Awareness

A friend once told me how a woman who had a mortal fear of snakes lived with a snake for quit some time. She was not aware that the snake had made a home of her bedroom. In this case, the snake did not exist (in her world). One day she saw the snake enter the house, and she never set foot in that house again.

He likened this to the two types of unawareness that exist. The awareness that there is something/ a problem and you can/ cannot do something about it, and the complete unawareness that there is something or problem. The later is the most common, and most difficult to remedy. See, unless we realize something needs fixing, we cannot fix it. Take time management for example. How many times do we spend with people with lots of laughter and merry making, but at the end of it, we cannot remember what we were talking about? How many times have we slept late and regret about how we spent our time the next day?

We want productivity in our every sphere of life. How productive are we as individuals? Do I deserve that promotion that is giving me sleepless nights? I know I am better than my colleagues, no question about it… But I’m I better than myself? I’m I comfortable just being better than my colleagues? If I am, then I do not deserve that pay rise or promotion. If I keep challenging myself and becoming better than myself each day, I sure deserve that perk!

May I have the wisdom and strength to KNOW what needs improvement in or around me, and everything else will fall into its place!!!

Kenyans, the social people

Pushing through the crowds within the streets of Nairobi City at nine pm on a Thursday evening, a thought crosses my mind. “What do you think all these people have been doing all day?” I ask my long time friend, Maina, whom I am with. “Work, social meetings, killing time.” He replies.

“I want to recount a typical day for an employee.” I tell him. “Wake up at six. stay in traffic…. Get to office one hour late, no apologies, just blaming the traffic…. Open facebook and other social sites, read the newspaper till 11 am… Take a 30 minutes coffee break… Meet a friend and extend the coffee break by another 30 minutes… Sit at our desk and at least do some work …. Go for lunch with colleagues/ friends, come back to office late… run a personal errand… leave the office earlier to ‘beat the traffic’… Get to your home pub and spend the next five hours drinking with friends… go to bed.. on Friday drink till the wee hours of the morning, sleep all day, on Saturday go out drinking again,… on Sunday we cannot do anything due to an elephant hang-over … Start another week. This is not withstanding the time we make personal calls during work hours. In total, if we can do twenty hours of productive work in a week, we are outstanding…!!!”

This is disturbingly true. And there is always talk on salary increments, and such stuff!!! Actually, if we get a colleague who can sit at his desk six hours in a day, we call him anti social. Make it seven hours, he is a work-holic. Make it nine hours, he is crazy… but if the roles were reversed, we would like to hire the ‘crazy’!!

If this is the average employee, why would we judge if we find a night watchman sleeping during his watch? After all, he has been awake at his post for a few hours till he guesses you are asleep!

Why would we blame the government for not subsidizing education cost while we shall not go to the learning institutions provided? Why should we tell our children to do homework, after all, they have been listening to the teacher for eight hours? If we judge others, why should we not be regarded as ‘lazy’ by the ‘anti-social, the work-holic and the crazy’? Why would we not ask for a deduction or even reduction in pay since we never productively work for the expected eight hours in a day? Why would we ask for an overtime allowance if we work one hour after working hours when we came to work one and a half hours late, extended lunch break for another thirty minutes and ran a personal errand during the day?