I AM ADOPTING A COMPETITIVE SPIRIT

When you switch on the radio, TV, online articles everyone is talking about New Year resolution. I am not a big fan of complicated resolutions that are usually unattainable.  Yet in the same line I think it is good to set goals and focus. My take on the whole resolution saga is I prefer all year resolutions, making small gradual changes in my life that makes me a better person and also make my life easier. Little changes that amount to big changes making reaching my goals easy.

Needleless to say I have decided to be competitive, do not worry “I am not talking about keeping up with the Joneses or the Khumalos”. I am not going to buy a bigger car because my friend changed her car; I am not going to buy three dresses because a friend bought one dress. I am not going to throw an extravagant party for my son because my neighbors had one for their child and I will show them that I can.  I am not going to go on a weeklong vacation because my cousin went on weekend away and I know that my husband earns more than her husband so we can afford it. I am not going to change jobs because that friend got a better paying job, so I need to move a notch up. I am not going to change my furniture because a friend invited me to their house warming and I just want what they have.  Just writing and thinking about this reminds me of a movie I watched  called the Joneses, basically the movie is about  a seemingly perfect family in inverted coma, (please use your hands and facial expression when you read this)who moves into a suburban neighborhood, with one thing in mind to promote a certain lifestyle. They are just professional sales people coming to the neighborhood to sell different products and as usual the neighborhood is eating from the palm of their hands in no time, buying what they do not need and getting into debt just so that they can keep up with the Joneses. I challenge you to go and watch the movie with an open mind ready to laugh at yourself because let us be honest we have all found ourselves trying to keep up with the Joneses or the Khumalos at one point in our crazy lives, better yet read up on Wikipedia were the phrase keeping up with the Joneses originated from, very interesting.

I am talking about taking the idiom keeping up with the Joneses or the Khumalos to a whole new level. How about I strive to keep up with the Joneses in doing good, in helping someone? I was really motivated this week by some people I have been interacting with. The first person is my colleague at work, while I am busy with my own January business as usual; he is busy preoccupied with assisting matriculants from his village with registration into university. He helps matriculants with good marks from his village in different ways, some he pays their full tuition, some he helps to apply for bursaries or funding. He is just an ordinary person yet helping shape someone’s future for the better, in my eyes he is a hero. Last week Saturday I spent in the company of a friend who reminded me how important it is to help lift people up or just enable someone to have a good start in life. How important it is to help someone stand in their own two feet so that they can walk. It might be your own family member, a relative or someone in your community.

 This got me thinking, what if we were to compete by doing good? I help someone less fortunate than myself, I share with you what I did to uplift someone and you go and outdo me. We start a different trend. We start competing to see how many lives can we can touch, change or make better deliberately. If my friend buys a needy child a pair of school shoes, I buy them pairs of socks or better yet  I can pay a child school fees for the year.  If your friend can help a neighbor back at home with information about tertiary registration, you take it further help them find accommodation. Your cousin pays for transportation costs for the enthusiastic but yet less fortunate matriculants, you pay for his registration fees at university or tertiary institution.  If I buy Christmas groceries for family, my friend gets motivated and buys the kids Christmas clothes.  I am talking about small gestures that can make a different to someone else who does not have.

Let us face it, we live in an unequal world and the less fortunate need the fortunate to cross over. We need social revolution, new culture of uplifting each other that will become a norm. They say the purpose of life is a life of purpose. Are you living a life of purpose? Remember, a hand that giveth is more blessed than the hand that receiveth. In the words of Dr Maya Angelou “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.