Elements of Surprises ~ Life

Shali Mwandoe
4 min readNov 24, 2023

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Life has been gracious in its wonders. Having to wake up happy, only to be frustrated by your coffee machine. Only to slip in your bathroom while taking a shower. You have to burn your favourite shirt as you iron it and prepare for the sermon. Forgetting to turn off your tap and end up in the evening with floods in your house. Surprises- were meant to surprise you.

These make life exciting and dangerous to some individuals. There are moments when you feel the stars are aligned for your glorious comeback. The times you are light in your spirit. Your soul is feathery in appearance. No subject binds you to the torturous earth and the only splendour is the majestic sun. In this phase, you are appreciative of the “small things.” They excite you as you find joy in them. A child’s giggle cheers your day. The salary doesn’t delay. You get a good commendation from your supervisor or client that makes you enjoy the work and everything cruises nicely.

You even start planning about the organisation you want to open for the orphans you saw the past day. You envision how the floor plan of your house will be and how majestic it looks. You are mesmerised by the wonders of your spouse and how elegant he/she will be. How the earth shall tremble from having such a marvel of a human being. Wonders you never expected to happen finally occur. The good life is happening to you. The thoughts about death/suicide no longer cross your mind. It must be good for such mental clarity.

And then in another person’s life or a given state of your earthly occupancy, you undergo the opposite replica. To the extreme ends. Like Pharaoh whose firstborn of animal, crop and human died in a single daybreak. Such massacre on your face. Such anguish. Suddenly you get sadistic comments from your spouse. Your superiors ignore all about previous achievements.

Your schoolmates start the backbiting and this irritates the inner person till you start blaming everything. Your mouth once filled with gratitude starts dealing with drugs of cannibalism of the soul. Everything that was supposed to make sense, doesn’t. Your children drag disobedience in their hearts and nothing preoccupies their hearts like the unpaid Wi-Fi bill. You have to relocate to another apartment as the rent keeps piling up and keeping up is like filling water in a net. Locally, we equate it in that your seeds don’t sow any fruits or the fruits don’t ripen and sweeten well. They are half-ripped and show no signs of overcoming this.

Cruel but true. Like death, we don’t like talking about it as it draws a bitter taste in the mouth. The feeling of nothingness. Not being able to feel your thoughts, lying motionless in the vestment determined by the status quo you were in. Unfair like the abortions done, denying them the opportunity at life despite not being planned. Having to face every relative whether we preferred them or not. Having no opinions of anything and not talking your way out of it.

No pain no gain.

Such is the excuse we might chant to have some renewed hope of being prepared for something better. Pain is difficult, but such isn’t classified as pain. Its hell. The burning furnace through which we aren’t purified but cursed to burns of the greatest degree. A hell for the soul making it heavy from carrying loads of curses from everywhere.

This is the element of surprise in life. When we think we don’t need to rejoice for being able to rejoice. Having the ability and rejoicing over it. Gratitude over gratitude.

Don’t wait till you are in a hospital bed to know the value of a healthy body. Do all in your power to prevent something of the sort from occurring. I think it’s everyone’s ambition and dream to have all the finest that the earth may have to offer. The finest of everything. And so while you have something cherish it for you never know how it may turn. The darkness may be inviting the sun or more darkness. Even if it shines it’s certain to be dark. Help someone who will reciprocate when the darkness approaches.
It has become silly in the new world created to say that we should live as nature intended when all the nature we know is the TV shows of nature. The ‘nature’ we were born into. Some advice despite having no experience in life- only 20 years of age. Live the same way life is. Be full of surprises, never too rigid as the law- it was and will still be there.

Have fun!

Okay, just a pinch of it then.

But don’t stop having it.

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Shali Mwandoe

Santiago through the journey of finding his treasure. "It is hard till its done" and what better way to be done than through words, words powerful to sour love.