Letting go yesterday and living today

Yesterday and the day before yesterday are not like today. (Swahili)

Dear Zayda,

Each new day is unlike any that has gone before.

This first year of your life is special for your mom and dad, because your daily changes remind that that nothing remains the same from one day to the next. Those close enough to you to see you grow can know that what is true about you, is true about us all. No day that is past can be anything like the day we have now.

Yet many of us feel weighed down by our yesterdays as we get older. We may see ourselves as stuck in old thoughts and old habits. We allow our yesterdays to dictate what our today will be like. We allow the past to decide the future.

But we can always take charge of today.

Uncle Mass (my mother's brother whose real name is Colin) has been a farmer all his life. Being with living things is a way to remind us that each day is different. Plants grow and change through different seasons. Our plants in Jamaica do not have a long winter sleep as yours do in Canada, but we have seasons just the same. So Uncle Mass has his time to plant seeds, to nourish his plants, and to harvest the fruit. He keeps cows and goats as well, and each day for his animals is also different from the days that went before.

Uncle Mass is now 93 years old. He continues to let go of the yesterdays and treat each new day like a gift. By eight o’clock each morning. Uncle Mass has completed about half-day’s work on his farm. He will take a break in the middle of the day when the sun hot, and then he is back doing his chores in the cool of the afternoon. He remains as slim and healthy as men young enough to be his grandsons. Recently, he was on his roof directing repairs. When I visit him, we discuss local and global politics, and he has opinions on all the events going on around him. He and his brother Bob are neighbours, but Uncle Mass is as independent as he was when I was a child.

Aunt Ettie (my father’s sister)is a special example to me of focusing on what we can do in the present rather than living in regrets about yesterday. On one of her trips to England, someone stole all her money at the start of her holiday. I am sure she was sad for a moment, but she did not spend her “today” feeling sorry about what “yesterday” put in her way. Aunt Ettie called on family in England for help. A cousin was happy to lend her the funds she needed, and Aunt Ettie had a great trip. Only when she returned to Jamaica did she even mention to family here the loss she had suffered.

Aunt Ettie showed us how useless it was to allow yesterday, with its joys or pains, to keep us from enjoying today.

Yes, the joys of yesterday can hold us back if we allow them to do so. Some of us, when we are at school, forget that the good report was about yesterday’s work. We need to know that today is a different day with new things to learn if we want to keep growing.

It seemed as if no one could beat Jamaica’s Usain Bolt after he broke the world record at the 100 metres sprint race. However, he recently had a reminder of how different yesterday is from today. A runner from the USA, Tyson Gay, recently ran faster than Usain in a race.

Today is the day, my grandniece. The Romans used to say, “Carpe diem”. That means “capture the day.” May we, like Uncle Mass and Aunt Ettie, live fully in the present.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Replacing fear and hate with courage

This Adinkra symbol is "Akofena". These two swords represent courage.





That which you fear most is likely to occur; the one you hate the most is likely to take over. (Ethiopia)

Dear Zayda,

If this Ethiopian proverb is right (and I think it is), we seem to be building up a lot of trouble in Jamaica right now. Whatever we fear and whomever we hate has power over us. On the other hand, faith and love have power beyond what we can imagine. Our strength comes from the courage to think our way to solutions, rather than simply react to problems.

People in Jamaica seem to fear crime so much that they don’t want to look at it. And if you don’t look at something, you can’t solve it. In fact, looking at something puts you have way toward solving it since you know what you are dealing with. Or at least you are willing to see what the problem is.

So at this moment we have a State of Emergency that has gone on for almost two months. The government is likely to renew this State of Emergency this week, and seem likely to continue renewing it for the rest of the year. The police like it, business people like it, people uptown and downtown seem to like it, and I can think of few people who think it should end now. But sometimes, Zayda, we have to stand up for what we believe even if we are alone or in a small group. It’s not a question if we are right or wrong, it’s a question of being firm in what we are convinced is true.

I can understand the public response to the State of Emergency, because living with crime and fear of crime can make people so stressed out they get sick. Living that way makes many of us prisoners in our homes and in our cars. We feel we must live behind grills and with our windows rolled up and car doors locked all the time. We panic if we hear a sound at night, even if it is just a neighbour’s cat hunting for mice. If the wind rattles a window we might freeze in our beds. Yes, it is that bad to live in a country with a high rate of crime.

So the State of Emergency gives an ease, at least for a while. However, it is like a band-aid over a broken leg. The State of Emergency gives the police huge powers, so every the police cordon and search areas – they surround a community and block it so people can’t just go in and out as they wish, and then they search for bad men and guns. The police can also arrest as many people as they like, and they don’t need to have a reason. Besides, they can hold the people for months, and they don’t need to charge the people with any offences. So crime is down, mainly because the wrongdoers are laying low for a while. The band aid is on, but the broken leg is not fixed.

At some point, the band aid is going to drop off or be taken off, and then what? That which people fear most is likely to return, perhaps all the worse for being allowed to get worse because we feared it so much we would not look at it and try to deal with it directly. The State of Emergency will end, even though I think there are those who would like it to continue indefinitely, so we never have to start healing what is admittedly ugly to look at.
At this time, people are saying how much they hate criminals. Some would like criminals locked up forever, and many say outright that they have no problem with killing criminals. Others compare criminals to cockroaches or other pests that the country needs to get rid of, even if some innocents die in the process. So, if the Ethiopian proverb is correct, the criminals seem likely to take over when the State of Emergency ends – what we hate most is likely to take over. Worse still, if our fears prevented us from solving the problems that were making people do bad things rather than look to what is good for everyone.

We probably can’t help all of Jamaica to turn from fear and hate, but we can help ourselves. So, my grandniece, let us look at life through the eyes of love. Let us look at people, no matter their actions, through the eyes of love. Love doesn’t mean we allow bad things to happen. Love means we try to prevent the bad things from happening. And if the bad things happen, love means we look for ways to prevent them from happening again. And courage means we take steps that may not make us popular.

Our solutions don’t need to be perfect, since we can keep learning how to do things better. What is important is that, no matter our fears, we keep growing. And loving.

Blessings,

Your shangazi