EPISODE IV: MESSY LIFE

 

ORIGINAL SERIES

Enthusiastic people walking in the messy life of a city/Credit/Sam Rankin

EPISODE IV: MESSY LIFE

Life in the city is happening fast. I was here to make progress. I was supposed to move from one step to the next. However, in real life big city reality, that is not what is happening. Instead, many things are happening at the same time. People are not only going up and down but also losing it altogether. My findings had revealed to me that adults are not super humans after all. And I can see it. They don’t have perfect lives. Their lives are covered by scars. Scars of sometimes getting and sometimes missing it. The big city is driving people crazy. Life is not what they had been told. Adults found lemons in the big city. And I am not sure if, they are turning those lemons into lemonade. I also learned very quickly from my own experience that I was not going to navigate from point A to B as textbook showed.     

In fact, textbook has a perfect picture. And that is what most people ended up with in the big city. However, in real life, things are a little bit harder or different. You learn very late that your hard work is not enough. Something else is needed from you. Something that nobody else ever told you. You only wake up to the harsh truth. And you are supposed to get it right. I think that is what most adults are struggling with. Discovering new things late in life. Things that no one had told them about. In their lack of experience or little exposure, some have made very ridiculous mistakes. At least, the big city has so many things for me to see and learn. It is not just the marvelous new buildings that are coming up. It is a combination of so many things. Adults here struggling with responsibility, city council police fighting with criminals there, and myself here trying to understand life.

The desire to understand had pushed me to carry out an undercover research. And the findings were not just interesting. They were fascinating in all ways. One of those ways being, making me wise. I was able to grasp a lot of things from the research findings. The things that I learned were beyond being reported. I learned for example, why life in a big city can turn out messy. People come to a city with certain expectations. Expectations such as, finding greener pastures or earning an education. That was why I was in the big city. I was hoping to further my studies. I had a big desire to further my education. Part of the desire was to become a professional and change something. I was eager to make my contribution to the market. And the contribution made it easy to live in the big city because my eyes were on what I will become and what I will do with the knowledge.

An excited woman enjoying life

I was upbeat when I arrived in the big city. However, messy life usually has its own expectations. Life always hides its true face. And it never tells anyone about its hidden talents. People only learn of it too late. They only discover later after making some decisions that they need to adjust or change something. If, their life has to progress as envisioned, they have no choice but to change something. Their plans can only succeed if, they adjust themselves. I am a big witness to these hidden characteristics of life. I saw how life turned out for me in the big city. It was nothing close to what I had in mind. I had specific plans. However, life started serving me lemons when I arrived. In my mind, I thought I could get some cakes as a welcome gesture. However, life had something else for me. It started off by showing me its other ugly side.

I am not sure whether life was doing that to scare me or not. But it was up to something. Something that it had not laid out clear for me to understand. So I don’t know what life was doing with the new things that it introduced to me. When I came to the big city, I was following the perfect textbook example. I knew how I was going to start and how I was going to finish. I was going to begin by enrolling in the University. I was going to take law and I was going to end up as one of those elite lawyers. That was what I had in mind. Life did not inform me in advance that when it happens live, it has edits. For example, life did not inform me about other competing costs or needs that might interfere with my plans. I only learned about them later. I had already arrived in the city. Therefore, when the twists and turns started happening, I was in the big city.

Those late discoveries did not mess me around. I managed to beat life on that one. I am not the kind of person that gets knocked down that easily. I had some resilience back in my mind. And I had taken full advantage of living in a big city. There was so much to see and learn. For example, I was learning so much from my apprentice work. And when I was not working. I would check out things in the big city. I loved familiarizing myself with streets and what happens on those particular streets. As such, the hidden talents of life did not surprise me. I was prepared at that capacity. I could say that perhaps, I was lucky. But for some people, life was doing a good mess on them. It was especially, messing with their mind. Most of them were disappointed. Their plans were stalled. And they did not like the idea of waiting.

Waiting was not part of their expectations. They had thought up and planned well. There was no way, things were turning out very disappointing. That is not what they had in mind. They had envisioned their lives around a straight line. They were going to move from one activity to the next. Just like how textbook painted the picture for them. As a result of the opposite outcome, some people were beyond upset. They did not like the detours they found on the way. But it was a different case for me. The twists and turns turned out captivating. My thinking head managed to come up with resourceful ideas. These ideas kept me busy. And I loved them back. I loved the new information these ideas were generating for me. In fact, I was seeing a brand new world. The ideas were opening me up to new things. And I love new things. My life flourishes under new things and discoveries.

There is a big difference when someone else tells you about stuff and when you observe things. The way that people report on those things could be misleading or entertaining. It all depends on who is telling the story. And whether the person telling the story is the primary or secondary source. However, when you observe without those filters and biases, you see a lot of things. The raw life that happens in front of you has so much to tell. It can be a warning or information at the same time. You just need to pay attention. In fact, the messiness found in life is meant to act as a warning. You need some level of wisdom to understand or notice the warnings. And the big city had a lot of those warnings. Watching people do different things and how those different things made them feel was a refreshing way for me to understand life.

A man enjoying the street of a big city

I needed a third eye away from what other people said. I grew up hearing things. And here, I had an opportunity to debunk or cement some of those things. It was a great opportunity to learn things from my own account. No one was feeding me something. I was seeing for myself and making my own judgment. That was important. It helped me to see lies and truths, all served on the same table. I had a wonderful choice ahead of me. I could choose what I wanted to conclude. That was a big step. It was like preparing a new recipe from the beginning. And I was going to be the first person to taste the recipe. Life was interesting at this point. In the past, I had not accessed many opportunities to learn things on my own. I was always around adults. And adults sometimes shelf some things from their children. When a parent perceives that something could be a threat, his/her first instinct is to protect the child.

And I was no more a child. The big city was ushering me into young adulthood. It was doing so using interesting ways. It was placing me at the center and allowing me first accounts. Life was trying to say something to me without saying anything. I had the task of deciphering what it was saying in silence. And it seems, I was good at understanding the silent element of life. In the big city, I did not just see people struggling. I also saw people who were thriving and making great decisions. Life was a mixture of so many things in the big city. There were a lot of possibilities. I only needed to position myself. And decide how I was going to consume the things that were happening. That is why I loved the turns and rounds of life in the big city. There was so much that could break you. And there was so much that could build you.

You only needed to decide how you were going to respond to the different faces of life. I wanted to make progress. I also wanted to get ahead. And the city was contributing to this progress in the freshest way. It was doing so in a not-so-clear manner. And I liked the invisible aspect of the city and life. It was good for me. I enjoy figuring out stuff anyway. And perhaps, the not-so-clear part made my life in the big city very entertaining. It opened me up to learning and experiencing life in a new way. It also helped me to generate new experiences about life in my own way. For example, I witnessed the level of irresponsibility among several people in the big city. And I ended up not wanting anything to do with it. I just told myself that cannot live my life that way. I cannot approve that type of lifestyle. I want my own experiences from an authentic point of view.

And my point of view was to go past irresponsibility. There was something that was causing that irresponsibility I kept seeing in the big city. I needed to understand that underlying cause. Then I would use the new information to make my own judgment regarding that lifestyle. And life had a method it was using to convey important lessons. Life had sharpened my observation skills. I learned a lot by observing. And that is how life wanted me to experience my world. For instance, I had to observe people struggle to avoid struggle in my own life. From this angle, I vividly saw the beauty of messy life. It knows a lot than most of us. And it has specific ways it imparts its wisdom and knowledge to the world. Life throws up lessons in different corners of our lives. And it never tells that it is offering a lesson.

It serves these lessons very well. Life teaches well. If you come with a good attitude, life will teach you a lot. You will escape the most dangerous phases in your life. However, life is not always clear about sharing lessons. It never paints a clear picture that tells you to ready yourself for a lesson. You only learn about the wisdom on the go. People who find life as rough, are the ones who never see beyond the surface of life. However, if you go past the face value of life, you will come out polished. The big city revealed all these things to me. The big city taught me that I can make progress. It showed me that life can be what it is and I can still become anything I want. It only required me to remain alive. I was supposed to live in the moment. To see what I was supposed to see. This way, I could make all the progress I wanted.