For all the years that I have spent on this earth, I have never been into a point in my life where I found complete happiness.
This has been something I devoted my whole existence chasing, waking up each day to find a reason or something to be happy but instead, it has been an elusive chase that never ends, a never-ending circle filled with a blend of emotions, love, hate, joy and hope.
If you can’t agree with me, you are wrong because if you looked back to the things you really wanted badly, three years back, you can say they really don’t matter any more. Talk about your first salary. Your first day in school. Your first phone. Your first crush. Your first bicycle, during those days when our legs were almost the value of a modern v.8. Remember your first time using a car or an airplane, that joy, I mean the ecstasy that comes with it.
The girls you chased, the goals you had and all that you thought would make your life complete. They really don’t matter that much now. They don’t excite you anymore. This is how it is for each and every person on this earth, poor, rich and even the ultra wealthy. We are looking for something and sometimes we don’t know what it is but we commit to it, with all our lives, hopes and dreams, that it will work one day, just one day, it will work, even when we don’t have an assurance.
This is why you go to school and spend hours and days reading books, learning some skills because you hope when you complete this, your life will change and you will be happy. But it is always the opposite. Life comes with its own package wrapped in a desire to have even more than what you already have, which, in most cases, is almost nonexistent.
When Benjamin Bol Mel was a young man starting life from nothing, (excuse me my wrong choice of words) he never knew that he would be super-wealthy one day but he was very sure that having some money would make him a happy man. Today, anyone would imagine him happy but he is not because there is something that he hasn’t achieved yet and that is to be a president.
He believes that when he becomes the head of state, he would be the happiest person alive; in fact, he would declare South Sudan as the first country with the happiest people on earth. But wait, leadership comes with its own burden and president Kiir should be a leadership coach for any presidential hopeful because that seat is sweet, sour and bitter for the aspirants.
It is sweet because when you are a president, you can amass great wealth in the process, even worse, at the expense of the poor. If you are a son or a daughter of the president, all you need is just a breathing heart and a mind that is not empty and you will succeed beyond your wildest dreams. If you are empty headed, you can still survive by the virtue of being a president’s son or daughter. You can choose to be happy or not depending on your mood.
There are also sour and bitter parts to being a president and the president Kiir knows it better. You know you have the lives of millions of people in your hands. They entrusted you with everything they have to lead them through the darkest days of their lives. As a president, it is your choice to make their lives good or miserable.
There has never been a happy president with a sad and hungry population. That is why the wicked read peace in books and never see it in real life. President Kiir may look well but he is not because he knows what it means to be in that position. To be a president is not a walk in the park and it won’t make you happy either.
Life or true happiness, I have learned, is found in small things, often, the smallest moments that we take for granted. It is actually the journey and not the destination that makes us happy. For instance, if you are a student, it is the days that you spend in class and with schoolmates that really counts. Enjoy those moments because life after school is always uncertain. Do not stress about anything because life is like a ludo game. It is always about making use of what you have because nothing, I mean, nothing, is not going to make you happy in this life.