By Gab Oguda
My father always told me there’s nothing like a New Year. There are those who benchmark their New Year from their birthdays. Others wait for January 1st. Others take every day as it comes.
I am in that third category.
I belong to that group of people who don’t bring the house down on their birthdays. I have never had a candle blown on my birthday, the only cake I ever ate in my honor came when I broke my leg and someone brought a cake to my hospital bed a million years ago.
It must be the effects of growing up in the village. In the village, people won’t sleep hungry because it’s your birthday and so you will have to choose whether you will go to the posho mill to grind maize or we eat you on your birthday.
That’s why you won’t find me making New Year resolutions. In my books, everyday is game day. I won’t wait for 31st December to forgive my enemies ati because I don’t want to begin a New Year with bad stuff. Boss, I will forgive you if I want, and I will not forgive you if I don’t want. A date on a calendar won’t dictate to me what to do with people who don’t like me.
Anyday of the week is the same to me. I work on Sundays, Wednesdays, Alldays. I won’t turn down a job opportunity because it’s January 31st. I walk with my laptop everywhere I go, if you have a job on a Sunday, just send me a text even when I’m in church and I’ll thank God for hearing my prayer for a job opportunity and off I will go to earn that money my family badly needs to run. God works in miraculous ways, doesn’t He?
We will all die. Whether you want to be reminded or not, you will die. You will die on the road, on top of a tree, under the water, some will even choke on their fishbone. You don’t know how your death will come, but you will die. You don’t know when you will die, but you will die. You don’t know whether today is your last day on earth, but you will die.
When I die, because I will die, let it be said on my burial day that I tried to treat each day as it was my last. When I die, and it can be today, let everyone congregating at my grave say that here is a man who never made New Year resolutions because January 1st is just any other day as June 3rd or September 20th. When I die, and I will die, let it be said on my burial day that I made peace with my mortality and I was ready to meet my end at whatever point it found me at. I’m not crazy. Just prepared.
And so should you.
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