DO YOU EVER FEEL UNNOTICED?

Ours is the country where we all want to make it. Nairobi in particular will define that for you with actions speaking louder than my words on this article. In the city everyone wants to make it and moreso if you are new here , you may get confused. Straight from college it becomes unbearable while you are still finding your bearing.

Everything will seem to be breaking down, good for you if you find a landing ground. The last line is everyone’s usual story, some make it sooner while some don’t until later. Life is a journey and it takes it course regardless.

Sooner or later, you land a gig and you promise yourself to give tit your all. Yes, you come prepared from your mind to your soul. The dream you have is to grow and thrive to the level best. So here you are , hoping? while it is not a strategy , you are giving all your energy as though you are about to sell your soul. It is not easy and there are days you remind yourself it is also not hard. Even so, this is what you signed up for.

This is most probably the job that you wrote in primary school and told everyone about that when you grow up, you want to be ……?

You have come a long way with a dream and you can only hold on too long to one. As the excellent poet Langston Hughes puts it ‘ for if dreams die , life is like a broken winged bird.’ Therefore you cannot afford to break or part ways because this is most probably what you prayed for.? Or while your prayer is still on the oven , it is better than nothing, you tell yourself. You religiously convince yourself backed up by yours and your parents’ prayer. Always gasing yourself up that you are the best life has to offer .

If that work place doesn’t really know you then they should know that you are best thing that ever happened to them since inception.

Is the last line of my previous paragraph really true ? So you ask, if it is a yes or a false. It maybe not , because bosses tend to convince themselves they are always right. So for you , most probably a Gen Z reading this, you and I are wrong and can never be on the contrary side. The truth is right in our intuition but most probably reality will not offer us justice as we expect it. We just have to keep doing what we do best- hoping.

Do not stop passing by your mental gas station to gas yourself up that everything will be alright. I now tend to believe that Lean on Me by Bill Withers was a song sang to the inner self rather than a poster child of empathy. It was the inner you , the inner child that keeps giving you a shoulder to lean on when you feel as though you are loosing it.

I have been in that space of being misunderstood and I try to comprehend if I am the problem . Sometimes I even refuse without much conviction that of course I am not. It could be the boss. Or it could be that I am just not the favourite.Maybe I should stay longer on my knees during my bedtime prayer and pray like David “ Lord give me favour with men and also with you.” I just want it to be so but then there are days just like you, I don’t even know. I am just hanging on to hope. Keeping my head above the waters like a child thrown into the river to figure out if their legs can wade in the water.?

While still at it , I try to outdo myself but I just remember I am Kenyan and my genes cannot allow me to do a Michael Phelps. Most probably a little sprint like Omanyala but that would just be a record breaker for a day. An Eliud Kipchoge would work but covering a kilometre a day until I complete the race. A Faith Kipyegon kind of talent would only land me in the office gossip hot topics ; he is a people pleaser and not good as he thinks. So if athletics doesn’t echo it better, a Larry Madowo kind of goals will still be a top reminder that I am a Kenyan. A young boy from the deep villages of Africa who keeps on keeping on would continue making his steps however small until the world sees him.?

However much you feel unnoticed while doing much, just remember the competition is you.

HAPPY MEN’S DAY FOLKS.

By Isaac Oketch