This is still a beautiful world

Schooling is an important experience that we all need. Whether you were that clever student or whether you always came last, it does not matter.

At the end of it all, a schooled person is endowed with much more than skills and knowledge.

It is in school where we learnt how to relate with others. It is in school where we learnt to share — the books and chalk and blackboard and the teachers as well as the limited facilities availed.

It is in school that our minds begin travelling to various places in the world; we learn that there are other continents and that there are different cultures and that there is more to life than just knowing your mother tongue.

A close friend and I always laugh our struggles by saying that as much as teachers did a great job of educating us on the various subjects we had to study the schooling programme failed to incorporate a key subject at the senior level.

This subject should be called Life and should teach about life.

Indeed, in school they forgot to teach us about how to deal with the hard knocks of life.

They equally forgot to teach us the tactics on how to keep your head high above the rough waters of the sea of life. The teachers forgot to teach us how to manage those palpitations — as my friend calls them.

Those panic attacks that often graduate from too much worrying to give birth to something ugly and lethal.

The teachers forgot to teach us how to stay sane; to find that balance that is so essential in navigating life’s tricky balance.

They forgot to teach us how to keep smiling and find meaning in a life that will at one point present us with pain and suffering.

But just like the popular Desiderata says, despite all its sham and drudgery, it is still a beautiful world, which still has so much more to offer.

My girlfriend and I came up with a list of things that make the blues more manageable.

1. Ice cream on a Friday night. Is this not the greatest of all comfort foods? People have an emotional response to ice cream.

2. Sweet wine that is truly the balm of the heart, the constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.

3. Hugs and kisses. Can one ever have enough of these, and especially those coming from loved ones? There is more power in a good strong hug than in a thousand meaningful words.

4. Shoes and clothes that give your body language. On those dreary days, don’t they just transform that lacklustre day into a memorable one? Marilyn Monroe said, Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world.

5. Books. What would the world be without glorious books that transport you to those magical faraway places?

6. Chewing gum and popping it. Chewing gum must be the biggest pet peeve of them all. But it is fun too, blowing those bubbles.

7. That music that takes you to those places...gives wings to the mind and gives soul to the universe and somehow takes away that pain.

8. Perfume. Is it not the biggest spice of life? There is nothing as beautiful as a good smell.