No one can claim a monopoly on perfection

It’s funny how life can change in 12 months, and how much it can transform in 10 years.

We’re at the end of a decade, and looking back, I can see clearly how the person I was in 2009 is completely different from the woman I am today. For one, by March 2009, I was unemployed. The company I worked for shut down abruptly.

So, before the first quarter of the year was over, I was back on the tarmac passing my CV around like the flu. Every time I got a rejection, I reevaluated my goals and ambitions.

By the end of it I began to downsize my dreams; to mould myself into the kind of employee that companies wanted.

That didn’t last long. Eventually, I got together with a couple of former colleagues and we started a custom publishing company, producing trade magazines. 

But then the comfort of employment came calling again, and I chose stability over passion and adventure.

And so before the first quarter of the decade was done, I was back in a newsroom, completely consumed by the process of turning raw copy into publishable narrative.

Ever since then I’ve been in one kind of newsroom or the other, doing a lot of things, but ultimately using words to inform, educate, and communicate.

What I’ve learned in the past 10 years is that it’s easy to preach, especially when you can hide behind the relative anonymity of a column.

Amazing precision

It’s easy to occupy the so-called ‘moral high ground’ just because you have a platform to speak. Easy to find fault, instead of seek solutions.

Easy to take ownership of what is right, and what is good, for no other reason other than the fact that your voice is amplified.

Well, we all know the truth, and the truth is that no one can claim a monopoly on perfection.

We are all deeply flawed. Some of us are careless, or reckless, with our flaws, and some of us impose our imperfections on the world with malice and intent.

Either way, the human condition is characterised by our unique ability to miss the mark with amazing precision.

Which is fine and accepted because we would not be human if we did not have weaknesses to balance out our strengths.

And this is what I will carry into the next 10 years, and the decades to come if the universe allows. Balance.

The knowledge that balance is key. Without it, life is not fit for purpose. We all need to acquire the skill to ride the middle line while still being able to veer to the left, or to the right as required.

The very essence of balance is the ability to go with the flow, to find the wind and move according to its dictates. To fly high and lay low as life demands it.

Head off

To listen for that still, small voice that gently directs us to take a left, veer to the right, or to stay on course, amid the noise of life and the living.

To lead from the core of our deepest beliefs and instincts in a world that glorifies transience and superficiality.

I’ve also learned that things can change, or to put it differently, that change is possible. Things can be different.

I never imagined that I would one day find myself in a delivery room, screaming my head off, and trying to push a mountain out of a mole hill. But midway through this past decade, that’s exactly what happened.

Almost six years later, I have a little madam in my house who by virtue of being born, changed a self-indulgent youth into a mother. Her birth was one of the bigger catalysts in an ongoing growth process.

My focus shifted from how to make life better for me, to what I could contribute to the betterment of every mother, and every child.

But even then, I remained a flawed human being, trying to find the balance in every moment, choice, and decision.

Most of us are not where we want to be but we are not where we used to be.

I started off jobless, childless, and single. Since then I’ve achieved a variety of remarkable career goals. I’ve also co-created life.

And hey, I’m not cut from marriage material -- settling down has never been one of my key performance indicators -- but you never know, 2020 might just be the year that I become an ‘honest woman’.

And with that, I wish you a Happy New Year, patriots! May the road rise up to meet you.

 

Ms Masiga is Peace and Security editor, The Conversation Africa