Can You Give Thanks After A Storm?

Life as many say has got multiple highs and lows in equal measure. Sometimes these lows don’t leave us the same way, because they open our eyes to a reality which we didn’t sign up for. Trying times are not one of the things many people like talking about mostly if they are focused on their mental health. But they are inevitable.

Photo credit : Myself

Like one scholar said, a storm is a violent disturbance of the atmosphere with strong winds and usually rain, thunder, lightning, or snow. And yes, these are all extreme conditions.

Storms in our life can be a betrayal from a friend we have known for years and shared with great memories, the sudden death of a loved one, failing at school, home or work, losing a job, being the outcast in society, having a chronic illness and all that life can throw at us.

Truth be told non of us have ever been psychologically prepared for a diffcult day, but rather all that is popularised in speech in many spaces is how to enjoy life when all goes well. Which am totally for however, we can all attest to the fact that as many good things go on in our life there are many uncormfortable things too that we experience.

If we are lucky enough some of these problems come to pass but if not, we may have to find ways of co-existing with them.

I believe that in order to be considered sane today, you have to choose which side of this scale you will make your life about. Choosing to only rely on the bad that is going on in your life can suggest that there is no good going on. And deciding to dwell on only the good can suggest that there is no bad going on in your life. Such extremes can be considered unreal by many. So finding a balance of where to focus our energy can be a great place for us to start from. However this balance has to have a place where it stems from according to individual beliefs say a higher power.

It is important to note that many times we may not understand why we are going through what we are going through. A sense of understanding only comes after awhile when we look back, and connect the past events to those in the present.

You should also know that it is okay to understand many things after you have gone through them, you don’t have to figure it all out now.

And remember that what you focus on more is what you will experience more.

Now, choosing to give thanks after such trying times is not about giving thanks for the bad you have experienced, but rather that you made it out safe and sound and can now give encouragement to someone going through the same. Isn’t that what life is all about, being able to lift others up?

On whether or not you can give thanks will depend on the state of your heart and how much healing you have received.

When Gratitude Finds You

Gratitude is the quality of being thankful; the readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. Now imagine being the one on the receiving end of that, isn’t it amazing?

Pictures that come to my mind as I was organising to write this are the famous bibilical stories. I’ll use the story of the young man Joseph as an example. 

Photo Credit: Feni Rogers

He was a handsome man born to Jacob and Rachel amoung other children. Joseph was a dreamer and his brothers did not like any of his dreams as this made them even hate him more. One day out of malice, his brothers decided to sell him to medianite traders who took him to Egypt and sold him to Potiphar an officer of Pharaoh.

While in Eygpt his service was admirable that his master decided to promote him (make him incharge of his entire household) and with time the king put him incharge of the whole of Egypt.

Joseph’s great work ethic opened doors for his household and extended family to buy food from Eygpt, a land which had plenty of food and animals during a severe famine. They later shifted and permanently settle there. His family memebers were treated with much respect and dignity for as long as he lived.

That is what they say when gratitude follows you. Jacob and his household were going about their lives when one act of kindness changed their lives.

In this country for instance we have heard of great men and women who have excelled in different fields like Dorcus Inzukuru, Jacob Kiplimo in atheletics and Dennis Onyango in Sports. Am sure there are benefits their families receive to this date for the effort of their children.

Imagine being the door opener for greatness to flow through you to other people.

No-one said that path would be easy, but with perseverance and patience we can be sure to live behind legacies that last forever.

Finding Gratitude In The Simple Things

As many of you know we are in the eighth month of the Gregorian calender, which means that we are heading towards the end of the year. This year has been a unique one in it’s own way, from the lock down being permanently lifted to us losing the speaker of parliament of this nation and as all this was happening individuals were forced into exile because of their literature and more.

These and alot can dim a person’s spirit and make them lose hope. Am certain that as these events happened many great things happened too, which calls for being grateful.

My writing theme for this month will therefore be gratitude.

Photo credit: Feni Rogers

One scholar named Robert A. Emmons defined gratitude as an emotional response to a gift.

Practicing gratitude is beneficial to us as it has lasting effects like facilitating better sleep and lowering blood pressure. In other words, gratitude is good for us.

Gratitude involves some form of action or reaction. We can not say that we are grateful and yet show no sign of that at all.

One famous preacher named Ap Moses Mukisa always says that “gratitude not shown is no gratitude at all”. Being grateful must be accompanied by an action in this case let’s say words.

The simple things

The things we do daily or unconsciously are most times one of the things we also take for granted. I rarely hear people say words like thank you God for helping me sit on the chair, lie on bed, hold my cup of coffe, communicate with my friends and so on. It is like these things are invisible and don’t matter to us. Yet in reality they do. If we are to be genuinely thankful and consistent at it, we have to start by doing so with the simple things. As this helps us cultivate a culture of thanksgiving.

The next time you are wondering were to start from when giving thanks, think about the people that make your life easy like the newspaper vendor across the street, the lady who sells African tea and roasted groundnuts at the roadside by 6:00 am, your home manager who makes sure your home is in order 24-7, your personal assistant who organises work for you so you looked responsible, the taxi guy at the stage who is waiting to take you to your destination and so on. As you have seen there are many opportunties to be thankful for. Just look around you and you will realise how many they are. 

Back to you reader, what are you grateful for today?

‘The Beauty In Problems’

I hope you noticed the problems in quotes. That was supposed to be a marketing stunt and since you’re here, I think it worked. I wanted to use ‘challenges’ but I’m sure that wouldn’t have been a great marketing stunt (you can ask the editors of HBR).

Anyway your here and I should stop wasting your time. So, challenges, tribulations, problems or whatever you’d like to call them are just opportunities for growth. You see, this thing called growth has a weird ancestry, it seems to mostly work in challenging situations; consider a tiger in the zoo and one in the Jungle. The one in the zoo has breakfast, brunch, water to wash down the brunch, evening tea, supper and a midnight snack – all provided at the appropriate time – and all it does is dance around the cage (I think it’ll still eat you if for some weird reason you found yourself inside the cage). Now consider the jungle tiger that has to fend for it’s own and it’s family. It has to look for shelter for it’s family, protection from other tiger eating wild animals and food as well. Failure to get this equals to disaster almost one hundred percent of the time. But you see, this tiger, has learnt the jungle life and can fend for himself because of all the challenges it has faced. Bring the zoo tiger to the jungle and it’ll be asking for brunch right before it becomes another tiger’s brunch.

Children that leave home and are staying alone tend to learn how to fend for themselves more than those that have 24 hour DStv – DStv is not bad. I love DStv. I don’t have the time and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to read a long blog post as well but they’re countless stories of challenges producing great character and better people.

And the truth is, in life you are going to be faced with a fair load of challenges. I can put my money and phone on that. The trick is to see them as opportunities to become better. Anyone who ever did something great, had to face a challenge – I’m sure about that. The guys that built America faced challenges that some of us can only credit to witchcraft. Usain Bolt trained 90 minutes in the gym everyday – that may seem little until you try it – and then on to the race track. Nelson Mandela was in jail for more years than the average age of 21% of the Ugandan population. And because of some relentless people, the mobile money tax on withdrawals has now been lowered to 0.5%. Even, our dear president had to go through a war. This list is endless. But I can assure you that many of these guys had bigger challenges than slow internet.

Photo credit : Constance A

But they traversed through these challenges and became great people. On the other side of challenges in greatness. Challenges are just masked opportunities to enable us become better people.

Actually we should STOP calling them challenges and start calling them opportunities. The brain loves opportunities and it’ll be more excited to tackle them head on. Therefore the next time that you’re faced with a challenge of loosing weight, back bitters or mathematics, just take it on as an opportunity. Instead of talking about it as a challenge, talk about it as an opportunity to become a better person. With this mindset, you’ll surely experience the greatness that challenges has to offer.

Many people love the easy way out: cheat on the test, dodge the OTT tax, tell the lie and many more. The problem is: the easy way out does not produce character, so we’ll have results without character which I believe is a great failure, because results can fade anytime but character can not.

The devil as well knows that we love the easy way of doing things and therefore throws challenges to kill our spirits. Imagine if we became better – and not bitter – from every challenge that devil throws at us. He’d eventually tire and go for the friend complaining about why they got blue-ticked on WhatsApp (: . If every time we were faced with a challenge, we got better instead of bitter, the devil would warn all his subordinates from ever touching us.

Apple just made $1,000,000,000,000. That’s 1,000,000,000,000 challenges they’ve gone through that Jony Ive doesn’t talk about in the unveiling videos.

Challenges help us get better.

Some practical ways to go about challenges.

1. Identify what you’re great at.
2. Break it down into manageable pieces.
3. Identify what you need to learn in-order to go about those small subset challenges.
4. Who can you talk to in-order to acquire mentorship regarding the problem.
5. Where can I find independent learning material to support me.
6. Act.
7. Do not quit.
8. Find a new challenge.

Written by Emmanuel Obonyo (M)

Thank you for reading, feel free to share this blog with others. You can share your thoughts in the comment section.

Lessons From A Watch

I got a watch for my birthday. It was the first birthday gift I’ve got in a long time so, hence, I love it a lot. I think it’s waterproof but I won’t try to dip it in water, or take it anywhere close to water for that matter; that’s how much I love it. It has a black synthetic leather wrist strap and three tiny hands that move around all day long trying their best to tell me the time. It also has a small winding knob to the right to help me adjust the time in case I decide that the time it’s telling is wrong – because I know more about time than a watch. It has two buttons to the right that don’t seem to work but I think that’s just a safety measure to keep me from getting into trouble; I secretly think they are connected to a nuclear launch pad somewhere in North Korea or maybe an Ice cream store on Kampala road but what do I know. So basically, apart from the nuclear launch controls and ice cream stealing functionality, it’s just like any other average watch. But this is my watch and I love it so much; and I can promise that it occasionally flashes me a smile when I’m having a bad day – constantly assuring me that it’ll be okay.

Black Striped Leather Watch. Photo Credit : Google

It’s black in colour so it makes me look responsible and serious, like I spend most of my days in fitting three-piece black suits following the latest stock updates on my iPhone X while laughing at the political crisis happening in the country because I can possibly solve it with a snap of a finger but I just don’t want to. There is a trick, though, to the serious look; you have to raise your fore arm a bit and then shake your wrist to give the watch a slight shake as if that will change the time, and then look at the watch, as if to see the time, and then say nothing. Do this every five or so minutes to give a sense of composed urgency. Before you know it, someone will be asking you about your opinion on Syria or how we should develop Karamoja or maybe even Einstein’s relativity theory; never mind that you did History at A-Level. Trust me, it works.

Anyway this awesome watch has a red, thin second hand with a cream pointed end that keeps ticking away every time, with endurance and perseverance that I wish I had. It just keeps going – it doesn’t mind that you could be late and it’s making you nervous or that you even ignore it most of the time; it just keeps going on and on and on – day or night, rain or sunshine, protest or peace, in sand or in water (I hope). But once in a while when you’re not preoccupied with anything and your mind is not wandering or bothered about who commented on your Facebook post or if your boyfriend tagged you in that Instagram post, or how many you got on that test, or even where lunch is coming from tomorrow afternoon. At that moment when your mind is calm and serene, you’ll hear almost immediately the persistent and almost joyful tick-tick-tick of that second hand peering through your consciousness. That tick-tick-tick sound didn’t magically appear the moment you calmed your mind. It has always been there but it was competing with Game of Thrones, Telemundo, that little whistle that tells you that you have a WhatsApp message, FPL and Formula 1 and we all know that that’s a losing battle. But when all that destruction is quiet, then I can hear it loud and clear; like it’s telling me: ‘tick-tick, I’ll always be here, tick-tick, even when others have gone, I’ll still be here, tick-tick, even when you ignore me, I’ll always be here waiting for you to return, tick-tick, have a great night.’

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God is always speaking to us; but most times our minds are too busy and occupied to listen to him. He’s always happy to speak to us; but most times we are just too preoccupied to listen. Sometimes we need to be still and listen, then we’ll know it’s God (Psalms 46:10).
I feel like ending this post with tick-tick. 🙂

Written by Emmanuel Obonyo (M)

Thanks for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.

Toxic Spaces and People

When Johnathan McReynolds sang the song tiltled “People” he wasn’t joking at all or having a bad day, he was simply telling us what he had seen happening. The people who are a blessing to us one time can become the people, we have to stay away from to keep sane another time.

So toxic spaces are places where people make you feel unsupported, demeaned or attacked. On a basic level, any place which makes you feel worse instead of better each day can turn out to be toxic with time.

Toxic acts can cause damage to our physical bodies, mental health and affect the way we look at ourselves and other people.

Photo credit : Me

Sometimes people potray toxic behaviors because of their environments, other times people are just toxic irrespective of where they are.

Over time I have come to realise that toxic energy can be found any where if you are kin to observe, so how do you tell toxic spaces?

• Places that do not allow you to air your opionion are bound to be toxic. Let’s say it is a place where you go to regularly like your work place, school, place of worship or market. As much as not accepting other opinions causes “harmony”, it can also go a long way in making the people in such places feel unheard.

• I have heard or been to places where people  are treated according to particular attributes like skin colour, gender and social standing. I once visited a public institution and was handled strictly, a lady having a lighter skin tone to mine come in and it was like all of a sadden all the rules become null and void. 

• Have you heard of  places where people are attacked for being different? Well, I have. This is so common in our society today for instance there are buildings where people throw certain comments when a lady or gent with a particular weight enters ( I know you can name a few of these in your mind). This also happens to most people when they are on the roadside, road users what happened to us?

• There are circles that make people feel bad about their status in life. It can be a maritual status, financial, social or whatever status the society has today. I know of people who do not associate with unmarried people and the most common one is where people with lots of money tend to get most of the attention and those with less don’t get recognised at all. Sometimes even their few friends forsake them just as king solomon stated in one of his proverbs.

• Spaces that do not allow people to grow. Growth is good and is part of every living being. However their are environments where any form of growth be it physical, social, emotional  is seen as a threat. This can cause alot of frastruation to individuals.

Like I said earlier on even individuals can be toxic and these are few ways to tell that.

• People who guilt trip you for reacting to something bad they have done to you. Has someone ever hit you hard and instead of saying sorry they started telling you why you crying or sad. That there is it, I find it so odd to expect people to not react a certain way to what we do to them.

• People who only talk to you when they need something. Before i move forward with this point, I’d just like to say that am guilty as charged when it comes to this. However I feel like this is such a manipulative behaviour that should not be intentionally nurtured.

• People who who only talk to you on condition that you have the same likes and dislikes. If you look closely into your social circles today, you will notice this more and more. Now what is that even, because in this diverse world what are the odds that you will meet someone with the exact same taste as you? 

• People who are constantly looking for flaws from other people like they are on a flaw- hunting spree.🥴 Guys, if you start looking for all that is wrong in other people trust me you will find many things but at the end of the day, I don’t know how that will make you feel.

• People who do not respect other people’s boundaries, yes those imaginery lines in people’s lives. These thin lines every individual has are there for a reason and just because you do not understand them, doesn’t mean you should not respect them.

A nation without boundaries = chaos

so don’t be the chaos in other people’s lives.

• People who look on while you get into trouble. In this day and age this happens alot because everyone wants to be the first to break the news. This has made many people get serious injuries or lose their lives because the people who were present then, were more mindful about capturing the incident than saving the situation. Friends I know you can not be the superman in every situation but you can surely step in where you can.

• People who tell you to freely give your opinion then later blame you for giving your opinion. We should not ask for what we are not willing to handle.

• Then there is a special group of people who are into shaming people. This shaming is so common and diverse, with the most commonest being body shaming. The bold ones will do in your presence and the rest do it through other people or on social media. The sad thing is that they do it with a smile on their faces.🤦

Talking ill about how other people look will not make you perfect.

As much as toxicity is something we like to associate with other people, sometimes we are the toxic ones and other times we are toxic to ourselves.

Guys, I don’t know how you have been handling this. If you have, please share your story in the comment section someone could learn from it.

Thank you for reading. 😊

Dealing With Anxiety

The room always goes quiet when we talk about this topic. Most people never look at anxiety as something they have delt with but atleast know two or more people who need help concerning the issue.

But how can we understand anxiety in simple terms.                        Anxiety is a common body reaction to life events like threats, danger or uncertainity and it can happen to anybody irrespective of their age or gender.

Usually people become anxious for a short time but when this becomes severe, it prevents them from carrying on with their daily activities.

Anxiety makes us focus on things that happened, we expect to happen or are about happen. Sometimes this steals away the joy of enjoying the moment we are in. Anxiety and depression are similar and each can lead to the other.

Photo credit by me

Possible Causes

• Anticipating difficult tasks ahead of us. Sometimes we are not well prepared and other times, we just don’t know what to do.

• Social gatherings. I know that they are people who find it hard to get along with people in large groups. But who would gladly go into a place where they will be crucified for what they say, how they dress, walk and all of that.

• Perfection. This is one of the best gifts humans have been blessed with however if not handled well it can led to anxiety. Part of being human comes with not achieving perfection in everything.

• Fear of the unknown. Have you ever wondered in your thoughts about things you don’t know. Well depending on how intensely you wonder, this may not be good for you.

• Fear of the known. I believe by this age in our lives we all have things that we know we would not kindly accept for instance snakes, height, cold, spiders, rodents, flies or anything. Being in the presence of these or even the mere thought of them cause alot of discomfort and all sorts of unfamiliar body reactions.

• Not praying regularly. One of the reasons why we pray is to know the thoughts of our father for us, and for us to be calm and hopeful. We do get a sense of purpose, courage, protection and comfort after we have prayed. Taking a long period of time without praying can make us become hopeless.

• Memories of past experiences that made us sad, left us in pain or regret certain situations. Most of these experiences happened to us because we trusted the wrong people and some had nothing to do with trust at all.

How to deal with it

Just like every problem in our lives anxiety can be delt with so that it doesn’t get to a stage where it is diffcult to control. Here are some pointers for you in no particular order.

• Gradually change whatever is making you anxious, most especially if it is within your power. Sometimes changing our social circles, school or residence can be good for our physical and mental health. This can help in dealing with anxiety caused by people and things we know.

• Talk to someone you trust about what you are going through, as this may help you calm down or think of alternative ways of handling what is infront of you.

• Deal with things as they come. Most times we are tempted to think about the end of every matter forgetting that we are not incharge of how things unfold. Planning is great, but not everything always turns out as planned.

• Pray. I could say this a thousand times just to emphasize my point. In the bible in the book of philipians 4:6-7, the Apostle paul urges us to not be anxious about anything but to make our requests known to God. This means that we can trust God with anything. We know he knows our future, so he is the best guide for us concerning past, future and present things. This is the best remedy for anxiety.

• Do some exercises of any form as this comes with many benefits like lowering the feelings of anxiety, improving memory and brain function and improved quality of sleep amoung others.  Exercise also helps you relax and focus clearly.

• Learn coping mechanisms like using aromatherapy, writing down your thoughts, practising short deep breaths and any other activity that works for you. This can help mostly in situations that are beyond our control.

• It is important to seek professional help from a specialist in your area if you feel like you are not coping well.

• Take that cold bath after a long day of work, as this will help you relax. Water for bathing and drinking can be of great help to you. Do not neglect it as it can save you from alot.

• Make it a habit to give thanks. You can do this through songs,your social media posts, what you say and you can take it a notch higher by a having gratitude journal. This postive energy will not only help you but also the people who you will get to interact with. Remember you attract the kind of energy you give.

Lastly you may not know how your behaviour affects other people, in all things be kind. Also remember that people can only live their lives not yours, so don’t expect them to be your twin in behaviour.

Thank you for reading. 😊

Adulthood: The things I didn’t know

As days go by every thing around me reminds me about the one thing that am still discovering.
For those of you who don’t know me, I’ve been an adult for some time now, and every day am shocked by experiences that I hardly hear people talk about.

Here are a few things I have discovered along the way, let me know if you relate to any of them and feel free to add yours in the comment section.

Family and friends
In a traditional setting most of us grow up with our family and so make friends who are near us or in the places we frequent.
The toughest thing is having to leave home to travel to a distant place to study or work.
This means that you will not be physically close to your friends, and family which can be looked at in different ways.
If you grew up in a strict home, it will be your mini walk to freedom 💃 and to those who enjoy stayiny at home, home and friend sickeness will be one of the things you have to deal with.
We are never prepared enough to make such a huge transition in our lives.

My elder sister

Meeting New People
I know of people who find it easy meeting and connecting with new people, and I also know of people like me who take long to connect with new people. One of the signs that you are grown is when you are expected to do things by yourself and attending meetings, interviews, parties or wherever it is will be your new norm.
And at some point we can not deligate or even ask a family member to accompany us, it will have to be you Jo against the world.
Sadly we can not run away from this.

Clearing bills
The day you recieve that message requesting to clear bill A from a family member or friend, don’t feel sad because that is a sign that you are now grown up and ready for responsibility irrespective of your age and working situation.
This is the one thing that makes me miss childhood so bad because then all you had to do is live your life.
Now as an adlut you don’t even have to be reminded about certain responsibilities.

Budgeting
Which is simply planning how you will spend whatever is infront of you which can be; time, food, clothing or finances.
While being an adult means having the freedom to do whatever we want, on the other side of that is a responsility to steward what is infront of us.
I remember when i started staying alone, I hardly knew how to plan for my food, money or anything for that matter. I would make and spend all on what I don’t even remember, then start wondering why the month is not ending.
I would spend alot of time doing one activity only find out I have ten other urgent things that need to be done.
But after going through this circle for some time, I quickly realised that I had to make a change if I needed different results.
Fast forward to today, I mentally know how much time am going to spend doing laundry, dishes or resting and that is why I treasure every single bit of my days.

Changing Jobs
As you can tell by now, life is not static so is your employment situation. Career changes will happen as many times as need be and boy, it is easy to get discouraged along the way.
Sometimes you may be in the same field and as dynamics change, you experience some changes as well. The goal is to be as open minded to change as you can handle.
That is just the journey.

Changing location
When I was growing up I had a picture of where I wanted to stay when I left home.
Fast forward, none of that has been my reality so far, my guess is that some of you reading this have experienced that too.
The truth is you are going to change your location as many times as possible, as you evolve.
This also comes with it’s own ups and downs.

Doing something new
Lastly each day you will be challenged to do something new in regards to decision making or the actions you take.
This can be quiet uncomfortable for many people because new is unfamiliar.
But on the other side of trying out news things is the ability to learn something new, improve and just be a better version of ourselves.

The reason why I come up with this write up is that i want us to look at our lives and those of the people closest to us and see how they have been evolving, and appreciate them for hanging in this far.

The Guy Next Door

“I don’t believe in fairy tales” was the first thing she said each time we had a conversation about the guy next door.

Molly and I had been staying in the same apartment for over three years, and most of the neighbors we found there or shifted with there at the same time had moved to other apartments.
The tenants who had stayed there longer were just a handful, and the guy next door was one of those people.
This guy owned a company that handled maintenance, restoration and leveling residential and cooperate lawns and gardens.

A neatly done garden

Each time we walked down the gate, a sign post of his company welcomed us.
As if that was not enough advertising trauma, every Wednesday and Saturday morning we were woken up by his singing truck that left earlier than usual as he left for work.
The tenants of that building were added to the social media sites for his company, a move most of us agreed to since he was one of us.

My friend Molly was tired of seeing the guy’s advertisements on almost everything of hers.
But look, that is not the reason why she was that way.

Look here, the guy next door owned a company and loved every bit of what he did.
His work was described by many as “a touch of heaven on earth“, because of the uniqueness and attention to detail he added to it.

A friend’s lawn was once infested with insects which left her flowers withered and unable to grow as before, she was unhappy because her roses were no longer rosey anymore.
I recommended a few compound specialists including our neighbor.
She hired him to give her lawn some life.
To her shock, her lawn looked better than before as the green in it was greener and the red was out there seeking appreciation.
The edges were neatly done and for once there was a clear demarcation for where passers by could use.

How did I know all this?
A few days later I received overwhelming notifications on my social media pages only to check, my friend had uploaded countless photos of herself in her restored lawn.

On another occasion, there was a heavy down pour in the city that left alot of vegetation destroyed and floating on compounds.
This guy’s company was hired to do the mass repairs, a job they spent several weeks before finishing it off excellently.
Later that year his company received an award in recognition of their excellent work by the city Mayor.

My friend Molly didn’t believe in perfection and everytime she would see anything that reminded her of him she thought to herself “here comes the dreamer”.

She had developed a certain hatred for the one person who reminded her of perfection, a thing she was continuously reminded not to desire when she was growing up.
As a young girl she was told that anything uniquely great is a fairy tale and not worth having.

So as much as the guy next door is just minding his business and doing what he loves to do, he is a nightmare to my dear friend.

No Perfect Match

Many say Kampala is the place where it’s easy to find love. An on looker can agree with this, because of the many love related events that happen there throughout the year.
There’s always an engagement, introduction, wedding, reunion,or something love-ish going on.
To top it up most people there are aware about love from a younger age, so they find it easier to start relationships earlier.
I don’t know what you think but the story of this young gentleman tell us alittle bit about that.

Ray

Raymond Okumu is the first born of three children and grew up in an extended family, that was led by a single mom. Like most single mothers, she did her best to make sure she provided for them; social, physical, financial and emotional support to make sure her children were doing well.

Childhood was great because there was little to worry about. His earlier days in school were challenging and this reflected in his performance. 
However things took a turn for the best when his mother started promising him gifts in case he performed well at school ( I see this was a good strategy for motivating a child to perform to their potential).
He started performing well from that time and never looked back. And because of this he went to one of the best schools in the country.

His earliest relationship was in his senior four with a very beautiful girl, with whom they shared the same class. This however didn’t last long for some reason.
His current relationship started before he left campus.
He was good in literature and was invited to tutor a young lady who was in a class below his.
They become friends and after a few weeks she bought him chocolate 🍫.
 After a few weeks, he let her know that he loves her. A response that was taken in good faith with time .
They dated for awhile and broke up after about seven months because of distance. 
They started dating again after sometime and have been doing so to date.

Raymond said that inorder for a relationship to grow there has to be two key things;

1. The communication between both parties has to be great. People need to feel safe sharing their feelings and thoughts without fear. A partner who only wants to be heard and never offers a listening ear isn’t a good one.
And to make that relationship stay a day more plus, you have to work on your communication every single day.

2. The sex has to be good. This form of intimacy helps both parties relate better and also be vulnerable to each other.
Guys if you are not intimate with her in this way then what are you doing.
Denying your partner sex will only force them to look for it from somewhere else.
So the least you can do is play your part in that relationship you hold dear.

He noted that his mother has been very supportive to them when it comes to dating. She has always encouraged them to date, share their challenges with her and has taken the time to know the partners they were dating.This I think created a safe space for them to date and also accountability at the end of the day.

Words of Wisdom
There’s no perfect person for anyone. Most times we go into relationships because we like the other person. After some time of working things out and dating it then looks like we have found “the one”.

Hope my story helps someone out there.