Eulogizing his father, Jimmy Kibaki once shared a story I often return to.
As a young man, cushioned by his father’s wealth, Jimmy admits he lived recklessly. Drinking heavily, staying out late and stumbling home at odd hours. Most nights, the house would already be asleep. He would pass the night in his car, at the watchman’s house, or sprawled on the verandah couch.
One night, however, everything changed.
He arrived home at about 1 a.m. and found his old man, Emilio, seated quietly on the verandah, sipping his scotch. Startled and drunk, Jimmy froze. Emilio asked him to sit. Contrary to the expected wrath, what followed was a calm, man-to-man conversation.
“Jimmy, where are you coming from at this hour, night after night?”
“I have been having a series of business meetings with some associates,” Jimmy replied.
His father paused, then said, “Son, whatever businesses you think can be built at dusk are mostly in vain. I am your father and clearly wealthier than you will ever be. But I did not make my wealth in bars at midnight.”
“You wouldn’t understand, Dad. Times have changed.”
“Yes, times have changed,” Old Emilio said, “But money, and the ways of making it, have not. There is very little you will build out there, drunk, in the dark.”
Jimmy says that conversation stayed with him. From then on, he made a personal rule that no matter what, he would be home for dinner with his family.
It is also said that the Obama’s can count, with ease, the number of dinners they have had without Barack.
I do not support police brutality. But there is a certain late-night madness that needs to be firmly checked, even clobbered, before it hardens into habit.
Go home early. Eat. Rest. Wake up fresh.
That is how roads to Singapore are built.
It’s Friday.