It is hard at least to me! There are a lot of expectations yet it feels like very very very few are being met. I had a plan and by now most if not all of it has changed a lot of times. There are things I know I must do but I find it very very hard to do them. And then comes the pressure from seeing other people succeeding at just around my age and it just makes me almost lose hope. But most of it is because I believe there are few principles in life that are hard for us in the 21^st century to understand. So here are some principles that do not make sense in our world.

Success takes time. Say whaaat? Well, my food does not take time cause I use gas to cook, it does not take time to reach somewhere it does not take time to get my money in the bank account, it does not take time for me to know what is happening in another country, another continent. Then why is it that this thing called SUCCESS takes time? With fast everything within our reach, it is just so so hard to understand that success takes time. But it is a principle, Rome was not built in a day they say but that was easier to understand in the past generation, our current development just makes it hard for us to understand and trust this principle. That is why, so many young people are discouraged when somethings do not work out, cause we are used to the world of fast everything but not a success. So next time you are wondering why you aren’t successful, remind yourself you in the fast zone but the principle remains, SUCCESS will happen but it will take time.

You need PATIENCE. OOOh God! ”I hate it when I have to wait for something to load forever on the internet (I mean 2 minutes)” is something we have all said once. Life, in general, requires a lot of patience, patience is a good virtue to have and it surely helps in a lot of situations. This is something else our environment has robed us. we were just sharing with some of my friends about how our parents had to wait for weeks to exchange letters even if they are just a few regions apart let alone countries (I wonder how dating used to work, long-distance) and now we can just send a bunch of documents via email to people across the continent and get a response in a blink of an eye, talk about not learning to wait for things. And then all of a sudden everyone is expecting us to be patient, come on.

Do not compare yourself. It is very very very crucial that you do not play the comparison game, you lose either way. But with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube what can one do. Even if you do not want to compare yourself, your brain picks those waves automatically, as you see more and more people doing better than you, you automatically feel somehow inferior. It's dangerous, with every scroll you are more and more likely to drown in the comparison pool.

Be committed. In Mlimani city mall alone, there are more than 8 places you can eat from with more than 20 varieties each. There are countless phone types, music genres and churches. In short, we are bombarded with a variety of everything and as young as we are we sometimes want to try it all (at least most of it). Hence, the challenge to just pick one thing and settle with it. I think it is even hard to attain brand loyalty with our generation, you know those things of ‘we have been eating at this restaurant for the past ten years’ SCARYYY. We are always seeking something new something exciting, thrilling. But some things in life require commitment like relationships, marriage, goals, jobs, our lives (yeah) and we have to work extra hard to just to try to do that.

Cultivate meaningful relationships, communicate, and listen more. Those words are aaaaah! Out of this world. We are in the generation of social media, everyone is a follower of someone, everyone has a platform to speak their minds and face to face communication is a hugely time-consuming activity. We are slowly losing touch of what relationships are made of, we are constantly busy chasing our dream to the extent we end a month without talking with our family, close friends and loved ones ( I mean face to face real-time talking if they are near). As long as I liked your picture on Instagram and commented on your Facebook post then we are cool. We very rarely meet a stranger and have amazing conversations cause… yeah, we are always on our phone. This is one hard principle for us to live by

Listen I am not blaming anyone, it is just our world, the environment. Things are changing so fast we do not know how to catch up. Most of these things are not our fault most of the time, it is just how the world operates now and it is hard to do otherwise. These are habits deeply embedded in us by our everyday routines and without us knowing they are affecting every area of our life. What can we do?

We need to recognize that we have to try harder, things that were common sense to the past generation are so not natural to ours. We have to accept that and do better, consciously change most of our habits and find ways to build in us these principles we can no longer access automatically. We are not doomed, we have the best of most things, there has never been such breakthrough in every area in this world before but we must recognize that it is upon us to build these fundamental principles deep within us for us to succeed and make a difference. We won’t lose hope, we will make it. Yes, It may take time, we are learning that.

Any thoughts on this? 

See you soon.