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- 🧘🏽♂️One day at a time.
Hello friends,
This week I’ve been torn on a decision to travel or not. After making the decision yesterday, I decided to embed a certain life lesson that I’ve known for a while: taking it one day at a time🧎🏽♂️.
Earlier in last semester, I applied for some scholarship and they responded positively this week, thank God. It was a wait that took months, almost throwing away all hope of being selected for the scholarship, and caused a very unpredictable and uneasy long holiday - because they could call at any time that I go to the office to either do an interview, or register my details, or talk with the administrator etc. It also caused me to spend a chunk of my holiday in Nairobi. In as much as it is fun and all that, it still doesn’t beat the calmly satisfying rest at home, with my mother’s food at my behest, and good friends to walk down to the river with on a sunny afternoon.
So this week I’d been troubled to either go home for the ongoing church Camp Meetings, or stay in Nairobi hoping the scholarship board calls to kick us off with the course. They have a tendency of informing us, in the very last minute, of an activity we need to do; therefore it is not very convenient to be far away from the city. Hence, after the positive response from them earlier, I need to be alert in case they say the course is starting on Monday (tomorrow😬) or any other day I’d be out of town.
This has left my mind in a sort of dilemma really. I could just stay in Nairobi and fadingly wait for them to make contact, which, worst case scenario, could be even in mid-September. OR, go to the home Camp Meetings, and meet family and friends and come back whenever they call, having at least enjoyed my time with loved ones. I chose the latter.
Relating it to this issue of Brainwave Musings’ message: I realized I need not spend so much time in the future that I’m not sure of, but rather spend the days that I have at hand with who I can and where I can. I should take it that today I’m attending Camp Meetings coz that’s what my calendar says, and not putting everything else on my holiday on hold coz I’m waiting for something outside my control.
My inspirator for this topic today, The School of Life Org., puts it this way in their blog, and I quote:
Without us perhaps quite noticing, much of what we place our hopes in will be ready for us in a very a long time indeed, in months or even decades from now (if ever): the successful completion of a novel, a sufficient sum of money to buy a house or begin a new career, the discovery of a suitable partner, a move to another country. In the list of our most intensely-felt hopes, few entries stand to come to fruition this season or next, let alone by tonight.
Or if we reach the end of the day and no one has died, no further limbs have broken, a few lines have been written and one or two encouraging and pleasant things have been said, then that is already an achievement worthy of a place at the altar of sanity. How natural and tempting to put one’s faith in the bountifulness of the years, but how much wiser it might be be to bring all one’s faculties of appreciation and love to bear on that most modest and most easily-dismissed of increments: the day already in hand.
And he further cements my life’s take on hope:
Okay, enough quotes😅. But I sincerely hope the point is home. It sure is to me!
Not many things happened this week. In fact, nothing at all happened this week, lol😂. But here are…
❤️My favorite things this week.
📖📚Book club - this week I started the book When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. It has a lot of medical jargon but I’m struggling through and understanding the common mwananchi parts😅. It is sad too; it’s the story of Paul Kalanithi, who on the verge of completing his decade-long training as a neurosurgeon, is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. I’m still in the opening pages where he discusses how he started feeling his symptoms, so its too soon to talk much about it.
⚡💻My typing speed - my speed this week still lingers between 50-60, but it’s at a solid 53WPM (words per minute) at the point of writing this. Again, it’s not a ‘cool’ thing or anything, but it feels real nice knowing that now I take less than thirty minutes to write these newsletters; something that would have taken me about two hours in my previous state. And my beautiful, computer-literate neighbor was impressed, so yeah, definitely something I’m excited about now :)
💌The newsletter that made me start a newsletter - of course many people are wondering why I started this newsletter, or even why I needed to start it. Well, through my aimless scrolling on social media, I became a deep fan of this YouTuber/entrepreneur since around December last year, and we’ve been communicating a lot through emails since then. A lot of his stuff resonates with me and hence my preference for him. You can check out his channel here. He also has his newsletter that I subscribe to and have benefited a lot from as a writer. You can check it out or his wonderful website🤩 that I aim to replicate in the near future.
🎥The School of Life Organization - this YouTube video from this channel is my main source of inspiration for this issue of Brainwave Musings. Perhaps you have time, spare ~7 minutes and listen to how wonderfully-crafted words can drive this message home in the most elegant way💯.
Some of these links are ones that I personally get a kick from😉(my first meaningful thing from this newsletter), so kindly do check them out😛.
PS: If you have a few seconds to spare, please hit the <reply> button and let me know what you thought of this email. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it and what could be improved. It also reminds me that there’s another person reading it on the other end of my screen😅. Thanks.
Have a wonderful week ahead!
Reagan.