My 20/20 success formula for the New Year: You should go for it too

Families having fun at Uhuru Park, Nairobi on December 26, 2019 during Utamaduni Day celebrations. PHOTO | DENNIS ONSONGO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • For you and me, I propose 2020 as a symbol of our positive performance and “unlimited” success in the year.
  • You may not hit your target with the first shot, but if you do not act on your dreams, how can you make them come true?
  • I will open up by receiving everyone I meet with a generous, positive attitude, expecting the best of them.

The New Year, 2020, looks like it is going to be a year of total success for me, and for you, too. Join me in reading and interpreting the figures and applying them to our life’s journey. Since I will soon be 76, and I am still enjoying the show, I can claim to be a fairly reliable guide.

Does the symmetry of the dawning year, 2020, strike you? I read it as “twenty-over-twenty”. In our traditional system, the perfect grade is ten-over-ten. But what about doubling the score, making it twenty-over-twenty (20/20)? It would still work out as 100 per cent, by the miracles of mathematics.

For you and me, I propose 2020 as a symbol of our positive performance and “unlimited” success in the year. The two is double achievement while the zero stands for “nil failures”. Twenty-twenty will thus become our mantra and mnemonic (reminder) device for the year. We will tell ourselves each morning, “This is 2020, my year of double success and zero failure,” and then get going.

NO LIMITS

Indeed, the only way we can know whether we are achieving (or not) is by acting. This is the best lesson we learn from Eliud Kipchoge, EGH. It was by plenty of running that he realised he could run a full marathon in under two hours.

You may not want to run a marathon, or rap like King Kaka. But what about that great story that you have always wanted to write, or that vegetable garden to change the health of your neighbourhood and the size of your pocket? Twenty-twenty is the time to have a crack at it. You may not hit your target with the first shot, but if you do not act on your dreams, how can you make them come true?

The “zero-failure” part of our formula lies in never accepting defeat. A guy in a neighbouring country has been running for President at practically every election in recent history, and losing. But he wants to run again in 2021. Strong players in every field do not have the term “failure” in their vocabulary. One of the best inspirational lines I ever heard is: to true winners, so-called failure is only postponed success.

OPTIMISM

You can see I am entering the New Year in an optimistic and buoyant mood. This is what I wish for you too. Armed with this positive and creative attitude, we proceed with focussing on the specifics of what we want to do in the times ahead. Many of us call these “resolutions”. I, for example, am summing up my 2020 activities in a formula that I am calling “L-L-L-L”, four Ls. These are “live, love, learn, and labour”. I will expand on them presently.

First, however, I should point out that our individual focus choices will vary according to our personal and social particulars, such as age, gender, beliefs, economic circumstances, ambitions and existing relationships. If, for example, you are a young professional raising a young family and pursuing a higher academic qualification, your focus formula may be “parenting, profession, PhD” (PPP)! Incidentally, they do not always have to alliterate or assonate.

Four features, however, should characterise all our choices. The first is priority. How important is your resolution to you and your people? Secondly, consider practicability, the realistic possibility of fulfilling what you choose to focus on. Then there is passion: that strong desire and urge to do, and do well, what you have set your mind upon. Finally, and connecting with all the others, there is profit. What concrete, positive contribution will your “resolution” make to your life and the lives of those around you? Priority, practicability, passion and profit, four Ps. Do we have another case of alliteration there?

WINNING FORMULA

Back to my four Ls, they are obviously the tactics and targets of an ageing man, but they test reasonably well against the four Ps. My resolve to “live” in 2020, for example, literally means surviving at my best, physically, mentally and spiritually. A healthy and active lifestyle, regular recourse to reliable medical services, vigorous intellectual, creative and artistic activity and a deepening of my relationship with the Supernatural through contemplation, meditation and prayer are all time-tested practices readily available to me.

I will not elaborate on “learning” and “labouring”, beyond pointing out that the older I grow, the more I realise the importance of serious study and hard work. I realise that I know so little that I will, in 2020, double my efforts to listen, discuss and, especially, read in order to deepen my ignorance. As for my “labour” resolution, it is a work ethic. My 2020 will be a year of serious and unremitting work, filling every waking minute with a worthwhile activity. If you join me in this resolve, we can change this country.

GENUINE LOVE
Above all, however, is my resolve to “love”. This has nothing to do with the sloppy, floppy lusting, scheming and betraying with which we deceive and ruin one another. My 2020 love will comprise three main links, namely, opening up, respect and appreciation. I will open up by receiving everyone I meet with a generous, positive attitude, expecting the best of them. This will prepare me for truly respecting my contacts and acquaintances on the vital basis of their humanity.
Above all, in my love campaign, I intend to explicitly recognise, appreciate and thank those many people who have loved me, and still love me, all these years and decades. Their acceptance, tolerance and respect of me, as a child, sibling, friend, colleague, lover, husband parent, pupil, student or teacher, have made me what I am.
If you are reading me now, your attention to my scribbles is a clear gesture of your accepting me as a writer, and I might as well start by reciprocating with my love. Loving you should be the easiest part of my 2020 resolutions!
Have a blessed, blissful and successful New Year!