Last Thursday I woke up at 3 am, drenched in sweat. My body temperature was right next to the fuel prices. The mosquitoes, not to be outdone, were a constant stream of vermin scooting up my nostrils, and I had to sacrifice my naked back if I wanted to live. I went to bed in a mood, and you better believe I woke up with one too.
As I am generally suspicious of the government, I get my news from X when I can, and wamama wa ploti all the other times. They are my reference point. What they say goes: unquestioned and unquestionable. Hii jua, they say, ni ya mvua.
I believe them. They have good judgment, telling me whether those boys I am hanging out with are any good. Or if the girl they last saw me with will be the last girl they ever see me with.
My Mama Mboga, C— has lived here for 16 years. She told me herself. Do you know what you can do in 16 years? You can have a baby, and he can grow up and man the shop. So she did. She levies a higher markup than the rest, but I don’t mind because she’s been there for me, lemons from lemonade.
One thing I give them is judgment. The ability to look at choices and make a decision. Most of us are generally restless with indecision. The world can easily pass you by. I do not want that to happen to me. I want to move along with the world or even ahead of it if I can.
Four years ago, I decided to leave my advertising job. Got it when I was still in campus, which made me a little Mukesh Ambani at the great Moi University. I wasn’t paying rent or any bills, for that matter, and that meant I blew all my money to nurture my budding hedonism. I’d be at Rupa Mall in Eldoret and would turn to whoever was on my arm that day and say, “Whatever you can pick within 60 seconds, I’ll pay for it.” This is the closest I’ve come to feeling rich.
Plus, I was from Nairobi, which shot my hot-index from “nice-to-have” to “must-have”. I was spending my weekdays in Nairobi at work, and getting back to school on Friday morning to see how the rest of the population was living. I couldn’t have been any cooler if I just walked out of a freezer.
I digress. My then boss D—had taken a particular interest in my career, taking me as his understudy, he my Indian Yoda, and I his loyal Padawan. He took a punt on me, fought for me during job cuts, and pretty much gave me access to him.
As these things go, many people in the organisation disliked him. Or at least that’s how they acted, but who likes their boss, right? It didn’t matter to me. It’s good to know what the crowd is thinking—you might think it too—but it is imperative to make your own judgment call, not rise to the bait.
Then I quit. Which is the equivalent of divorcing a billionaire because you don’t like how he snores. It was a foolish decision looking back, because I had no plan; I thought my next employer couldn’t wait to get their hands on me. It didn’t help that D— tried to talk me into staying, which swelled my head even further. Ah, youth. What’s it they say? Good judgement comes with experience. And experience comes with bad judgement.
I’d never be one to turn the other cheek, and never featured martyrdom, not at all. Never dreamed of doing just one thing. Because the dream can be a distraction just as easily as it can be a goal, I got some lucky breaks on the way. My mentor, B—now my friend, opened doors and scooted over when all the seats were occupied at the table. Sometimes all you need is someone else to believe in you when the faith in yourself is wavering.
Who knows what would have happened if I stayed in the advertising job? Good judgment tends to come from previous bad judgment, that is to say, from experience. It is the ability to learn that is crucial. And who is to say what success means on an individual level? Get what you want or want what you get. I prefer the former.
Upon reflection, what it all seems to come down to is a few judgments, which are now far back in the past. Choosing to go to therapy when alcohol would have been easier (and cheaper). Deciding not to marry at 25, which is what I had planned for myself then, because that’s what you do when you are 25 and with your first love. Deciding to save when it would have been easier to spend.
Yet the counterfactual timeline of each of these decisions makes me shiver. Needless to say, there are, to take a pause, those men who made the same three calls and ended badly through no fault of their own, or who made the opposite three and flourished. It is possible to make the wrong decision and get lucky or make the right decision and get unlucky.
On the whole, I suspect most people take too little risk in their lives and aim to reduce risk to zero. It is better to accept risk and actively manage it. I cycle the streets of Nairobi, with nganyas on one shoulder and nduthis on the other.
It is a Russian Roulette with my life, and so I cycle over the weekends when there are fewer cars and out of town where laws are better followed. All this on top of safety gear. The idea is to understand who you are dealing with carefully to minimise the risks.
Women talk all the time about how they want a definitive man. What they don’t say is that it is a measure of their own judgment to pick the right man. Because once you do, you don’t have to worry about any other decision in your life. Clever, right?
