, moto accident, slipped and fell, asthmatic attack, anything can happen. It is quite scary to think if I lose 10 people I know a year, then who will be left in 10 years? Our future is hanging by a fragile thread, it could fall in the shower or get hit by a Coaster or even just drop dead suddenly. We have a young generation that is earning good money but is lacking in other ways. My grandfather’s generation always kept the highest standards of decorum and decency; they lived a very blameless life so they could have legitimacy. My father’s generation was mostly exiled and that had effects, the socio-cultural effects of our 30-year displacement are yet to be truly seen, the symptoms are being seen here and there. In exile we had a psychosis affected by displacement, lack of identity, lack of opportunity, AIDS, alcoholism, war, violence, and then we come back and sit in glorious Rwanda with suburban idealism but that stuff is still unprocessed. The young generation has the world at its feet, but it is a big drop down, the rewards are bigger but the stakes are higher. They have too many choices, any road will take them there, they have achieved success too young and just have to maintain and surpass it. Where is the next step going to be? Ends