By Anthony Muchoki :
A time comes when one has to call it quits at the regular work place, or to
use the language of the queen, the time to say goodbye to formal employment.
Some only retire due to old age, others when they go to the grave while the
bright chaps do it because they want to sink their teeth into business,
mostly after being pissed off by their nosy bossy bosses.
“I started my own business because I wanted to be my own boss— I could not
stand any longer being bossed around by a woman, a woman just like me,” says
Mama Tumaini, hands akimbo and assuring- you see, I have done well.
“Yes, look and this LOVE4, my handsome motorcar… if I was still working as a
lowly paid secretary for that woman, I could never been able to acquire it….
my sweat pays me, it is no longer for others,” she says.
But when you are like yours truly, the reason for retirement before reaching
40, maybe a bit weird. I wanted to make my beer hours longer, write more,
and more tenth rate columns, like laughing to stop crying and books, that
might never be published.
Don’t look at me with those pitiful eyes. You see, when you take one
Kilimanjaro for the road, then the second one, the mind becomes so clear,
and you gain some confidence, that is, if you were at a low point in your
life.
In fact, after a few beers you can sing about your goats and cows even if
you have never owned a hen. That is what, a writer like me calls double
creativity.
Beer is good. Even Jesus converted water into beer (was it wine?). When I
see a good girl, I have to take 3 for the road to muster the courage to say
to her, “hey, miss beautiful, you are the queen of my heart, the love of my
life. Can I kiss you?”
Apart from my close blood relatives, I can’t look at any woman straight in
the eyes unless, I have drowned some beer. In short, I am trying to tell you
that I had to get totally drunk to ask the woman I ended up with, for her
hand in marriage.
In a way, beer helped me to get a wife…. No wonder I am not in a hurry to
stop refreshing and revitalizing my body with it.
Enough beer here, I don’t want you to get drank. Let me tell you why should
consider retiring on or before 40. You don’t have to retire for dear bottle
like me, you can do some noble things, as you give a chance to school
leavers and fresh graduates to show their mantle.
Don’t be like some men and women, despite having reached past 55, past
retirement age- they are still jobbing…. they keep on chopping a few years
off their birth certificates. Life goes on…
I guess, if Jesus the Christ lived in Bongoland and his father was a
carpenter somewhere in Manzese, Dar es Salaam, one of the lessons he could
have taught us would be:
“Verily, Verily, I tell you, as a father thou shall not compete for the same
jobs with your sons and daughters.”
And Peter, who I hear is the heaven’s gatekeeper, could have taken the
gospel further:
“Fathers should plough their lands and become self sufficient by the time
they are 40. After that, they should leave the land to their children and
enter informal employment. Surely, if you do that, the kingdom shall be
yours and your children who will follow you.”
Luke, the doctor could have said it point blank: “If you don’t retire from
formal employment by 40, none of your children, none whatsoever shall ever
be employed formally. For you will have eaten the food for your own
children.”
Judas Iscariot would say: “Fathers should not remove food from their
children’s mouth.” But you can bet, he would be the first one to do the
opposite.
We, human beings are very funny creatures. We keep on multiplying,
populating mother earth, but unlike rabbits that leave their holes for their
children, we start competing for the same juice with our children.
—
Today & always do what you can to make the world a better place