I did it.
Yes!!!!
I did it.

I have been cycling for some time now and the furthest I have gone is 43km. O.k there was a day, a long long time ago, when I rode from Kampala to Entebbe and because I did not measure that journey, all I remember is the painful sensation that trickled through my thigh.

So on this day, Friday 31st of May 2013, I elected to face my fear. To ride further than I have ridden in the past few days.

The moment my heart shared this idea with my brain, all sorts of negativity came out of the woodwork. In fact the chairman of the negative committee called the meeting to order.

The representative of the leg committee thundered "we are tired of this endless cycling. How are we expected to exceed our limit? We are not going to be a part of this adventure"

The hand representative who also wore the coat of the shoulder committee, stood up in all her majesty and began the dance of resistance. She waved her hands all over the place..." The shoulders have gone on strike and there is absolutely nothing that can be done without our participation." She then sat down with a huge thud as if to emphasize the weight on her shoulder.

"This idea of riding long distances with only water for sustenance can not go on and on and on. As a representative of the stomach and its organs, I decline to be a part of this ridiculous torture. Why don't we just go and have an ice-cream?"

At that point the brain, being the supreme organ of this state, searched for a precedent.She looked at the file for the past few weeks and found that the desired distance cannot be covered basing on how she felt the last time that she was forced to go beyond her limits.

The chairman of the negative committee called for a vote. He counted the hands. He chuckled. He beamed with confidence.

All the members of the committee knew that they would carry the day. They all sat back and relaxed.

They had all forgotten the heart.

With a sudden throb, the heart pointed out that she carried the veto vote. She choose to exercise her vote.

And so I did it. I cycled a distance of 49.90km and my endorphin level will last me a week.

I did it and so can you
Set yourself a goal that scares the hell out of you
And then go ahead and do it
Just do it.



Your life is in your hands

There is a government official who is reported to have urged teachers,who feel let down by the government, to get into the business of transporting people on motorcycles. She, in effect, urged them to try their talents out of the classroom.

This opinion of the Ugandan official raised a lot of hot air.The teacher's union was up in arms.... How dare she?...... Was she not aware that because we are, the nation is!!!!..... They bought advertising space in the dailies and declared that the concerned minister should apologize and the appointing authority should fire her.

Well as at the writing of this blogpost, the said official is still in complete control of her ministerial seat and to my knowledge the teacher's union is yet to come good on their threats.

I have been an active teacher in my earlier life. I know, first hand, what it means to wait for that salary at the end of the month. A salary that would only serve to pay for the accumulated debts of the earlier month.

I know what it means to teach the child of a rich man and to admire the attachment that this man would have with his own. I know what it means for me to walk into a class of well heeled students whose only concern was that they did not get enough pocket money. Pocket money that would triple my monthly salary.

So when I saw and heard the minister uttering her opinion, blood rushed to my head. I was so hot under the collar that I felt I would choke with the bile that was rushing at my throat. I screamed at the television hoping that she would hear me. I sat down. I stood up. I walked around. Then I forced my excited heart to calm down.

With a calm and collected mind, I did realize that there is a gem of truth in this idea. The minister was simply saying that teachers should value their labour. If employer Y does not pay well, they should consider employer Z. Or better still, they should try their hands at their own business. It is known to all and sundry that running a business is much better that being employed in one.

In this Information Age, the minister had laid out the golden rule of survival. The teacher's union choose to see it through the lens of the Industrial Age. An age where being an employee was critical to survival. Fortunately, that age is long gone.

It would serve the leadership of the union to invite the minister for tea so that she can share many such ideas that would cause them to reflect at the source of the problem.

I know of many teachers who long realized that they can get better pay elsewhere. They realized that they are the cause of their circumstance and only they can redeem themselves. They may no longer be a part of what many call 'The noble profession' but at least they are putting their educational knowledge to effective use.

They have deployed their resources in a manner that is true to the spirit of what was once known as a learned profession and its proud members referred to as learned friends.





Blog: www.gokot.blogspot.com
Twitter: @Ogogeo
Your life is in your hands

knocked down by the harsh winds of life

knocked down by the harsh winds of life
You will scream your lungs out
In the hope that someone, anyone,will lift you up
And tell you that all will be well.

Soon you will realize
Only you have the means by which
To dig you out of the pit that you shoved you into.

Sometimes you will feel becalmed at the sea of life:
No movement forward or backwards;
Monotony all around you and boredom searing at your soul.

Until you see your situation differently
You will forever sail like a rudderless ship.

Until you shake you up
Unshackle you from the chains of the past;
Chains that can hold you prisoner
Of things inconsequential,
You will forever get stuck in the mud;
The mud of stupendous ignorance.

As it was before
So is it now
You are in charge of you.







Your life is in your hands

There is nothing on this earth that is as powerful as a made up mind.

There is nothing on this earth that is as powerful as a made up mind.

I have thought through this sentence over and over again and either way I look at it, it resounds with a power that is humbling,energizing and true.

When you consider the causes of major milestones in human existence, it does ring true that they occurred when a people collectively made up their minds.

From the French Revolution to the fall of the Berlin Wall. From the Mau-Mau uprising to the Arab Spring. From the decision of your neighbor to let go of a lethargic job that was holding him in eternal bondage to that glint in the eye of a girl who has decided that he is the one. All these and more are reflective of the idea that nothing can stand in the way of an idea whose time has come.

When you add hunger into the mix, you then have a combustion of epic proportions. When the human soul is hungry to be more, it will drive its host to hell and back until the desired state has been achieved.

This monologue reminds me of a friends decision to take charge of her life. She had worked for donkey years in the civil service and the work had become so automated that she could do her work with her eyes shut. Her soul was slowly dying. Her heart was lacking in freshness. Her imagination was festering with the pus of a structured system. Her body had long given up on itself. The daily task of waking up and reporting to work was a case study of resistance.

The one day it happened. Just like that. Her mind took a twist that was alien to her body. Her mind decided to take charge. The task at hand was to reverse this trend that would clearly lead to inevitable disaster.

She quit her job. Or was it that her job was taken away. Either way her and her job were no longer in speaking terms. Her mind was consumed with the idea that there was a better way to live her life.

She did not know how she would go about it. All she knew was that her present circumstances was stifling and suffocating her. She was in that zone of hunger. A zone that can so consume you that you are in an insatiable state.

The last time that I saw her, she was completely transformed. Her eyes had that spark of confidence and certainty. She sprung as she walked as if she was primed to grab any and all opportunity that walked her way.

I am sure that, wherever she is, she is smiling her way through life and is a happier soul.

All human beings have the ability to better their circumstances. It is Rev. Jessie Jackson who said that I was born in a slum, but a slum was not born in me.

All that we need to do is make up our minds and add the element of hunger. We will then be galvanized into action and nothing, absolutely nothing will stand in our way.









Your life is in your hands