Waste not, want not? Get out, take risks and change your life

I came across a video on the internet of an artiste who makes animal sculptures from avocados. I marveled at the concept and artistry but I couldn’t help laughing when someone made a comment below the video that the artist was wasting avocados.

True, in African culture, it is an abomination to play with food. And for Kenyans, who were once nicknamed the ‘avocado nation’, it is almost inexcusable to waste an avocado by putting ‘dirty’ hands and tools all over the prized commodity, thus rendering it inedible. Never mind that it has been transformed into a work of art. Avocados are meant to be eaten, not admired. There are starving people all around us, right?

But perhaps we should look at the other side of this avocado, so to speak. Don’t start sneering just yet -- I’m not asking you to eat the over-handled avocado (my friend would say, ‘disgustingo!’).

I’m just saying -- perhaps you can sacrifice one or two avocados to make your life a little bit better. You can then sit back with your ka-githeri, ka-chumvi and kachumbari and enjoy more avocados as you watch your investment grow.

Perhaps in your life, you’ve been holding onto your avocados for too long. You’re afraid to waste one or two of them to see what life can give you. You don’t want to experiment with them because if the experiment yields nothing, you will have wasted something precious. You can even hear your (grand)mother’s voice the second you think about it, “Nani huyo anacheza na chakula!”

It’s the Kenyan way to hold onto the one avocado in our hands. We generally do not set avocados on the ground so we can climb the tree to get more avocados. We took these sayings literally, “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”, “better the devil you know” and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

But can we perhaps be a little bit more adventurous and pursue new ideas, new ways of doing things and new people to lead us? Perhaps we should take in a new mantra, “sink or swim, I’m diving in” because if we don’t we’re going to drown in misery anyway.

Go out there today and take one risk that could change your life.