I have a younger sister. I love her. But for years, our relationship confused me.

She is warm. She is brilliant. She fills a room. But she disappears.

You send a message. Nothing comes back. Two weeks pass. A month passes. Then one day she returns — and when she does, it is either crisis or triumph. Nothing in between.

I confronted her. Multiple times. Nothing changed. Last year I told her straight: you vanish, then you show up like nothing happened.

She smiled and said: “Bro, I have a lot of people in my life. But I have very few important people. And you are one of them.”

I did not know what to do with that.

—

Maybe she was not describing a flaw. Maybe she was describing a principle.

There are two kinds of people in your life. Close people. And important people. Close people are in your daily orbit. You share meals with them. You send them memes. Important people are different. They shape how you think. You reach for them when life gets real. Distance does not change what they mean to you.

Most people confuse the two. They are not the same.

Once I understood that, I saw it everywhere. In business. In money. In health. In skills. The same pattern, hiding underneath everything.

—

It is called the Pareto Principle. The 80/20 rule.

Vilfredo Pareto was an economist. He noticed that eighty percent of his peas came from twenty percent of his pods. He checked land ownership in Italy. Same pattern. Twenty percent of people owned eighty percent of the land. He kept looking. The ratio kept appearing.

Eighty percent of outcomes come from twenty percent of inputs. Life is not balanced. It was never meant to be. The people who understand this stop trying to make everything equal. They ask one question instead: which twenty percent actually matters?

In Relationships

You may have ten close people. But only two are truly important — the ones who shape your decisions, who you call when things fall apart, who see you clearly.

My sister knew which category I was in. She protected it. The closeness she gave others was real, but light. What she kept for the important few was different.

Stop expecting every relationship to carry equal weight. Put your deepest investment into the two. Let the eight be what they are.

Twenty percent of the people make your life better. Twenty percent cause eighty percent of your headaches. Identify them. Live with them smarter.

In Business

A business can carry eighty products and treat them all equally. But usually, one or two products generate eighty percent of the revenue. The rest are noise.

The businesses that scale find that engine early. They pour everything into it. Attention is finite. Focused energy compounds. Scattered energy dissolves.

Ask yourself: which product, which customer, which channel is carrying the most? Then ask how much time you are actually giving it. The answer will tell you everything.

In Money

Most people manage money by worrying about everything at once. The electricity bill. The investment account. The lunch budget. All of it, equally.

But a few decisions determine most of your financial life. Start saving early. Avoid high-interest debt. Invest consistently, not perfectly. Three or four decisions, made well and made early, will outweigh hundreds of smaller choices you will spend years on.

If you are always running out of money, there is a twenty percent of your expenses causing eighty percent of your problems. Find them. Control them.

In Health

You can chase every supplement, every trend, every program. Or you can find the two or three things that actually work — sleep, movement, food — and do them consistently.

A small number of habits produce most of the health outcomes. Everything else is refinement.

The twenty percent is rarely glamorous. It is usually the basics, done well, for a long time.

—

Closing

My sister caused me real pain. On the other side of it, I learned something.

Not everyone who matters will be present all the time. Not every product will carry the business. Not every skill will change your life. Not every habit will move you forward.

But there will always be a twenty percent. And that twenty percent will be responsible for most of what your life becomes.

Find it. Protect it. Even when everything else is asking for your attention.

Until next,

Watushule

You know that part of town. The Askari Monument in the middle. Traffic going around it. People rushing past. Daladalas. The smell of roasted maize somewhere. The monument stands still and the city moves.

I have passed that monument a hundred times. Last week was different. I found a service road near it and stopped. I had not planned to stop. I just stopped.

I looked across the street to where the old Tanzania Posta Bank used to be. The building is something else now. They moved. They have a new name. Tanzania Commercial Bank.

Standing there, I saw the old bank. The one I walked into the first time. My father had sent me to see the branch manager. The manager was supposed to help me open my first account.

I was fourteen. Maybe fifteen.

My father had been pushing me for weeks. Fungua akaunti. Fungua akaunti. Open an account. I did not want to. I had no money. What would I put inside? But he insisted. The way fathers insist on things you do not understand.

So I went. I introduced myself. I asked for the branch manager.

He had a corner office. The window looked straight at the Askari Monument. I sat on a wooden chair. He sat on a leather one.

He made small talk. He told the teller to start the process. The teller filled in forms. I signed. The signature is bad. I would not sign it that way now. They gave me a card and a small checkbook.

That was it. I had an account.

For a few years, I used it. Pocket money. Holiday money. Whatever passed through my hands in secondary school went into that account. Then secondary school ended. I moved on.

I forgot.

I forgot completely. The card went into a drawer. The book went into a file. The account went to the back of my mind. It stayed there.

For years.

• • •

Last week, standing at Askari Monument, looking at where the bank used to be — it came back.

I went home that evening. I started digging. I opened files I had not opened in years. Old envelopes. Old papers. I found it. The card. The account number. A printed statement from the last time I touched it.

The statement said: 90,000 shillings.

Ninety thousand. The balance the day I stopped paying attention.

I sat with the paper. I thought — What happened to the account. I wonder if the money is still there. I wonder what it has become.

The next morning I went to the bank. The new bank. New name. New building. Tellers who were not working when I opened the account.

I gave them my details. They looked. They tapped. They looked again.

“I’m sorry. That account was closed many years ago. You can open another one if you like.”

I said no thank you. I turned to leave.

Then I stopped. I turned back.

“My last balance was 90,000 shillings. That was in 2008. What would it be now if the account had not been closed?”

He did not say anything. He went to his computer. He typed. He looked at me. He smiled. He took a piece of paper. He wrote something on it. He folded it. He put it in an envelope with the new bank logo. He handed it to me.

“Open it when you reach home.” He said.

I liked the drama. I kept the envelope in my bag. I left.

• • •

Initial amount: 90,000 shillings, 2008

Interest rate: 13% per year

Compounded annually

562,500 shillings

I did not know what to feel. My money had grown from 90,000 to 562,500 shillings. I had done nothing.

• • •

There is a word for what happened. Compounding.

It is a finance word. Money earns interest. The interest earns interest. Then that interest earns interest. Small at first. Then noticeable. Then ridiculous.

Einstein is supposed to have called it the eighth wonder of the world. Whether he said it or not, anyone who has watched it happen knows. There is something unfair about it.

Money that makes money makes more money.

But that is not what I want us to sit with today on Watushule.

Compounding is not just a finance idea. It is a life idea.

• • •

Compounding in relationships

Think about the people in your life who matter. The ones who pick up the phone. The ones who call you with good news, and the ones who call you with bad.

When did you meet them?

For most of us, a long time ago. Secondary school. University. First job. The small business you tried before this one. A church group. A neighbourhood.

You did not plan for them to matter. You showed up. You called when you needed nothing. You helped when it cost you something small. You remembered birthdays. You attended funerals. You sent nimekukumbuka for no reason at all.

Year by year, the relationships were compounding. You did not see it.

The friend from Form Three becomes the one who hires you fifteen years later. The cousin you helped with homework becomes the one who connects you to a client. The neighbour who shared food when you were broke becomes the godparent of your child.

The relationships you do not pull up to check on grow the deepest roots.

The way I forgot the account, most of us forget our relationships. Not in a bad way. We just live. We move. We get busy. But the ones we planted properly keep growing. Whether we look or not.

One day you walk back. The balance is something you did not expect.

• • •

Compounding in skill

Skills compound.

At nineteen you learn to write a clear email. It does not feel like much. At twenty-two you learn to listen in a meeting before you speak. It does not feel like much. At twenty-five you learn to disagree with someone without making an enemy. That one also feels small.

Put them together. Twenty years of small skills stacked on each other. The way you think. The way you read a room. The way you handle a difficult client. The way you negotiate. The way you write. The way you carry yourself when things go wrong.

That stack is what people mean when they say experience. It is not time. Time alone gives you nothing. It is small skills. Compounded.

The painful part — the people who started at eighteen are hard to catch at thirty-five. Not because they are smarter. They have more years in the bank.

Like the account.

• • •

The quiet truth

What ties the three together?

Money. Relationships. Skill. They all compound. But only under one condition.

You have to leave them alone long enough.

You plant the seed. You do not dig it up every week to check. That is the hard part. Our generation wants the receipt today. We post and check the likes in five minutes. We send the message and wait for the blue ticks. We start the business and ask why we are not rich by month three.

Compounding does not work like that.

Compounding asks you to trust time. To do the small thing today. And tomorrow. And the day after. To stop counting.

The things that compound most in your life are the things you stop checking on.

• • •

Back to the bank

From 90,000 shillings — in an account I did not touch, did not deposit into, did not remember — the money grew. More than six times what I left there.

I left the bank thinking. Imagine if I had added to it. Imagine if every month I had fed it small amounts. Imagine if I had done the same with relationships. With skills.

That is the regret. Not what compounding gave me. What it could have given me, if I had understood.

But it is not too late. That is why I am telling you the story.

Whatever you are today. Whatever age. Whatever stage. There is an account somewhere in your life that you can open today. A skill. A relationship. A habit. A small monthly deposit into something that matters.

Open it now. Forget it for a while. Let time do the work you cannot do.

• • •

My father pushed me to open that account when I did not understand why.

He was a finance expert. He was a banker. He was a man who understood, the way older people understand, that you plant things before you need them. And those things compound.

I think about that a lot now.

Build relationships that compound.

Build skills that compound.

Build money that compounds.

• • •

This is Watushule.

We think. So we become.

Until next week — kwaherini.

I took the plate that I used for the sardines to the kitchen sink. It had a few sardines and rice remaining. I intended to wash the dishes after letting them sit for a few hours. When I came back to the kitchen the sink was full of ants.

Most of us don’t like ants, especially when they claim our spaces. I immediately cleaned the dishes and went on with my normal routine. A few hours passed; I went back to the kitchen to take some snacks, and I was greeted by quite a sight.

Through the kitchen window, I saw a convoy of ants working together to carry one of the sardines I had left at the sink. I looked at the top of the wall they were climbing and saw a hole that looked like their home base.

I was curious to see what would happen. The sardine was too long for the ants to maneuver easily. To fit it through the hole, they had to orient the fish vertically. However, the ants continued to move it sideways. I wanted to see if they were capable of solving the problem.

I was already impressed with how the team moved the sardine. They took it from the kitchen sink, went outside, and turned a few corners to reach the other side of the window. Then they coordinated together to climb a wall higher than I could reach.

I stayed there for half an hour observing them moving the sardine in all directions. They would take it to the left of the hole, then push it down, then up, then left again. It never worked.

The longer it took for it to go in, the more ants came to the party. Soon there were hundreds on the scene. The process was the same; they would take it up and down, left and right, trying to push it into the hole. It never worked. I left.

A few hours later I came back to observe the scene. Now there were more ants than before, but they still moved the same way. They kept going, even though they weren’t making progress.

I began to wonder what they thought when they first found the sardine. I imagined the first ant who saw the sardine and sounded the alarm. Its intention was to alert others to the abundance of food.

Then one ant suggested carrying it to their nest. And they all agreed it was a good idea. No ant paused and asked if it was possible to fit the sardine into the hole.

Now the idea gained momentum, more ants came and started moving the sardine to the wall, then to the hole. They all committed their energy to the task until it became a collective mission. The longer it took, the more attention it drew. More ants noticed and joined forces.

I wondered if there was a time that one of the ants paused and asked, is it possible to fit that sardine inside the hole? If one had, how would the hundreds of ants working so hard have responded?

Likely they condemned, laughed at and pushed the dissenter away for thinking of that. Every ant’s thought process was, “If everyone thinks this is the best idea, then it’s likely the best idea”.

I caught myself processing all those thoughts. This reflection reminded me that humans behave like ants. On many occasions we follow the majority without asking if it is right.

The Problem: The Mental Model — The Majority as a Trap

Following the majority blindly often leads to a trap. It is difficult to think clearly and independently when surrounded by the majority. That is why it is important to pause and ask: Is this my own thinking or influenced by the majority?

This is especially important when making decisions involving personal life. Choices about marriage, career, happiness, and health are not meant for collective consensus. The majority will have their say, but the impact and outcomes are borne by the individual.

This idea is called contrarian thinking. It means thinking differently from most people. This helps you avoid being misled by popular opinion. However, it means not being different just to be different. It is about not letting group behaviour replace your own logic.

The ants failed not because of their nature. Their mistake was a failure of logic. Each one focused on the ant ahead and copied its method without checking if it was effective. Popularity became evidence. It should not have been.

The sardine never entered the hole. Hours of collective effort produced nothing. Energy, numbers, commitment — none of it mattered because the direction was wrong from the start.

This is not just an ant problem.

Where We Are the Ants

The ants had sardines. We have careers, relationships, dreams.

Marriage by Default

We all know people who marry not because they want to, but because everyone around them is marrying. They succumb to family pressure and social expectation.

Many people follow the crowd. They don’t stop to think about whether marriage is what they truly want, with this person, at this time.

These choices, made by most, lead to unhappy couples, divorces, regrets, and lasting resentment.

Dreams Deferred

We know someone with a real pursuit — a business, an artistic path, a life that does not fit the standard template. The majority calls it risky, impractical, or naive, and so the person stops.

They shelve the thing that was true for them and pick up something that makes sense to everyone else.

And years go by, the majority moves on, but this individual doesn’t. They regret not pursuing what they wanted. They hate doing what they are doing every day.

Paths Never Questioned

This applies to everything in life. Consider, there’s the person who never faced a major dream conflict and just followed the usual path. They stuck to college, career, and lifestyle. They didn’t choose these paths; they simply met expectations.

They are pushing the sardine head-on because that is how it has always been done. These people have never thought to ask if it actually fits the hole.

The solution: Second-Order Thinking

Most people ask, what happens if I do this? They stop there and simply act. This short-sightedness is like the ants who only ask what will happen if they carry a sardine to their hole, without considering if it will fit.

Second-order thinking asks: what will be the consequences of my first action? Instead of just acting, the ants should ask what happens once they reach the hole. Will the sardine fit? How will the other ants react? How much space will it take up inside?

Most people will only ask the first question and accept answers that the majority approves of.

Should I get married?

Should I take the job?

Should I start the business?

Should I believe what they say?

If everyone marries because marriage is the social default, you do not get a society of happy couples. You get a society of people who made a lifelong decision based on social pressure. The downstream effect lasts for generations. Unhappy homes teach children that commitment means fitting in, not love.

If everyone leaves the unconventional path because most people disapprove, who will create what doesn’t exist yet? Progress requires the person willing to be wrong in front of everyone.

For second-order thinking the questions go deeper

Most people ask only the first question and accept answers that the majority agrees on.

Should I get married?

What will happen if I get married now? How will marriage affect my life, my career, my privacy and my independence?

Should I take the job?

How will the job affect my life, marriage, hobbies, time, relationships, and other opportunities?

Should I start the business?

How will the business affect my finances, my time, my peace of mind, my relationship and other opportunities?

Should I believe in what they say?

How will that affect how I live, my family, my work, my business, my relationships , and more?

Every decision and action has consequences far beyond what we see at first. Most choices made simply because others make them carry long-term or even lifelong impacts.

Contrarian thinking and second order thinking are not about rejecting the majority for sport. It is not about being the person who always disagrees. It is about asking whether the collective approach actually fits your specific situation — your values, your life.

The sardine did not need to be thrown away. It did not need to be replaced with a different sardine. It needed to be rotated. Small adjustment. Different angle. Same destination.

Sometimes the majority is right. Get the education. Build the safety net. Wear the seatbelt. But sometimes the majority is just a crowd of ants who inherited a direction and never questioned it. Your job is to know the difference.

Contrarian thinking and second order thinking are mental models—the right tools.

The question is not whether the majority is wrong. The question is whether their answer is right for you.

The Closing

When I think of the ants and the sardine pushed to the wall, I’m still captivated by the memory of the round hole and the convoy joining the struggle.

Somewhere in that crowd, maybe one ant had a different instinct. Maybe it paused. Maybe it tried a slight angle. But it was surrounded by certainty — thousands of its kind all pushing the same way — and the weight of the collective is hard to resist.

Where in your life are you treating the sardine like a square peg you’re trying to force into a round hole?

Who around you is pushing it the same way and calling that evidence?

What would it take to rotate it?

Do not do something because many people are doing it. Do something that deep down you resonate with and if it fails you will be happy to take responsibility and start again.

The majority doesn’t know you better than you know yourself.

Until then,

Think deeply. Live deliberately.

Watushule

The deputy headmaster said it in front of everyone. Monday parade. The whole school watching.

A few weeks earlier, students at Galanos High School had gone on strike against the teachers. They had grievances, they needed a voice, and they chose me. I was the ex-minister for sport, known among students and teachers, Pugu Boy, who spoke well and carried himself with confidence. I delivered their message. The students got what they asked for.

The teachers never forgave me for it.

Three months before our national form six examinations — the exams that determined entry into the University of Dar es Salaam, the dream I had carried for years — they sent me home. I was to report to school the night before each exam, sit under police supervision, and leave the grounds the moment the last paper was done.

They knew what they were doing. No classroom. No mock exams. No access to notes, study groups, or the daily rhythm that prepares a student for high-stakes tests. They had designed a failure. My friends cried for me. I felt it too — that cold, sinking feeling that everything you have worked toward is suddenly very far away.

I walked out of the school gates and called my mother.

I explained everything. She listened. She was quiet for a moment. Then she asked:

“So the teachers have punished you, and they are expecting you to fail — what are you going to do to make sure you won’t fail?”

That question changed everything.

Notice what she did not ask. She did not ask what I needed to do to pass. She asked what I needed to do — or stop doing — to make sure I would not fail. The direction was reversed, and with it, the entire frame of the problem.

I stopped grieving and started thinking.

I asked her to send me pocket money. I found hostels where students slept and studied. I built my own timetable, one that put in the hours the school would have given me. I tracked down past exams and used them to identify my weak areas. I studied with the other suspended students — we discussed, we tested each other, we refused to let the punishment finish what it had started.

When the results came out, I was in the top three. I earned an A in advanced mathematics — a grade achieved by very few students in the entire region.

For fifteen years, I didn’t think much about that experience. Then recently, I realised what my mother had given me that afternoon was not just encouragement.

It was a mental model.

What is a mental model?

A mental model is a tool the mind uses to understand and solve problems. Different situations demand different tools — just as a doctor, a builder, and a lawyer each carry different instruments to do their work. The tool my mother handed me on that phone call has a name.

It is called inversion.

Inversion is the practice of working backwards from the outcome you want to avoid, rather than forward from the outcome you want to achieve. Instead of asking how do I succeed, you ask what guarantees failure — and then you systematically eliminate those things.

This is not pessimism

Before we go further, let me address the thought that may already be forming: isn’t this just negative thinking?

No. And the distinction matters.

Pessimism is an emotional state. It is sitting with failure as a feeling — imagining the worst, absorbing it, letting it drain your will to act. Inversion is a strategic tool. It is looking at failure as information — naming it precisely, understanding its causes, and removing them. The pessimist says: I am probably going to fail. The person using inversion says: here are the specific conditions that produce failure — I will not allow those conditions to exist.

I did not sit in that hostel imagining how badly the exams would go. I sat there identifying exactly what would cause me to fail, and then I went to work on each one.

There is a Swahili saying: haraka haraka haina baraka — hurry has no blessing. On the surface, it looks like advice to slow down. But read it as inversion: it is not saying move slowly to succeed. It is saying rushing guarantees you lose the thing you are rushing toward. The wisdom is in what you avoid, not in what you add. Our grandmothers were teaching inversion long before it had a name.

The questions that cut through

Inversion works because failure is usually simpler than success. There are many paths to a good outcome — talent, timing, luck, networks, effort, opportunity. Most of them are outside your control. But the paths to failure are usually few, consistent, and honest. They do not flatter you. They do not depend on circumstances. They show up in the mirror.

So flip the question.

Instead of asking: How do I build a strong career?

Ask: What would destroy my career?

Instead of asking: How do I build a lasting marriage?

Ask: What slowly kills a relationship?

Instead of asking: How do I build wealth?

Ask: What behaviours guarantee I stay broke?

The answers to the inverted questions are almost always clearer, more honest, and more immediately actionable than their forward versions. Because success lives in the abstract — it is somewhere out there, in the future, vague and aspirational. Failure, when you look at it directly, is specific. You can point to it. You can remove it.

Where to apply it

In your career: Think about the next five years. Ask yourself what would most certainly derail your professional life — not diplomatically, but honestly. Common answers include: chronic financial mismanagement, burning important bridges, staying comfortable in roles that stopped growing you, confusing visibility with ability. How many of those are already present in some form? That discomfort is data.

In your most important relationship: There are a thousand things people say will make a relationship last — communication, commitment, quality time, shared values. That is all true. But there are a much smaller number of things that reliably destroy relationships: contempt, dishonesty, neglect that gets normalised, unspoken resentment that slowly calcifies into distance. Ask what those things are in your specific relationship. Then ask how close any of them are to the surface. You do not need to be in crisis for this to be useful. Prevention done early is invisible — it looks like a relationship that just works.

In your finances: Most people approach money by trying to earn more. Inversion asks a different question: what spending patterns guarantee you never build wealth, regardless of income? The answer is usually not complicated. It is lifestyle inflation that moves in lockstep with salary increases. It is the absence of any automatic savings mechanism. It is treating credit as additional income. Name your specific versions of these and you will know exactly what to stop before you know what to start.

A question worth sitting with

Think about one important area of your life right now — your career, your finances, your most important relationship, your health.

Now ask it backwards:

What would guarantee that I fail here?

Write the honest answers. All of them. Do not be diplomatic.

Then look at that list and ask: How many of these am I already doing?

The discomfort of that answer is the beginning of useful thinking.

Until then

We think. So we become.

Think deeply. Live deliberately.

Watushule

Have you seen the movie The Terminator starring Arnold Schwarzenegger?

The movie introduces Arnold as the Terminator, a relentless cyborg assassin. In the plot, in the future, humanity is at war with machines led by an AI called Skynet. The terminator has a mission and will do anything to do it.

Arnold Schwarzenegger had fewer than 20 lines in the whole movie. One line became legendary: “I will be back.” He had the iconic look. He wore a black leather jacket and sunglasses at night. His walk was slow and deliberate, with robotic movements.

We all wanted to be like him.

Back then we had no way of knowing more about the actors than what we saw in the movies.

Years went by, and the internet became common in many cafés. One of the first things I searched for online was Arnold Schwarzenegger. I learned something deep: Arnold played the Terminator so well because it mirrored his own life.

The Terminator had a mission to do and did everything necessary to succeed. In real life, Arnold followed a similar path by setting clear goals and working tirelessly to reach them.

He was a young ambitious man in Austria. He joined the military. One day, he saw Reg Park on TV winning bodybuilding competitions. And he felt inspired to be like him.

He set a goal to be a bodybuilder like his role model, then leave Austria to go to Hollywood and become an actor.

The movie *The Terminator* came out on October 26th 1984, seven years before I was born.

I watched the movie eighteen years later. I paid fifty Tanzanian shillings to enter a dark room. They hid it and covered it with curtains and carpets. Broken chairs and falling benches cluttered a small TV.

The fact I watched the movie Terminator it meant his dream came true. To me that was a fascinating process. Be inspired by someone, create a goal, and achieve it. It seemed the best way to approach life.

Over eighteen years have passed since I achieved my first goal in life. I wrote it in a diary and studied it with great attention, inspired by Arnold Schwarzenegger. During my last year at Pugu Secondary School, I created my first goal and wrote it down: “to attend the University of Dar es Salaam.”

I set that goal because my cousin attended that university a few years back. Like Arnold, I had my first goal.

I had more reasons to study hard. I felt excited to find out how to get into that university. I focused on the entry criteria, the right courses, and more. Whenever I had free time, I would take a bus to the University. I liked seeing the accomplished and lucky students there.

Three years later, I was a student at the University of Dar es Salaam, studying for a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance. I had accomplished my first goal. I remembered Arnold’s first goal, to win the Mr. Universe title.

At the time, this was one of the most prestigious bodybuilding competitions in the world. It was the same title his role model, Reg Park, had won.

I then created a few extra goals at the University to prove if the method really worked. I said I wanted to have my own car before my graduation, in my third year. I wanted to have a job immediately after graduating. I had a goal to create my first company before graduating too.

A week before my graduation day, I had my first car, a red Toyota Celica, imported from Japan. I had a contract with one of the Big Four auditing firms, PwC, and I had a company, or rather, a startup.

To me it meant that setting goals has a significant impact on life. Arnold won five Mr. Universe titles and seven Mr. Olympia titles in his body building career . He starred in over forty Hollywood movies. He even became the Governor of California.

I was so excited to tell everyone about the importance of having goals in life. But then I realised that many people would come up with goals and be excited. A few months down the line they would lose that motivation and stop.

I have seen that in my siblings, friends, relatives and even strangers. It made me curious about why it works for some people and doesn’t work for others. I wondered what made me work harder with goals than when I didn’t have them.

That curiosity made me explore more about goals, and then I landed on the concept of systems. Arnold did not merely set goals or dreams. What he created were not just goals.

Dreams and goals mean nothing on their own. You need a system.

Arnold started with a dream, then broke it down into goals and ended up creating a system. To win Mr. Universe, he had to train three times a day, eat a lot, and learn everything he could about the tournament.

He had to show up, even when he was tired, sick, unmotivated, or late. The military threatened to throw him out, but he still had to be there.

To land a job before graduation, I needed to learn about the top employers. I reviewed their past interviews and practiced for the aptitude test. I also attended every career day I could find.

I missed some classes and quizzes. I also lost time to watch movies, hang out with friends, and play football matches I really wanted to join.

I started because of my dream and goal. I kept going due to the system I built.

Here is the best approach.

The best foundation of any system is still the dream and the goal. You can dream about anything but it won’t matter unless you turn them into goals. Here is what I find to be a more practical way to create goals, inspired by the late Jim Rohn

List all your wishes, fantasies and dreams.

Choose fifty wishes, fantasies and dreams that you would go for if you had the chance.

Trim that list down to the first sixteen that you can start in the next five years.

Break those sixteen goals down into four groups. Have four wishes or dreams that would likely take five years to do. Have four wishes or dreams or fantasies that would likely take three years to do. Have four goals that would take one year to accomplish. Have the last four goals that would take a few weeks or months to accomplish.

Then comes the most important part. For each of those sixteen goals, try to answer the following questions.

Why do you want to accomplish that wish, dream or fantasy?

Why not try to accomplish that wish, dream or fantasy and see where life leads?

Why not be the one to try to accomplish them?

Why not now?

There are some things where the why is so strong that you would immediately ask, “Why not now?”

Once you spread your sixteen goals over five years, the practical side of life begins. You need to create a system around your goals.

You need to build daily habits and an environment where those habits can thrive. Maintain this system as long as it takes to achieve your wishes, goals, or dreams.

These habits are the daily activities that will lead you to achieve those goals.

To win a bodybuilding competition, Arnold first had to live like a bodybuilder. He had to train daily, eat well, study the sport, and rest.

He dived into bodybuilding by reading every magazine he could find and watching related TV shows. He also committed to a rigorous training schedule, working out like a professional two or three times a day.

He did that until he won the competition.

Once he decided what he wanted to achieve, he focused on the daily system he needed to follow. Some days he was not motivated, but he had to work out because the system required it.

Some days he was busy, but the system urged him to find time to read and learn about bodybuilding. Some days he felt discouraged about not making it, but his system urged him to work out and rest.

And he did the same with acting in Hollywood. He created a system that would help him become the actor we all know. He had to learn how to act, study accents, and train his body for potential roles.

When I created the wish, goal or fantasy of having the car before my graduation, I didn’t have any job or business. I had to pick a dream car, find the price and find ways to save, ask, beg, earn or borrow to get it.

I started some businesses that would give me extra profit to help buy the car, but the businesses failed. I asked for help from many people; some helped, while others rejected me.

I tried saving my pocket money at university, sometimes it worked and other times it didn’t. I borrowed from my friends and others; some gave it to me and others refused.

But before graduation, I had the car.

I attended over twenty interviews in two months while at university. Sometimes, I had them in the middle of exams. This followed a long period of sending out CVs; while some employers rejected my applications, others invited me to meet.

I have read dozens of books and articles about interviews; some I understood and some I didn’t. I called a lot of people to ask for inside information, favours and connections in the workplaces. Some answered my calls, others hung up, and some even blocked me.

I did not stop because I had a system to follow after I committed myself to that goals. Every day, my system pushed me to do a few things. I read about jobs and interviews. I sent my CV to someone. I reminded others about the CV I sent. I also practised interview questions for any upcoming interviews.

When I had a goal to build muscles and have a six-pack I created a system. Every day after University classes, I would go to the University gym, stretch, work out two muscle groups then play soccer.

I had to make sure every day I ate a lot of protein especially from eggs, bananas and chicken. I had to make sure I drank a lot of water and rested a lot. I also had to go on YouTube a lot and watch as many videos as I could about weightlifting.

I also asked many questions to Teacher Swai, the official trainer from the university. He had a lot of muscles, too. I also consulted several other students who were experienced in weightlifting.

And that system wanted me to do that until I achieved the goal. I had to do that when I left classes and exams. I had to do that when I was tired. I had to do that when I didn’t have so much cash to buy chickens and eggs. I had to do that when Teacher Swai was not there. It was a system I had to follow.

Whenever I noticed that I was not following my systems,I realized that I would never achieve my dream. And that reminded me why I wanted that dream in the first place. When my why was so strong I found myself immediately coming back to my system.

I learnt that sometimes life would happen, and I would skip my system for a day or two. But I was more likely to succeed when I pushed myself to never let more than three days pass without following my system.

I have been using the same system for more than eighteen years now and I will continue using it forever. I find it practical and relevant for achieving any goal.

Here is how it works, this is what you have to do to fulfill your dreams, wishes or fantasies:

List all your wishes, fantasies and dreams you want to come true while you are alive, or even after you are gone.

Pick the best fifty to start with.

From the fifty you want to start, pick the top sixteen that matter most to you right now.

Break down those sixteen goals based on the estimated timeframes, from weeks to five years.

It is recommended that you have four goals that you can accomplish within weeks or months.

Select another four for your one-year targets, followed by four for the three-year mark. The final four goals should be those you aim to achieve within five years.

For each wish, fantasy or dream, take the time to ask yourself these questions:

Why do you want to fulfil that wish, dream or fantasy?

Why not try to accomplish your wish, dream, or fantasy and see where life leads?

Why not be the one to try to accomplish it?

Why not now?

Once you are comfortable with that, then create a system for each goal

Create habits and to-do lists that you will need to do every day or weekly until you reach your goals.

Always push yourself to follow that system, no matter your energy, motivation, problems, or distractions. When disruptions occur and you skip a day or two, you should promise yourself to get back to the system as soon as you can.

The best rule is to promise never to go more than three days without following your system.

In pursuit of my writing goal, I have promised to never let more than three days pass without writing something to share. I have promised myself to never go more than three days without a workout, even if it means walking or stretching.

Be careful not to be too ambitious when working on your system. It’s easy to get carried away when you’re motivated. You can do things faster, bigger or stronger, but not sustainably.

People create a goal or have a wish to be fit, usually overweight people wanting to lose weight. They buy new workout gear, pay for gym memberships, and say “New Year, New Me.” But by mid-January, many return to their old habits.

These people created a system that overwhelmed them and was not sustainable. It is easier to start walking three times a week, then transition to daily sessions. From there, you can increase your pace or distance before finally adding running or gym workouts.

And when you are motivated, go to the gym. When you are busy, go for a walk. But overall you are still following the system.

It is okay to have dreams and goals, but life happens when you follow your system, consistently.

Until then,

Think Deeply. Live Deliberately.

In the beginning, I felt like it was forced labour. But later I learned that was how the household got its food. My grandparents had retired and had to support us by providing food while we stayed at their place. Farming and livestock keeping were the way they provided for us.

During the holidays, we had to wake up early. We walked long distances to the farms and stayed there until late. Depending on the season, we spent the entire day doing hard labour.

For years, it started being fun, because all the neighbors did that too. Our friends were doing the same thing. It became part of life. And that was my first experience with work in life, to be precise lets call it labor. That was also the first time I learned that I had to work to survive.

I then had my first experience of entrepreneurship. I kept asking my mother to buy me football boots, and they rarely lasted long. One day she told me to do what our neighbours’ kids were doing to get money.

Their mother was a vegetable vendor. She woke up early, gathered fruits and vegetables, and then sold them in the streets. During weekends and holidays she would make her children do the same. That is how she provided for her family, and how the kids’ got pocket money for their personal use.

I remember my first day. I woke up early, feeling tired. I walked slowly behind our neighbour as she taught me how to find vegetables and fruits in the market. Then came the long journey back home to prepare them on a yellow dish.

“Spray plenty of water on the fruits and vegetables. Then, place them where they are visible as you carry the dish on your head.” She instructed me when we reached home.

That first day, I walked more than ever before. I spent five hours shouting, “Vegetables, fruits, fresh, from the market, at your door!” The neighbour’s kids were used to that; they never wanted to take a rest. They said they only rested once they finished selling.

They finished faster than I did, and they took my stock and sold it too. We went back home; I slept till the next morning. That was my first taste of entrepreneurship. During that holiday, I paid back the money I borrowed from my mother, saved up for my football shoes, and learned a bit about business. And this was my first experience of working specifically for money.

When I finished my second year at the University of Dar es Salaam, I completed my internship at KPMG Tanzania. This is one of the Big Four auditing firms worldwide. During our internship, only three of us were hired.

That was my first experience of a professional workplace were skills and time were key to growth. I learned about employment rules and policies. I came to understand the nine-to-five culture, the office politics, the salaries, and, most importantly, the ebb and flow of people.

There, I understood the concept of working to grow, from an intern to possibly being a director or even a partner one day.

During my internship at KPMG, I learned how companies register, earn money, and grow. This gave me a more sophisticated view of business than my experience selling fruits and vegetables on the street. I created my first company, AweDin, which just meant Awesome Dinero.

That first company at the university was the foundation for many adventures. One venture led to another for years, continuing to this day. These included AweSome Magazine, MobiAd, Emakat, Watushule and now Mentamo.

During all these phases of life, there is one thing that has never changed. I have always focused on it no matter what was happening in my life. That is storytelling. The first story book I read was in grade three, a book that my mother brought home to start our first home library.

It was a simple book about frogs and rabbits, and the lessons they bring to life. I loved the format and the power of stories to teach. I started finding more books, joined the national library. I started attending book clubs and literary events.

The more I learned, the more I wanted to share my knowledge. I started writing about these lessons. I joined school debates and delivered Monday morning speeches at St Joseph primary school and Pugu secondary schools.

I began sharing them online in whatever format was easy—posts, audios, videos, or articles. And here we are now; you are either reading this somewhere or listening to or watching this. I discovered my passion by storytelling without pay or exhaustion; I did the work simply because I loved it.

My journey might be unique in its own way at face value. But if you pay attention to the why, it reflects a universal truth about how we live. People will work to survive, work to grow or work for their passions.

Work has evolved over generations. We now live in the AI era, yet some aspects resemble the hunter-gatherer days. These were the days where humans had no permanent shelter.

At first, humans worked only to survive. Healthy, fit group members would hunt and gather food. Others would protect and care for the young and sick.

And then came the agricultural era. This is where life changed for these communities. Societies started to have farms and keep livestock. That meant they started staying in one area for an extended period of time.

During this time, work became broader. Some people became pure farmers, while others tended to livestock. And it started creating classes in the community, the owners and labourers. It also brought the concept of surplus, because people could store their harvest. And this is where the concept of status emerged.

People saw farm owners with more land, livestock, workers, and surplus goods as rich. The wealthy were more respected in the community and accrued power.

Agriculture fostered the era of civilization, skills, and crafts. This led to innovation and growth until industrialization took shape. This was another change to human history; now people were going to work in factories and plants.

Many types of roles appeared. These included labourers, machine operators, and plant staff. There were also accountants, clerks, and managers. This era ushered in the modern economy and the creation of offices.

The town’s modern life meant adults left for work in the morning. They spent their day in offices, selling their time and skills until evening. They did this from Monday to Friday and some Saturdays. This environment helped establish careers for bankers, doctors, teachers, and lawyers.

Schools created programs to prepare children to follow the same routine. This set a clear path: going to school, passing exams, attending university, and working until retirement. This cycle continued for years until the internet arrived.

The internet removed a lot of barriers to where, when, and with whom people work. It eliminated the notion that one must work only in an office. It also enabled people to work together from anywhere in the world.

The internet boosted globalization and information sharing. It created new job opportunities and platforms for people to sell their time, skills and expertise.

New careers emerged, including freelancers, consultants, traders, YouTubers, influencers, and comedians.

And now we are embarking on the AI age. We do not know yet the extent to which this will change the work environment. But based on current signs, we see that AI will replace most of the work established during previous eras.

Machines will take over much of the manual work from the agricultural and industrial eras. Robots will replace most of the office work that requires repetition and consistency.

AI models like ChatGPT and Claude will take over many jobs that rely on skills in fields such as accounting, law, photography, art, and writing.

We are heading into an age where the most valuable asset to have in the market is being human. AI cannot replicate experiences, emotions, human connections, dreams, and goals.

But that does not change the reality of why people work. Work changes from one generation to the next. So, how should we approach it on an individual basis? It’s not about being either employed or self-employed.

The problem is that work, whether through employment or self-employment, has become our identity. Most of us think that our work is an extension of who we are. That leads to a lot of problems in our lives. Some keep working in horrible jobs because they think they cannot change careers.

Some people stick to failing businesses because their identity is linked to them. Some work on passions that do not pay because those pursuits define who they are or who they are meant to be.

The most important things in life come in threes, and so it is with work.

Work, whether you’re employed or self-employed, should focus on survival, passion, or growth. Different stages of life need different purposes of work.

There is a time when you have to work for money, to survive.

There is a time when you have to work for passion, to thrive.

There is a time when you have to work for growth, to improve.

Working for money

Working for money is the most practical motive. I could not argue with my grandmother about planting or harvesting when I was under her roof. The food we got from the farms was what we ate.

We sold some of it to neighbours and friends so we could get other things needed for our livelihood, like sugar, cooking oil, clothes, and more.

I couldn’t turn down my mother’s idea to sell fruits and vegetables. This way, I could earn money to buy my football boots. This need was so important to me that I was ready to work to get the money.

Money ensures survival, stability, dignity, options, and responsibility. It pays rent. It feeds the family. It creates independence. There is nothing shallow about wanting money. Often, seeking money is not greed. It is security. It is relief. It is the ability to stand on your own two feet and help others.

But money has limits.

When money is the only reason to work, a person may feel empty inside, even if they seem successful outside. They may earn well, but find no meaning. They may survive financially, but slowly die emotionally. When work is only a transaction, the soul begins to detach from what the body does every day.

So money is necessary, but it is not sufficient.

Working for passion

Working for passion sounds noble. I have always loved the profound impact that stories have on people’s lives, often changing entire generations for better or worse. Jesus and Muhammad, for example, have influenced billions of people through stories about God.

Ancestors shared their visions, hopes, fears, and dreams with the community through stories. The stories we hear and tell ourselves are the ones that shape our lives. I have spent most of my adult life finding stories and sharing them.

Passion brings energy, aliveness, curiosity, creativity, and meaning. When you care deeply about something, work feels lighter. You can handle more challenges when the work feels tied to your inner self. Passion makes effort feel voluntary instead of forced.

But passion also has limits. I often stopped finding or sharing stories because the process became too hard. The idea for Watushule came to me when I was a Form Four student at Pugu Secondary School. That was 2008. I have been in and out of this project for over 16 years.

Passion can be unstable. You will not feel inspired every day. Some work that matters deeply still contains routine, boredom, administration, repetition, and sacrifice. Also, not every passion can immediately pay the bills. Focusing only on passion can lead to financial weakness, lack of discipline, or disappointment with reality.

Passion is powerful, but it is not always reliable.

Working for growth

This is the long-term view. When I started as an intern at KPMG, I knew nothing about the auditing and finance world. I knew nothing about positions at the corporate level. I learned that if I worked well for a long time, I had a chance to be a director or even a partner.

By studying different types of auditing and company operations, I gained a deeper understanding of business mechanics alongside personal and corporate finance.

It was a smooth transition for me to go to PwC, another of the Big Four auditing firms in the world. And I saw a clear path from starting as an associate to possibly becoming a director. I was exposed more to how the business world works.

I learned office politics, the nine-to-five culture, the hustle culture and everything in between. I managed to experience employment while running my own startup. I learned about the concept of leverage and how people made money in different ways.

I learned how corporate and business growth would shape who I became in the long run, and I knew there would come a time when I had to make a choice.

This means choosing work not just for money or enjoyment now, but for who it helps you become. Growth-centered work develops skills, character, discipline, resilience, judgement, patience, and competence. Sometimes the work you need most is not the work you love most today, but the work that prepares you for the future.

Growth can justify struggle.

A difficult job may be worth doing because it is training your mind. A low-status season may be worth enduring because it is building your foundation. An imperfect opportunity may still be valuable because it is stretching your capacity.

But growth also has limits.

If a person is always living for future growth, they may never arrive in the present. Life becomes permanent preparation. They keep pushing on, delaying, improving, and giving up things. But they never stop to ask if the path is still worth it. Growth can become another trap if it turns into endless self-improvement without peace.

So each motive has wisdom, and each motive has danger.

Money without meaning becomes emptiness. Passion without discipline becomes instability. Growth without restbecomes endless postponement.

That is the dilemma.

A mature person comes to understand that the real question isn’t, “Which one will I choose forever?”

The real question is: What should lead in this season of my life?

Different seasons require different priorities.

At one stage, money may need to lead. If you’re struggling, feeling stressed, raising kids, or just trying to get by, you might not have the chance to focus on what you love. In that season, stable income is not betrayal. It is wisdom.

At another stage, growth may need to lead. You might accept discomfort, lower pay, or slower recognition. This is because you’re building skills that will be valuable later.

At another stage, passion may need to lead. Once you’re stable and have the right skills, you might want to find work that truly fits who you are.

The problem comes when people apply the wrong standard to a season.

In a survival season, someone feels guilty for not “following their passion”. Someone in a learning season becomes impatient because growth is not yet paying off. Someone in a thriving season keeps chasing money but ignores the work they truly care about.

Tension exists between money, passion, and growth. It also lies between present needs, future potential, and our inner calling.

I have always looked at my father as a source of inspiration. He started his career in finance immediately after university. This role provided his first stable income and the platform for his professional growth.

At the pinnacle of his career, he was the head of the customer network at one of the biggest international banks in the country. His LinkedIn bio stated:

“I have been in the banking industry for 29 years. I started as a clerk grade 1 and worked my way up to a managerial level. My ambition is to run my own entity and support my community.”

My father passed away before fulfilling that ambition.

A few months before he died, he finished registering his company. He meant to provide financial services and support his community. But he never had the chance to run it as he had planned.

I often wonder what my father thought when he decided to retire, start his own company, and pursue his passion for helping the community. I imagine him asking himself:

Can this sustain my life?

Does this make me feel alive?

What type of person does it help me to become?

I have always paused and asked myself those questions. And now for you, whatever your stage of life, pause for a moment. Ask yourself about your work:

Can this sustain my life?

Does this make me feel alive?

What type of person does it help me to become?

Good work addresses all three, even if one aspect must lead for now. The healthiest path is usually not pure money, pure passion, or pure growth. It is a thoughtful integration.

Until then,

Think deeply. Live deliberately.

Watushule

Anna had turned a hundred years old but was still active. On her birthday, she prepared a meal for four people. She stood for most of the party and even showed us her favorite dance at church.

Out of curiosity, I asked her what makes her so healthy. Sheshe smiled and looked at the sky. Then she said, “I am God’s favorite daughter”. We all laughed. It was a mischievous response from the birthday girl.

For as long as I have known her, she has been farming her land and raising chickens. She is famous for walking everywhere. Whether she is going to the farm, attending church, fetching water, or visiting neighbours, she always walks.

She was famous for being the first one in church every morning. She was at the church every Sunday.

I remember hearing how she moved to this area, the same place where we were celebrating her birthday today. She travelled from Tabora, covering more than 760 kilometers to reach Kigamboni, Dar es Salaam to establish her new life.

She left a teaching career in Tabora to come and focus on agriculture and livestock farming in that area. Now Kigamboni is a town with plans to make it a satellite city, but when she came, it was a forest. Anyone who came first would claim ownership of the land as long as they made marks and boundaries.

I mentioned she cooked for us on her hundredth birthday. It wasn’t anything special; it was just her favourite daily meal. She served boiled sweet potatoes grown on her own farm for breakfast.

For lunch, she served steamed rice with beans. She sourced both from her farm and cooked them in her outdoor kitchen. We brought some soda and snacks, which she didn’t like.

Anna, my grandmother on my dad’s side, passed away three years later, a few months after turning 103 years old. They chose me to read her eulogy at the funeral. Everyone believed I was her favourite grandchild.

After the eulogy and my short speech, I recalled a question I asked her on her 100th birthday three years ago: “What’s your secret for a healthy life?”

At that moment I felt the answer “I am God’s favourite daughter” was cheesy, but it resonated with me. I researched health and realized that the oldest problems usually have time-tested solutions.

I believe the best things in life come in threes. So, I decided to break down the three pillars of health.

I think a healthy life needs balance in the body, mind, and spirit. This belief stems from my grandmother’s experience and others who age well around the world.

The body

The body is the vehicle that carries us through life. A weak body carries a weak life, a strong body carries a strong life. My grandmother was very strong for a hundred-year-old soul. She would still walk to church, cook, dance and stand for hours.

I learned three important things from my grandmother: how she moved, what she ate, and when she rested. Let’s focus on her specific routine, then look into the science behind her habits.

How we move shapes how we grow.

Biologically, an organ that is infrequently or inefficiently used will become weak. Our bodies were made to move. From the brain cells to the toes, there is mechanism for movement.

Moving the body boosts blood circulation, strength, metabolism, posture, mobility, energy, and mood.

My grandmother walked a lot. If she had a smartwatch, I’d bet that her steps would top 10,000 every day for years. She moved constantly from the moment she woke up until bedtime.

And she did all types of walking. She often walked while carrying weights, such as buckets of water for showering, feed for the chickens, dishes to wash, or farm produce to bring home.

She moved around a lot. She bent down to pick up things, danced in church, stretched her hands to grab fruits, and knelt while cooking.

All these activities helped her body stay strong, flexible and fit enough to walk without a supporting stick when she was a hundred.

Her lifestyle forced her to have those type of movements. Our ancestors lifestyle made them walk and run for long distance to hunt or farm. Dance during dinners. Carry weights during farming or harvesting.

Nowadays our lifestyle is different. We stay mostly in offices; comfortable chairs are our best friends. We commute to work by cars, motorcycles and buses. After work, we relax on couches watching TV before heading to bed.

We rarely engage in activities that would force us to walk or move frequently, unless our work is labour-intensive. This lifestyle causes several issues, like bad posture, being overweight, poor blood circulation, and a higher risk of disease.

And someone decided to solve our problem with a shortcut:the gym. We now view the gym as our primary way to stay active. The gym is fine, but it’s being marketed as if the only types of exercise are weightlifting or cardio.

This approach is more attractive because the changes are easy to see. For instance, when I first entered a gym in 2011 during my first year at the University of Dar es Salaam, I saw this first-hand.

I went there barefoot and wearing a football jersey, accompanied by my good friend Jabir. We were out of place. We saw men with big biceps, pumped chests and the kind of legs you only see in movies.

We saw pretty women wearing very tight shorts. They wore sports bras that made you wonder whether you were allowed to look at them in public.

After years of countless gym visits, I can sum up the secret to working out. It’s simple: find a way to move your body, just as my grandmother did.

The body grows when it’s outside the comfort zone. If you have never walked a few kilometres in your life, then start by walking until you get tired. Then the next day add a bit more distance. Do that until the distance feels easy.

Next, push yourself further. Start by walking on hills or mountains. Then, add weights or walk faster to increase the intensity.

You can do that anywhere. You don’t need a gym to achieve that. Our ancestors never had gyms, the world was their gym. Labour-intensive jobs like construction and agriculture tend to solve that problem.

If you work in an office, incorporate movement into your workday. Start by walking, increase the intensity. Once that feels easy, try running or carrying extra weight to keep challenging yourself.

Another part of how we move is stretching. If you’re in your thirties or older, you might notice that some movements become harder to do. You realize that it is becoming harder to bend, to kneel.

Perhaps you’ve noticed that touching your toes is an impossible feat. Or maybe that if you sit down and straighten your legs you can’t bend to reach them. Everything hurts, as if you’ve been hit by a train—your neck, back, shoulders, and thighs all ache.

All this is because you stopped moving your muscles. Muscles are like an elastic band. The more you stretch, the more flexible they become. The less you stretch, the stiffer they become.

When you wake up, find ways to stretch. Move all your body parts naturally. Kneel, crawl, bend, pull, push, and relax. The more you stretch, the more flexible you will be.

And in your old age, you will need this flexibility very much. Don’t be just another statistic or the person who slipped in the bathroom due to stiffness.

What we eat is the fuel for the body.

For the body to move, it needs fuel. What we eat and drink defines the quality of the fuel that we feed into our body. Good fuel will improve the efficiency of the body during its movement. Bad fuels will result in poor performance and in the long run, damage the body.

Most of my grandmother’s diet came from her farm. She had maize flour, rice, beans, vegetables, eggs, meat and spices around her. She ate the same diet as her ancestors.

And her cooking was as simple as it gets, mostly boiled. On rare occasions she would use cooking oil, which we brought to her.

If you own a car, you would not add fuel to it that was not meant to be used. You cannot use petrol for a diesel car despite both of them being fuel. You certainly would not use water in a petrol car.

The same goes for the body; it was not designed to consume certain foods and drinks to function properly. Yet humans have found a way to do just that, whether out of ignorance, addiction, or reasons we cannot explain.

Humans consume substances that affect the body every day, from processed foods to strong alcohol and cigarettes. And just like a car that would eventually break down after being filled with the wrong fuel, the body responds in kind.

Non-communicable diseases are the side effects of abusing the body. High blood pressure from too much alcohol and meat, or cancer from smoking, shows how the body responds to bad habits.

Our ancestors had simple diets, eating and drinking things they found in nature. Next time you shop or dine, ask yourself: what would your grandmother think of your dish?

Give your body the right fuel and it will perform well for you. If you are already regularly consuming unhealthy foods and drinks, do your best to have them in moderation.

When we rest influences how we perform

In all the years I have known my grandmother, she hasn’t liked us staying at her place late at night. She wanted to go to bed earlyand wake up early. She said her God used the sun as a guide for her life.

When the sun comes up she has to get up, and when the sun sets, she goes to sleep. Scientifically, there is evidence that our bodies function according to circadian rhythms. We function properly when we rise with the sun and rest at sunset.

If you can, do your best to follow nature. Wake up early, start your day. Wind up when the sun sets and go to sleep. That is the natural rest your body needs.

Yes, you can push a car to the maximum, day and night, on long drives; but at what cost? For how long?

Our bodies function in the same way; you can push them for days, weeks, or even months. But eventually, exhaustion will catch up and you will break. And that cost is too much to pay. You can repair and replace cars, but you can’t do that with our bodies.

Find ways to rest your body. Sleep when you can, at least seven to eight hours. Take breaks during high-intensity activities. Recharge and get away after finishing demanding long-term projects.

My grandmother went to bed early to ensure she had enough energy for the day. When it’s not the planting or harvesting season, she has less physical work. This helps her body rest and recover.

In summary, our bodies need movement, nutrients, and rest to work well for as long as possible. Pay attention to that, and you won’t worry about being unfit, overweight, or getting preventable diseases.

The mind

Our bodies are the vehicles that carry life inside them; the mind is how we interpret life.

There’s a well-known story about twins raised by an alcoholic father. As they grew up, they chose different paths. The first twin became an alcoholic. When asked why, he said, “My father was an alcoholic, what else did you expect?”

The second twin grew up hating alcohol. When asked why, he replied, “Because my father was an alcoholic. I didn’t like how he acted, how he treated us, or how he ruined his life.” “I didn’t want to be like him.”

Identical twins lived in the same home with the same father, but they had different outcomes. That is how the mind works. It shapes how we see the world, how we interpret events and , experience our own version of reality.

I heard a story about my grandmother’s first house burning down. The fire destroyed everything she had spent years building.

When her children offered to help her move to town for a fresh start, she said, “I will build a new house, set up new farms, and plan my crops again.” “I did it the first time; I can do it again.”

True to her word, she did exactly that. Until the day she died, she stayed on her lands. And they buried her on those lands. That was the power of her mindset.

The three key things about the mind are: clarity, discipline and peace.

Clarity

Clarity is the ability to see things as they are and embrace them. As mentioned earlier, different people can interpret the same situation differently. One person can see a six and another sees a nine depending on your perspective.

Put yourself in situations where you can see things clearly. This way, you’ll improve your perception and make better decisions.

Diverse environments and perspectives foster clarity.

Make it a habit to meet new people, visit different places, and seek diverse information sources like books. These habits will give you the tools to build clarity.

Discipline

The mind is a mischievous thing; it can be a master or a servant depending on how you use it. If you don’t do anything intentional, the mind will come up with some of the craziest things imaginable.

Discipline your mind regularly, and you can reach your goals. You’ll also enjoy life in inspiring ways. People will even call you a genius.

You need to be able to train your mind on what to think, when to think and how to process information. You need to assert control over your thought patterns.

If you let it run free, problems will find you. This includes addictions, laziness, worries, and fear. Most of life’s problems come from a lack of discipline.

Every problem caused by a lack of discipline stems from a failure to control the mind.

Peace

You have heard the saying “you need peace of mind in life”.”

Lack of clarity and discipline tends to create chaos in the mind. This makes life experience miserable.

Some people struggle to find peace in their relationships. They may lack clarity in choosing the right partners. They also need discipline to build and maintain healthy relationships. Sometimes, it’s important to let go of unhealthy ones too.

Some people lack peace of mind in their work and careers. This often happens because they didn’t get clear guidance when choosing jobs, businesses, or activities they spent years in. They also lack the discipline to change their professional direction.

Peace of mind is a result of clarity and discipline; do your best to cultivate both and you will harvest it.

Sadly, no one can bring you peace of mind. You have to build it for yourself.

Most of human problems come from the mind. Lack of clarity and discipline will always lead to lack of peace of mind. Learn to work on them and you will add a key tool to your life.

Your mindset shapes how you see life. To find peace of mind, you need clarity and discipline. This helps you interpret life in a way that’s right for you.

The spirit

This is a topic that is somewhat taboo for most people. Out of ignorance, manipulation and uncertainty, most people struggle with spiritual issues.

When my grandmother said, “I am God’s favourite daughter,” I felt church leaders had influenced her. It seemed she believed everything in life revolved around God. I have a lot of friends and relatives who make the topic of God annoying or suspicious.

I now realise that my grandmother was talking about the spiritual part of her health. My research revealed three key things: the meaning of life, aligning with that meaning, and believing in something greater.

Meaning

Life can mean anything to anyone; that is what makes it complicated. My grandma’s meaning and my meaning are like day and night. My meaning is different from yours. That is what makes it meaningful too.

In my quest to understand life’s meaning, I learned to pause and ask myself these questions:

Why am I here?

What is my life for?

What makes suffering worthwhile?

What is worth giving my life for?

I discovered the meaning of life by accepting that I must be my best self. I also aim to help others become their best selves during our short time here. My life is to serve, and it’s worth all the suffering it takes to do that.

Hearing a sibling, family member, friend, or even a stranger saying that I changed their life for the better brings me so much joy. Knowing this makes all my efforts worthwhile.

I have enjoyed reading stories since grade three at St Joseph Primary School. I have never stopped finding knowledge and applying it to my life. I have never stopped sharing it with the world any way I can.

I share knowledge through one-on-one conversations over lunch, long phone calls from miles away, or the internet. I do this via pictures, videos, audio, or any medium that emerges.

I never stopped doing that when I was in primary school, secondary school, university, or working at PwC. I didn’t stop when I launched my first startup, and I haven’t stopped now that I am an experienced entrepreneur.

This is my purpose. This gives my life meaning: being my best self and helping others do the same through stories and thought-provoking ideas. What is yours?

Take time out of your busy life and answer the questions:

Why am I here?

What is my life for?

What makes suffering worthwhile?

What is worth giving my life for?

If you don’t fix that, you’ll always feel something is missing, no matter what you achieve. You will have all the money in the world, the best family and friends, but when you go to sleep, you will feel empty.

You have spent years fitting into other people’s versions of the meaning of life. Someone told you to go to school, get the job and work until retirement, then die. Is that it for you?

You may have heard about a business opportunity that promises a lot of money. If you start it and it becomes profitable, how will you know when you have enough? What will you do with that wealth?

Someone said you should become a leader and accumulate power, and so you did. But then when will you know it’s enough power? What will you do after the power changes hands?

What you have, what you do, who you know, and where you are don’t define your life’s meaning. So, pause, reset, and ask yourself the big questions.

Why am I here?

What is my life for?

What makes suffering worthwhile?

What is worth giving my life for?

Once you answer that, you will quickly sort out what you do, with whom, and how. Life on its own has no meaning. You will need to find your own meaning and assign it to life. If you won’t, then someone will assign their meaning to you.

Alignment

If figuring out meaning is the first step, then living your life by that meaning is the next.

The first problem in life is living without establishing the meaning of our lives. The second problem is knowing that purpose but not living up to it.

Many people find meaning in life by serving their community. This can happen through business, community work, religion, or politics. But most people are employed. They never quit to pursue that meaning for a lot of reasons. And they hate Mondays when they go to work.

Many entrepreneurs build wealth through ventures they don’t care about. In turn, they often give away much of that money to causes they truly care about.

Living contrary to your purpose is betraying your spirit. In the Holy Bible, Luke chapter 9 verse 25, it says “what profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose himself?”. And in the Quran, Surah Al-Baqarah (2:90), it says “miserable is the price they have sold their souls for..”

A well-known example of living in contradiction to one’s purpose is that of Judas Iscariot. Most are familiar with the account of how Judas betrayed Jesus, but we never followed up on what happened after that.

Matthew 27:3 says, when Judas saw that Jesus had been condemned, he was filled with remorse. He returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders. In the following verse, he said “I have sinned, for I have betrayed innocent blood.”

After that, he threw the money into the temple and left, and hanged himself (Matthew 27:5).

Can you picture the pain Judas felt? He returned the money, showed regret publicly, and then took his own life. The price we pay for a soul not at peace is immeasurable, no matter what you accomplish in life.

If you hate going to work on Mondays but get excited for Fridays, your actions don’t align with your life’s meaning and purpose.

If you dislike spending time with your girlfriend, wife, husband, or anyone else, it’s likely due to a mismatch with your life’s meaning and purpose.

If you have money, cars, buildings, power, and status but still feel empty, it might be because your actions don’t match your life’s purpose and meaning.

The solution is simple: pause and ask yourself:

Why am I here?

What is my life for?

What makes suffering worthwhile?

What is worth giving my life for?

When you get the answers, your job is to live each day according to them.

Living for something bigger than yourself

When my grandmother said, “I am God’s favorite daughter,” she showed a deep understanding of life. She believed there was something much bigger than herself.

I asked about her physical health and body, but her answer included everything. She embraced that there is something bigger than her, her God. And she believed that, for everything she had been through, she was God’s favorite.

She decided to live her life with that perspective. It shaped how she moved, what she ate and drank. It helped her find clarity, build discipline, discover the meaning of her life, and live by it.

The best way to understand life is to accept that something bigger than you is at work in the universe. Now with globalization and information, we use the word God.

Whether one is a Muslim, Christian, or Hindu, the concept of God is universal. Even those who aren’t religious recognise there’s something bigger and more powerful in the universe beyond humans.

Some call it ancestors, some call it Karma, some call it the Universe and some just say nature. What everyone accepts is we as humans have limited power, awareness, influence and information about a lot going on in the world.

We need an anchor point and a compass that will lead us to the promised land. If your religion says that land is heaven, then well and good. If it says a place called Nirvana, that is fine too. If others call it a flow state or awakening, it’s also fine.

Join a community of people who share your values, beliefs about life, and faith in a higher power. That tends to bring peace to the spirit.

Some of the most miserable people on earth are the ones who are only doing things for themselves. They live only in their heads and have no hope or faith in something bigger than them.

Life becomes easier by embracing that there is a higher power at play in the universe. This view helps you find better answers about your purpose in life.

This brings clarity and discipline, helping the mind stay consistent in living according to our purpose. Such focus makes choices about what to eat, drink, how to move, and when to rest easier. You’ll have a clear purpose to guide you. And you need to be in your best physical, mental, and spiritual condition to do that.

I wish I could have a deeper chat with Anna, my grandma, about her health by considering her body, mind, and spirit. But I know she would touch on these major points.

She would likely have suggested I read this at her funeral. It shares the best lesson about health and a meaningful life. Since you were not in her life, please consider this her eulogy.

You might not be sick, but it doesn’t mean you are healthy. A fit body can still have a chaotic mind, that is not healthy. A fit mind with a stiff and exhausted body is not healthy. A fit body with a sharp mind is nothing if the soul is not in alignment.

Remember that your body carries life, your mind interprets it and your soul brings meaning to it.

Until then,

Think deeply. Live deliberately.

Watushule

He took his people to Lake Tanganyika. This lake borders Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, and Zambia. Zwangendaba allowed his people to form their own territories across these regions. One such group went to the village of Peramiho in Songea, southern Tanzania.

Among the people who moved to Peramiho were a man named Mphami Chitingili and his brother. They fell in love with local women and got married. They formed strong bonds with friends and colleagues while raising their families.

Once they had settled there, a new development occurred. Missionaries from Germany set up camp there and began their work.

Father Cassian Spiss founded Peramiho Abbey on 31 July 1898. He came from the Missionary Benedictines of St. Ottilien and had arrived in East Africa in 1888. By 1910, the German colonial administration had taken military control of Peramiho. This military presence also strengthened the presence of German missionaries.

Those who resisted were either killed or forced to embrace German culture. Mphami was among the few who fled the village to escape this influence. After he left the missionaries’ area, he entered a Muslim community and adapted to it.

The rest of the population fell under German army control. Then, they joined the missionary society. This included Mphami’s brother, who became a Christian.

By the mid-1900s, Mphami’s family grew to ten children, thirty grandchildren, seventy great-grandchildren, and many great-great-grandchildren. Mphami’s brother had a family of similar size.

My mother was among the hundreds of great-great-granddaughters of Mphami Chitingili. It took a complex series of events to bring me to life.

And that’s one leg of my family tree; we can’t go deeper into my father’s side. In the process of understanding myself, I had to understand everyone I am related to. Beyond my siblings, I have fallen in love many times, started establishing my own family, and built a network of friends and colleagues.

It is the same path that Mphami Chitingili went through and the same path that everyone goes through.

In our lifetimes, we will find ourselves in many relationships. We are part of a certain family, and we will fall in love or start families of our own. Throughout this journey, we also gain both relatives and friends.

We can all agree that relationships are the most important and yet the hardest things in life. We need people to live well, but people are also the source of some of our deepest pain.

But relationships are different. They involve another human being with needs, wounds, expectations, egos, memories, and freedoms. This makes them life’s most meaningful yet difficult part.

People in our lives can be our biggest blessings or burdens. Here’s how to view family, friends, work, and love without being naïve or bitter. Let’s explore the idea that the most important things in life come in threes. Here are the three pillars of relationships:

Family, Friends and Romance

1. Family

Family can be influential since it’s often where we first learn about relationships.

Mphami’s story began with his family. I don’t know what happened to his father or his other siblings in Zululand. He migrated with his brother. I had no choice in being part of his bloodline through my mother.

Every one of us never had a say in the family they were born into. Yet families build the foundation for everything that comes into our lives.

We see the world through the lens of family in three ways:

We first learn and absorb key life beliefs, such as religion, political views, money, and values. All family members from Mphami became Muslims. He embraced the faith and raised them in that way. All family members who came from Mphami’s brother ended up being Christians.

I was born to parents of different religions: my mother a Muslim and my father a Christian. My lens on the world is not the same as those born to two Christian or two Muslim parents.

Cultural backgrounds shape this view. People raised outside of Islam or Christianity see the world through different traditions. Before adopting new faiths, Mphami and his brother followed traditional Zulu beliefs typical in Zululand families.

Most of us follow the religions our families taught us, and these beliefs often stay with us for life. This can lead us to judge those who do not share our religion and support those who share our faith.

The same goes for politics. If your family liked a political party or idea, you’re more likely to stick with it for life.

If you come from a wealthy family, you have a different perspective on money. You may believe that people can use money to do good in society. You probably have skills, experience, and knowledge about getting, managing, and growing money.

If you grew up in a family with money issues, you might think most rich people are evil. You believe money is the root of all evil. So, you probably lack the skills and experience to find, keep, and grow money. You are in a rat race.

If you grew up in a broken family or an unhappy home, you’re likely to create a similar situation later. You don’t view family and its values like those raised in strong households. Such people often prioritise family over individual needs.

You can’t change your family’s religion, politics, values, or financial habits. However, you can act now. First, pause and think about the values and beliefs you learned from your family. Consider how these shape your life today.

Look for values in other people and their families that inspire you. Start bringing those values into your own life. It is not too late. If you won’t do that, you are going to replicate the family you came from.

Second, our families affect us by placing expectations shaped by their history and dramas. Everyone with whom you share a surname has something to say about your life.

Many of us carry burdens without stopping to ask why we carry them. We don’t look at these family pressures. Instead, we just keep pushing on, carrying their weight.

I have an aunt who always asks me when I’ll get married. Meanwhile, her daughter got divorced in under five years. Yet she feels entitled to tell me how to live my life.

I have a distant cousin. He thinks I should help him find a job and support his unexpected kids just because we share the same last name. I have siblings who are tough to handle. They expect my patience just because someone said, “blood is thicker than water.”

We all carry these burdens through our entire lives. But to lead a good life, we need to pause and unload them. We must choose wisely which burdens and expectations to keep and which to let go.

You need to set boundaries with everyone in your family and clan. It’s your life, so you can say no to anyone. This includes your parents or even that distant aunt. You may barely know her, yet her expectations still weigh on you.

Families don’t pressure, expect, or demand anything from a member who isn’t doing much. They only demand these things because there is something going on in your life. The moment it stops, you lose your status in their eyes.

We all know family members who aren’t invited to events. They don’t get priority and aren’t asked about anything. If you don’t pause and unload your burdens, one day you will have nothing, and you will have no standing in the family.

The best way to deal with family and relatives is to be intentional.

Be intentional with the time, resources and energy you give them. Do not deal with them just because they are family members, sharing the blood. Deal with them because they are nice people who care about you, and you care about them. You enjoy being together.

Stop keeping horrible people around just because you share a surname.

2. Friends and colleagues

My first memory of friends is Ibrahim, Robert and Elisha in nursery school. I remember some of the mischievous things we used to do during lunch breaks. We later joined St Joseph’s Primary School together. Our days were filled with football and the early twists of teenage relationships.

I have met many friends at different stages of life, from primary school and university to various workplaces. Others I found through street football, shared hobbies, or online communities.

And I lost a lot of friends in life, too. I lost touch with friends as soon as we finished school or university. I lost connection with most of those I worked with. I lost friends I made because we were just living nearby, and I moved or they moved. I lost some to death.

Different friends at different stages of life shaped who I am. Some instilled good habits in me, inspiration, wisdom and adventure. Others were the primary influence behind the bad habits I adopted.

We all collect different friends at different stages of life. Friendships are special relationships because they are the family that we choose. However, they are also a family we can let go of more easily than our biological kin when our paths diverge.

Research shows that everyone, at any age, has only a few true friends. These are people who will be there when you need them, celebrate your wins and feel the pain of your losses.

It is important to identify your few friends and make an effort to be a good friend to them. Whoever said you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with was right.

Most of the people we work with are not our friends;they are our colleagues. If they find themselves in a position to choose between you and their work, they will choose work. And you will do the same. Stop seeking friendships among colleagues.

Maintaining a friendship requires you to be intentional. You need to check on each other from time to time. You need to spend some time together, physically if you can. You need to be there for them on their highs and lows.

If you think you are the special one in a friendship, others will feel it. And they will slowly detach from you. No one wants to be a supporting actor in your selfish life story.

True friends don’t care if you are rich or poor. They don’t care if you have a high position or low. They don’t care if you are famous or not. They don’t care if you are good looking or not. They will treat you the same and be honest with you. And you are should do the same.

As you grow older, it’s even harder to make good and genuine friends. Learn to hold on to the friendships you have built when growing up. It’s hard to replace long-time friends.

3. Romantic relationships

The first time I felt attracted to a person who was neither family nor a friend was around the age of twelve. There was this girl who transferred to our primary school. I found myself uneasy in her presence.

When she was around I found myself speechless. I realized I got more shy, more quiet and different. I usually engaged in conversation, shared jokes, played pranks, and enjoyed playful activities. Around her all that went away. I also realized I was giving her anything she asked for: my books, my notes, my pens and even my food sometimes.

At the time, I didn’t know what love was, so I felt it was just a deeper version of a normal friendship. When we finished primary school and went our separate ways without me confessing my feelings, I realised that was my first love.

Years have passed now; I have had that feeling more than four times. I learned you can love someone, and want to be with them all the time. I also learned you can love someone and want nothing to do with them.

People fall in love for different reasons. Some feel unexplainable butterflies in their stomach around someone. Some are attracted to how people look. For some, it’s because these people make them feel special. For others, it’s because they have spent so much time with them that they get attached.

Romantic relationships are about more than falling in love. People get into romantic relationships for different reasons. Some do so because of love, obviously. For some, it is out of circumstance. Others enter them because family or society arranged it.

In my life, I’ve learned that how you start a romantic relationship doesn’t matter. What really counts is who you are with and how you act within it. That’s what makes it last or fade away in a short time.

Two people build a romantic relationship. The less interference from others—including family, friends, and colleagues—the better.

If the two people in a relationship lack common ground, their bond is weak.

My approach to romantic relationships can be summarised in three points:

The first point is accepting the other person. Your partner has built beliefs, behaviours, and habits over many years. They learned from family, relatives, neighbours, friends, school, work, and places of worship.

That means they are not seeing the world as you do. They are never going to be like you. There is nothing wrong with the other person being different. You can see six and they see nine in the same situation, and you might both be right.

Accepting your partner’s differences will help you appreciate them and love them for who they are. Failing to do so is fuel for unnecessary arguing, drama and suffering.

Second, every partner has to learn how to communicate with each other. Everything in life goes back to communication. Countries go to war due to poor communication. , and countries form alliances due to good communication.

Good communication brings peace to romantic partners, but poor communication leads to conflict. Knowing what to say, when to say it, and how to say it is crucial. This helps the other person feel respected, loved, and cared for.

When voices rise, disrespectful words are thrown around, and stonewalling happens, no good comes of it.

Third is, romantic relationships are not there to complete anyone. This is perhaps the most important point. You don’t go into a relationship broken and expect your partner to complete or fix you. Nor are you perfect enough to fix your partner or complete them.

Phrases like “happy wife, happy life” are just lies. You need a happy person to make a happy life. If the husband is not happy, there is nothing he can offer his wife to make her happy. An unhappy husband trying to make a wife happy is a recipe for disaster.

Focus on personal growth. When you’re content and satisfied, you’ll be ready to support others. This creates a positive atmosphere that others will appreciate in return.

You can’t help a drowning person if you can’t swim. Learn to be happy on your own, and you will create an environment for happiness with your partner. Learn to be strong within yourself, and you will add strength to your partner. Learn to love yourself, and you will truly love your partner.

But all these points will mean nothing if you select the wrong partner. Invest your time, skills and energy in finding the right partner for you. The right one for you might not be the right person for your family, friends, pastor, sheikh or anyone else.

Be honest with yourself. You have an entire lifetime to spend with your partner.

Now that we’ve explored family, friends, and romantic relationships, we can say that:

Human beings are relational by nature. No one becomes a person alone. Family shapes us first. Friends refine us. Love exposes us. Colleagues test us. Society reveals what is in us.

The beauty of relationships is also what makes them difficult. Relationships matter because they are alive. They change. They demand forgiveness, patience, communication, sacrifice, and maturity.

Most relationship pain is not caused by hatred, but by immaturity. People hurt each other because of pride, selfishness, bad communication, insecurity, past wounds, and unrealistic expectations.

A good life is not built by avoiding relationship difficulty, but by learning how to handle it well. The goal is not perfect relationships. The goal is wise, honest, humane relationships.

Other people are not extensions of us. They think, heal, and love differently from we do. Caring deeply for someone means your life isn’t just about you anymore. Relationships reveal more than just who others are. They show us who we are under stress, disappointment, longing, and conflict.

I began my journey long before Mphami Chitingili from Zulu land in South Africa, and now I’m here with you. You might be reading this as a family member, friend, colleague, neighbour, lover, ex-lover, or someone we met online.

Each of you forms one of the bases of my life, relationships. I do my best to be intentional by being the best version of myself, so I can bring the best of me to you.

As the next part of this series also comes in three, we will discuss health. We will explore the body, mind, and spirit. We will look into how poor health can deeply diminish your quality of life and limit your potential.

Until then,

Think Deeply, Live Deliberately.

Watushule

I promised to dive deeper into the key points within those three topics. Before I do that, I feel the need to address the elephant in the room.

Relationships, health, and work are key. However, they aren’t equally important or relevant at the same time.

When we are young, relationships with our family and relatives mean everything. Our survival depends on it. When we become adults, our survival doesn’t depend much on our relationships; it goes to our work. And when we are old, our survival is all dependent on how healthy we are.

But one of the major things that influence what becomes more important and when is time. With time, life pushes our circumstances to value one over the other. And the major point about life is that it ends.

We talked about the previous article, life comes in threes: the beginning, middle, and end. Birth, life, and death. We had nothing to do about our birth. There is nothing we can do about our deaths.

Relationships, work, and health are important only in relation to our short time on earth. Before we dig deeper into them, let us address the elephant in the room: we will all die. And that should not scare us; it should motivate us to make the most of life.

The fact that no matter what you do, want, achieve, or fail, you will die. No matter what country, region, religion, or group you are coming from, you will die. The fact that you do not know when and how you will die.

Death is life’s biggest motivation. It is such a strong force that it can paralyse some people into depression. Many become so afraid of it that they forget to think about it at all.

Marcus Aurelius, one of the top five emperors of Rome, wrote his well-known journal, Meditations.

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do, say, and think.”

The emperor of the world’s mightiest empire thinks about death. This shows how strong the fear of death can be. He thought about death and realised that he needed reminders of how to feel, what to think, what to say, and what to do.

Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, said in his famous commencement speech at Stanford that

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it were your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

I lost three friends around my age in ways that caused deep heartbreak. I felt connected to the words of Steve Jobs and Marcus Aurelius during those tough times.

The first friend passed away in his sleep at home, surrounded by a sense of calm. He had no medical issues, illnesses, or accidents. He was someone I studied with in high school and university. Someone who had so many ambitions and plans, hard-working, charming, and very humble. I always tell myself I could be next, any time.

The second friend died after saying he had stomach pain all afternoon. When taken to hospital, they said nothing was wrong; two hours later, he passed away. He planned to marry next month. He also ran a successful stationery business at the University of Dar es Salaam. That can be you next, anytime with any pain that you feel.

My third friend, who was fine during the day, started complaining of pain in the evening. They took him to the hospital, but he died before he could reach it. I studied with him at university. He had a great job at an international bank. Plus, he has got married a few months ago. That can be any one of us.

Knowing that death is near should inspire you. It’s a reason to avoid laziness, stop procrastinating, and steer clear of wrongdoing. Don’t hurt others or give up. Instead, take smart risks and always do your best.

Understanding that death can come at any time should inspire you to be a good person. It encourages humility, gratitude for what you have, and a desire to help others. Also, it reminds you to be mindful and make a positive impact on your society.

Realising that you could die at any moment should push you to work harder. Put in long hours and don’t give up after failure. Focus on making your dreams a reality in this short, uncertain life.

When we talk about the most important things in life—relationships, work, and health—it’s key to remember our mortality. That is like the fuel needed for our car.

Remember life by reflecting on death. Visit cemeteries, attend funerals, and read scriptures about mortality. Instead of feeling afraid or sad, let these reminders inspire you. Live with intensity and embrace this brief, uncertain gift.

In the next article, we will explore key aspects of relationships. We’ll cover basic principles and share best practices for living a meaningful and sustainable life.

Until then,

Think Deeply, Live Deliberately.

Watushule

“Did you review your work three times?” I asked.

“Why three times?” she replied.

At first, I thought she was joking. Then I realised she was genuinely confused.

So I told her a story about when I first learned the value of reviewing work three times.

In my second year at the University of Dar es Salaam, I joined KPMG Tanzania, one of the Big Four auditing firms in the country and the world. On my first day, my supervisor assigned me a mentor: Mr Jeromini.

He welcomed me to the team and said something I have never forgotten:

“In every task, whether in audit or in life, review your work at least three times. No one does a good job the first time. The first review is to organise your work. The second is to catch the obvious errors. The third is to find the less obvious mistakes.”

My younger sister smiled and went away to review her work three times. She immediately saw the value in it.

But her question stayed with me. Why three?

The more I thought about it, the more I realised how often the number three appears in the things that matter most.

Life itself moves in three stages: beginning, middle, and end.

Living things follow the same pattern: birth, life, and death.

Even non-living things seem to pass through their own version of the same cycle: formation, existence, and destruction.

And once you start paying attention, you begin to see this pattern everywhere:

Past, present, future.

Mind, body, spirit.

Thought, action, outcome.

Discipline, consistency, results.

Individual, family, society.

Ready, steady, go.

One of the most fascinating examples is found in mathematics and engineering. There are many shapes in mathematics, but the triangle is one of the strongest and most stable. Engineers and builders rely on triangular structures because a triangle holds its form under pressure. It has three sides, and those three sides create strength.

That made me think of life.

We all seek strength.

We all seek stability.

And our lives unfold between birth and death.

Both ideas point back to the same number: three.

It seems to me that a stable and sustainable life is built on three pillars:

Relationships.

Work.

Health.

These three pillars connect like a triangle. When one weakens, the whole structure is affected. If your life feels unstable, there is a good chance that one of these pillars is out of place.

Relationships can be broken down into family and relatives, romantic partners, and friends. Any one of these can shape or shake a person’s life. Divorce, heartbreak, betrayal, or family conflict can spill over into both health and work.

Work can also be broken into three parts: the work you do for money, the work you do for passion, and the work you do for growth. It is rare to find all three fully aligned. Most people have one or two, but not all three. That is why so many people feel restless in their work. And unstable work often affects both relationships and health.

Health, too, comes in three dimensions: body, mind, and spirit. If the body is weak, movement becomes difficult. If the mind is unhealthy, judgment becomes distorted. If the spirit is neglected, life can begin to feel empty, even when other things appear to be working.

So we have identified three essential parts of a stable life: relationships, work, and health.

The next task is to explore each of them more deeply, and to uncover the practical wisdom and lived experience that can help us strengthen them.

If your life feels unstable, look for what is missing in your three.

And do not accept my conclusion too quickly. Pause and ask yourself:

Is it true?

Is it useful?

Is it aligned?

In the coming articles, we will explore each of these pillars in greater detail.

Think Deeply. Live Deliberately.

Watushule