The Wandering Nutritionist

1. Truth be Told.

Everything worth having is worth sacrificing for. You can't save without sacrificing. Or love, or serve - and I mean to rea..lly love and to rea..lly serve. It takes sacrifice to be a parent and a good one at that. And greater sacrifice even to be someone's spouse. 

Sacrifice doesn't come easy and it never walks alone, it teaches you patience and humility. It forces you to diminish yourself and your current configuration for something greater. Some call it delayed gratification.

So what happens in a generation born into a world where sacrifice is all but a theory? A people who were told that they were fragile and breakable; to be handled with care; And in the same breath told it was them that would inherit the earth. A people whose philosophy taught that they are but another species of animal and it's survival for the fittest. A people with so much information on their hands, literary, that the wisdom of the old and the grey is shun and spat on. A people allowed to question everything, even the unquestionables - authority, identity, sexuality and responsibility. And further allowed to disagree with what didn't sit well with them. Like their identity and sexuality were a choice comparable to broccoli and a fried fish's head on a 16 year olds' plate, you could eat it or throw it out, your choice. 

A people given the keys without instructions, given the gold before the laws of gold; a product of rebellion tasked to lead the next generation.

The result is a people filled with insecurities and mistrust at an individual scale, at a corporate scale and on a global scale. Everyone is erecting or trying to erect walls to keep 'them' out in the name of security.

We drank greedily from the well of Self and we didn't realize just how much it had changed us until we couldn't recognise ourselves. For better or for worse.

Self build, self regulate, self drive, self love, self motivate, self medicate.

Isolating ourselves into our own little worlds we forgot that man does little to no good alone. Forgetting that always, umoja ni nguvu.

Enclosed like the animals we and our professors professed to be, we are forced to look within. Or not. Some will run escaping the emptiness inside, or the erupting emotions we refuse to acknowledge. Some will stare at screens and get lost in the matrix world of 1s and 0s. Some will play catch-up with the world and keep up with the hashtags. Some will rebuild and restore to former glory. Some will remain unchanged. Again, for better or for worse.

Health takes sacrifice. To shed the extra kgs; to maintain a healthy pregnancy; to stay off the wheat, or the milk, or the sugar, or all of them together when your daily staples are fresh milk, bread, mahamri and chapati.

Development and sticking out habits takes sacrifice too. And the only thing that self can bring to the table here, is self discipline.

Lifestyle changes take sacrifice. Waking up early on the weekends to run a km; taking the stairs up and down from your office on the ninth floor just because; and being mindful of what you eat and drink.

Relationships with the missus or the Mr, with the kids, with friends and relations, with colleagues and employees, each demands a portion of your time, of your thoughts, of your emotions and all the feels in between. They demand of your hard earned money too; because everything worth having is worth the sacrifice.

Question is, are you willing to pay the price? Are we willing to sacrifice? As an individual, as a corporate, as a nation. 

We were told we'd perish for lack of understanding, and while drowning in a sea of information, still we perish. Maybe it's because of our ignorance that we perish. What we know, we ignore.

If you feed your child biscuits and juice I'm talking to you. If you drink more than an equivalent of 3 glasses of wine of any alcoholic beverage, I'm pointing at you. If you and vegetables are yet to be acquainted, pull a chair and come closer. This is for you. If you are a diabetic, a hypertensive or a cancer patient and your diet remains unchanged, well you too. It is you who dare to defy the laws of nature. It is me and you who stand accused.

We are the father's and the mother's. On our shoulders rests the torch of responsibility. Responsible for our family name and ancestry, for our national well-being, and for global security. It is we. We are they. Them that were called to task. The ones that will be judged by history as we judged those before us.

Once upon a time, in a little far away land, the choices of everyone 20 years and over were judged. It was them that made their history. It is them we read about today. What will they read about us?

Ababach Tamiru A. (RD)

Clinical nutritionist/ Dietician.