Next year I want to know God more, I will buy a car, I will go back to school, I will make new friends, I will buy a house! These and many others make it to people’s New Year resolutions. Some will appear once while others make a comeback year in year out. 

If there are any lessons from the last two years, it is that New Year resolutions don’t work for me. For long, I wrote them down, I spoke some out but they never came to pass. Then in 2018 some things I had always wished for happened naturally. This year got even better, great things I never dared to dream possible found their way to me. Let me take you through some of the previous resolutions; for several years I promised to exercise more. This was because I often felt lazy in spite of the amount of walking I did in a day. This year without any provocation I found myself taking long walks every Saturday; I will never forget the day I walked for four hours and thirty minutes. That was a milestone. 

Then, of all the years this is the one where my needs had significantly reduced, a lot of family obligations were well managed, it was time for me to spend a lot more on me so I vowed to spoil myself (even promised to start plaiting my hair again. Very few people know the real reason I cut it….). On the contrary it happened to be the year I had a sort of budget….my financial expert friend Isaac Nkusi will not believe this; I spent money in a more organised manner. I spent less and saved more. Another significant move this year was constantly reviewing my list of friends, without any prompting. We all have friends that see us only when we are the ones buying, or the ones that show up end of the month, the ones that take and never give, yeah? I had a few of those in my life and like dry leaves I watched as they fell off. For some my deeds showed them it was time up, others had to travel or move to a different town. 

‘I will learn how to swim,’ I lost count of the number of times I said this; my family and friends knew each end of the year I would threaten them with a trip to the ocean and that by then I would have known how to swim. Well, I have not become a pro but for the first time without anyone anticipating or watching, I did a few minutes under water on my own. At my age hurrah! 

Live life to the fullest! I made a few random trips, Nyabugogo became so near and thanks to those buses I have toured Rwanda stress free and low budget. Last but not least I found time to read and read I did, before this I would jump from one book or magazine to the next, this time I finished the Art of War, Find Your Why and Leaders Eat Last. Even if I don’t read for the next two years I am fully sorted with the unexpected titles that landed in my hands. Good bye New Year resolutions, I am not your friend.