So some random guy in a random space once told maisha imenishinda. Meanwhile the guy telling me Maisha imenishinda because I haven’t lived up to patriarchal expectations of being enslaved by a man and his offspring, lives in a very noisy neighborhood, you could barely hear what he was saying, he’s in a rental house I bet! Ok! But Mimi ndio Maisha imeshinda?! Do you see why I block people?! A guy in a rental house in Eastlands the hub of crime telling me how Maisha imenishinda?! Every long weekend I go to the beach while you are in your noisy ghetto bashing women on manosphere podcasts! You cannot afford your own place in a nice secure hood let alone to go on holiday but you can step to me and compare yourself to me. Brooo I just block! I don’t have time for desperados. I’m planning my retirement at the Coast as you are still in your shack! Chimpanzees and audacity!
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“You’re 27, living in your own house, paying rent, electricity, wifi, and buying your own tissue and somehow you think that’s an achievement?”
I saw this somewhere earlier in the week and me I (Kenyanese) did not understand what was wrong.
Why do people always assume an achievement is just buying a house, a car, land etc.
Brooo if am feckking paying my rent, my wifi, cooking and eating, sleeping until I wake up voluntarily without my mother waking me up to clean the house…it’s a feckking achievement! Suck it in!
Me me me. I buy a lollipop with my own money? Achievement.
Eat boiled maize and strong tea? Achievement.
Buy a ferrari? Achievement. Why in between my achievement do you want to belittle my achievement?
Let me tell you Maina. Am the type that will eat at kibandaski because I have missed zile chipo za kueka kwa nylon pamoja na tomato sauce (not ketchup) and that will be an achievement. Hamjui utamu.
Then there are days that I splurge hundreds of thousands for a night’s stay at a hotel. Is that an achievement? To me who loves sleep and quiet in the middle of a nowhere with my busaa and the money that I work for, absolutely yes.
Achievements can never mean the same thing to all of us at the same time. And mostly its never about the fanciest of things.
It is different on everyone. Some people are building companies, others are rebuilding themselves.
Some are starting families, others are learning how to finally take care of their own mental health.
Some are chasing boardroom seats, others are just trying to survive the week without crying into a plate of ugali and sukuma. Some of us are just waking up from a complete busaa blackout that made us sleep in the lifts and that God heard our sitarudia tena prayer and woke us up, it is a good thing thang! ( I have evidence in the pics).
Others just want the next meal, a job, fare back home from a day of hustle. Others just got a baby from years of trying.
All of that counts.
So yes, celebrate your milestones bana. Whether it’s your first apartment, your first solo trip, your first soft Sunday nap without guilt, or the first time you said “no” to something that didn’t serve you.
Cele feckking brate it!
Life is a collection of personal victories.
And the fact that you’re still here showing up, figuring it out, paying bills, dreaming, failing, trying again….that alone is an achievement.
So clap for yourself. Loudly.
You’re doing better than you think.
Celebrate it.
Let’s stop watering down people’s versions of achievement because we think our versions are better or we want to impose feckking society standards on everyone.
Let people be. They surely have a reason to celebrate the small small daily achievements.
Me that does not own land is celebrating that I woke up early and attended a networking event and met absolutely amazing people.
Am in bed now to get an hour of sleep and yes it is an achievement because I have had a restful weekend.
Ng’waaa ng’waaa ng’waaa rental house, tissues ng’waaa we are not the same.
You…. were you there when those things lacked?
We will celebrate them. Those litu litu achievents? We will celebrate! So shhhh. Litu village witch.
