Halfway Alarm

It is and it has been a wonderful Friday

. In this part of the world, the weather has been playing fair and so has the day overall.

If I was in my normal mode, I would have apologized for not being able to deliver a read as of last week. Since I am in the not-so-normal mode, I will just implore you to be grateful homo sapiens and to thank me for being able to as of this week. None of you asked me about it, anyway.

It is the month of June and the year is going towards the halfway mark. By a time like this last year, one misguided friend who is so fond of forwarding chain messages without any scrutiny whatsoever sent me a message telling me how it was day number 185 of the year; halfway between the start and end of the year. I am not too sure as to whether the message had a bit of blessings spoken unto me but the mathematical error that was in the message put me off. It was just over 150 days into the year but someone was overly analytical and ended up circulating the message in a rush. That is people for you. A “forward-happy” generation who act as bridges, sending every fake news and chain message they receive to the next person or group. This year has been the worst with the elections and my favorite was the message about the Electoral Commission Chair’s earrings. My fellow Malawians. Tidzitolere.

I was talking about the year coming to the halfway mark. At some point, I found myself asking my then crush about how she had done in the first half of the year and whether she felt like it was a half year well lived. Her response had me wondering as to whether I had asked the right question or gone from white list to black. In her first reaction, she ended up telling me that she didn’t really think of the half year mark as something that was a significant goal-measuring point. Goofed. After that, however, she began telling me about all she had planned and how other factors beyond her control had set her back. Voila! Nice conversation there.

Since I started listening to motivation speakers, foreign and domestic around 2011, I have always had some sort of blueprint at the beginning of the year. That blueprint comes in the form of some fancy notebook which contains my goals and exactly how I want to achieve them.  At the end of the year, there is a big chunk of unachieved goals to regret about, but one thing that I have noticed is that my efficiency has sort of improved since I started having that sort of guide. While these goals are meant to be looked at frequently as possible to keep me in the achiever’s lane, they are hardly reviewed and enforced. The quarterly and half year mark, however, offer an opportunity for doing such and checking the progress.

In the light of this year, I have hardly looked at the nitty-gritty details of my goals and plans since writing them on the 27^th of December, in the year of lost souls, 2018. The little I remember comes from the big steps that I am so desperate to take and the quest to get things whose absence in my life people remind me of. As June comes to an end, I am thinking of going on a camping trip on some mountain top to reflect on these goals and whether I have been doing things right. While I am at it, I would like to share an insight with people who would like to do the same.

When we are making our plans and setting our goals, we often find ourselves putting so much emphasis on what we are going to do and what we are going to have. More often than not, we find ourselves not paying attention to the hows of achieving our goals, but that is just one side of it. On a more interesting note, we often find ourselves thinking of what we should be doing to achieve goals ignoring what we should give up or stop doing in order to get to the place and status we desire the most.

Having recovered from a hangover on the 27^th of December in the year of lost souls, I found myself posting a WhatsApp status which I am sure half the population of Richie Online readers still keeps. On the status were three things which I was hoping to achieve in the year of Our LORD, 2019; quit alcohol, lose weight and get married. Whether I have made progress along these lines or whether those were real goals is a subject of another day but I would to illustrate the importance of considering things that you would like to give up as part of goal setting.

Getting married. I think that is where we should start from before linking to the alcohol and weight loss things. Each and every time I post about a friend getting engaged or getting married, I am faced with a heavy barrage of questions as to when (or whether) I am getting married myself. On my very birthday, one close “sister” sent me a message telling me that she would never ask me as to when I am taking my better half to the altar again, citing that she had lost hope. Not too bad for a guy you haven’t heard talking about a better half in more than two years. I understand. On the other hand, when I examine the reasons I have attained this status, it is probably because I have clung to some habits and fears that I need to give up if I am to take a step further. Better half idzapezeka, koma mochedwa. Komabe zifukwazo ndisaulule kaye.

On the issue of losing weight and the other one, I have found my love for food and bond with friends very counterproductive. Here is the thing. I made a decision that I was going to stop heavy dinners at home and that I was going to cut links with some friends in a bid to get to my goals. Close to half a year down the line, my weight is close to the same I had on January 1 despite working out because of my love for food. Perhaps if I were to give up my shopping and recipe experimenting habits, my eating would have been better and I would have been weighing less. That being said, I am hoping that the half-year time mark will sort it out.

As we start the weekend, you are reminded that we are close to getting to the halfway mark. I am pretty sure some of you were planning on finishing that house or getting that car. How is that coming up? Bought that Dubai holiday air ticket, yet?

Have a lovely weekend.