The sanity of a nation 🇰🇪

It is said that one of the ways of being an effective problem solver is through testing your beliefs and ideas across a variety of scenarios. This in turn means dealing with people beyond your world, thus developing certain degrees of empathy and sympathy.

Unfortunately, we are so digitally connected, yet so far away from each other’s experiences. Social media is not a bench for therapy sessions or a space for useful human-centered debates. A professional, for instance, would share his/her side of the story, only to be shocked to face backlash from strangers who refuse to revise their opinions.

I remember a post I came across sometime ago on Twitter, where a lady opened up that she had resigned from her job without a plan B because of the toxic environment she was operating in, so bad she was on the verge of slipping into depression. She had persevered while secretly having a LinkedIn tab open, seeking other job offers, until when she had accommodated so much, and her much was enough.

Many people sympathized with her, narrating their stories as well. But such stories always have a ‘However’. However, some folks, the loudest, questioned her tenacity, doubted her level of ambition, consoling her that at least she had the option of quitting anyway.

Or when a parent, experiencing anguish, posts his/her missing child, only to be told by laughing strangers to ‘follow the stick.’ You’d be tempted to call them ‘Sick people’, but wait, the child isn’t theirs right?

See, that is why we tend to have sympathy towards our closest people, or those who we share some experiences.

If you have a close person who’s a doctor, you’d understand why they would opt to go on strike, leaving patients praying for the best. If you have one who is a police officer, then you’d be mute when the talk is how they never miss opportunities to receive bribes. If you have one who is a journalist, you’d be hesitant to join the herd in labelling all of them as ‘githeri’. If you have one who is a pastor, then you’d understand why that offering is a matter of life and death for the dependants. If you have one who’s a drug addict, you’d understand why they behave the way they do. If you have one who’s a divorcee, you’d understand why the vows sometimes break. If you have one who’s a leader, then you’d understand why problems that seem so obvious take generations to get solved.

This in turn means that the more you’re exposed to different people, stories and experiences, the quieter you become while seated at the council of critics. This presents the age-old debate on why fierce critics in anything, when given an opportunity to work their talk, barely get stuff done.

Why are we so good at seeing what we want? We don’t like going to the heart of the matter, and we are very good at being too occupied to ask “What’s the matter?”

I’ll never forget an experience I had years ago. Mary*, my workmate, had started really slacking off at her job. She would come to work late and sleekly stroll across the open office to her desk. During meetings, when asked about her assignments, she’d not only boldly say she’d not done any, but also showed no ounce of remorse.

This concerned the boss, and one could tell that the countdown to her last day had begun. Mary and I were close, the type of closeness brought about by being young age-mates in an office full of guys way ahead on their career paths.

When chatting together, she’d be her bubbly self, then gradually disappear into her cave. Before you’d engage in a longer conversation, she’d pack up her stuff and leave for the day.

While I could sense something was off, I was also not present for a sister. Back then, I was notoriously focused on knocking off items on my daily list - the kind of ruthless focus that comes when one is handed a rare chance. I felt that anything that halted this process was a bother. I was yet to understand what Paulo Coelho in his book Manuscript Found In Accra, meant when he quoted the mysterious dude called The Copt:

“Discipline is important, but it needs to leave doors and windows open for intuition and the unexpected.”

Days later, in the office after a meeting, when teased, “What’s happening to your sister??”, I patted her on the back while hurrying out of the office and said without a byte of contemplation, “Don’t worry, you’ll be okay.”

I was stopped on my steps when I heard her breaking down in tears. At first, it seemed like it would pass, only for her to continue crying and crying in the presence of the boss and myself. It was like I had pushed a button unknowingly by showing a spark of rushed compassion.

She then narrated the issue she was going through in secret, and then embarked on a journey of recovery, gradually getting her groove back and finishing assignments so flawlessly like Steph Curry’s shots!

In the podcast episode The sanity of a nation, we talked on how we should stop being distant, and become present for our friends and relatives.

Were it not for this experience, imagine how judgemental I’d be towards people who appear like they are losing it, without understanding there’s more than meets the eye. Turns out people’s behaviors isn’t just a binary 1 or 0 affair; it’s grey. Every action or attitude has a cause. Things don’t just happen.

Imagine the difference you could make, by merely being available.

Talk... Talk… Talk…

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