Some years ago, when I joined school for the first time, though most of my reasons for going to school were motivated by the desire to eat school porridge and disappear without attending any class, there was something else I had wanted to do and that was to become a medical doctor when I grow up.
It has been my childhood dream.
But I wasn’t well prepared for all that it takes to be one. Medical school is not for the weak. You need to be extra smart to make it there but that wasn’t the case because I had already changed my mind in high school. I started writing for the Juba Monitor in high school and thought a degree in journalism and mass communication would be good for me but after high school diploma, I thought a degree in Economics or Law will make me happy. The list was endless.
You know how most of our childhood dreams change as we grow. It is something natural. I know some friends who were noisemakers back in the day and they are doing well in their fields today and those still trying to get there. Your beginnings, no matter how bad or good they are, can never determine your destiny. I changed my dream of becoming a doctor to avoid seeing the horrible things that normally happen in the hospital, pain, tears and everything.
But last year, something took me there to stay for some time and there I saw the things I had wanted never to see. I saw people on oxygen machines, those who counted every single second, people who prayed just to see another day. I knew our world was so sick but there were people trying their best to change the situation, the doctors. If I had gone to a medical school, that is what I would be doing, saving lives and putting smiles on people ‘s faces.
The hospital teaches you about the fragility of this life and how complicated our existence can be. One moment, you have it all and another it is no more. In the hospital, I witnessed firsthand kids experiencing the hardest days of their lives, the chemotherapy treatment, one of the most painful medications used to suppress cancer or some autoimmune conditions. Just imagine little kids having to go through it with smiles on their faces?
This got me thinking, when you think your life is so bad, there is a way hospitals make you think it is not. If you are healthy, you have millions of reasons to be thankful because millions others are not. Sometimes we don’t see what we have until it is no more. It could be people that loved you so much. It could affect your health. It could be the family that you have.
Maybe privileges you have been born into. You don’t appreciate your spouse, girlfriend, or boyfriend because they become people you constantly see everyday. You take your friends for granted because they are too available for you. Show love when you still can because tomorrow may be too late or may never come.
Remember all good things come to an end but the pain of human existence remains the same. There is nothing that is ever going to make you happy if what you currently have can’t. It is an elusive chase. It is your choice to find meaning in your life because human existence is incomplete without its highs and lows, the sweet and sour and mostly the never-ending circle of pain. If you are a man, there is a price that comes with it. Like the imaginary Sisyhus, you must push up a boulder everyday of your life and find meaning in doing so because on one hand, it says life has no inherent meaning and on another, it says it has depending on the values you imbue with it.
If you are a woman, you have your own issues and if you are married, there is always that fear that your husband may marry another woman to help you with house chores (if you are in Africa) where polygamy works for most men who have lost their relatives to war.
You know you need all the help in the world but not another woman to help you in the house. You reject that help in the name of the lord. If this is one of your problems, stop thinking about it because that is not actually what your husband is thinking about now. In fact, he is thinking about where to get next meal and when president Kiir will step down, from his armored land-cruiser v8 to his office to do some work.
Still wondering who Sisyphus was? Well, according to the Myth of Sisyphus, written by a French philosopher Albert Camus. You must have heard of it, due to various transgressions he has committed, he was condemned by the gods to roll a stone up a mountain and when he reached the top, the boulder would roll back down and Sisyphus would start all over again.
This was the entirety of his existence. He couldn’t do anything else. It was just up and down, from morning to evening and a never-ending struggle.
The truth is, each one of us is basically a Sisyphus because we are all rolling boulders uphill and we can choose to do this in different ways. You choose to become a doctor, you know how hard it is to get a medical degree but you find meaning in helping others, the sick. Dedicate your time to it. You want to help the poor, create a charity organization. Build it. Give one of your clothes to your brother or sister if you have two and don’t talk about it. Take your brother out for lunch and never expect the same in return.
You want to become a politician, run for an office and amass public funds. It doesn’t matter what people say as long as your mind tells you it is the right thing. You want to make money? Start a business, fail. Get up and try it again. Succeed and be aware that none of this will ever save you when your world is about to come to an end. There is peace in that knowledge. Try to do things that make you happy and stop pleasing people. Just do good, it doesn’t matter who sees it. Live and live before it is no more. Peace.