Don’t cry over spilt milk, there is a lesson to be learnt

Work, family, school and friendships are all a string of life relationships that cannot be done away with. Not because they are mandatory, but because they are all intertwined and linked into a complex pattern that cannot easily be broken. Once there is a damaged link, then the results are evident in people’s life patterns. When I focus on Rwanda, it seems like almost everyone has a reason to be bitter because of this or that. At the start of a conversation, you almost expect to hear the same mantra of, “our past is bad …we are poor …we have no jobs …look at all these street children…oh my God, what are we going to do”? The conclusion with a similar theme pops up along these lines, “if only a stinking rich somebody or country would just help us, then we would be ok”. Lamentation, unfortunately, has become the order of the day for many Rwandans. For a season it is healthy but on a daily basis it’s damaging. Can we not, despite the stress and burdens that we shoulder, open our eyes and focus each day to the brighter side of this world? What people need to understand is that there is no one that will be spared adversity. True, some challenges are more arduous than others, but for each person, their challenge is an uphill battle. Health issues, financial problems, marital instability, difficulties while raising children, are just a few of the struggles that will come our way. We cannot choose our life’s challenges; however, we can choose how to get through the challenges. This is what determines whether we become bitter or better. The choice is ours. Dwelling on the past and what has already happened does not help much but rather learning from experience is the right direction. When Rwanda, as a sovereign state, decides to make amends and repair broken ties with other sovereign states, its progress. When the army, besides strengthening military ties with Belgium, decides to back the education sector, in the drive to build classrooms for the Nine-Year-Basic Education scheme, that’s progress happening. Challenges, in my own view, can easily be explained as our life test that makes us emerge stronger and wiser. We create what we want out of life and choose to head a particular direction. When this happens it means that we have unearthed a part of ourselves that was previously concealed and have finally discovered our hidden potential. For this reason, Rwanda besides being the centre of stability in the region has become a lesson for many states to learn from. Our banner is our legacy. When going through difficulties, instead of becoming lamenters and miserable people, we need to ask ourselves what lessons we are teaching the younger generation. Lamentation can’t be it; it must be positivity through sacrificial service that leads to progress and development. The author is a journalist with The New Times anyglorian@yahoo.com