Purpose

Artwork by Barry Lungu

As a young child my dad was my first hero (now not so much I have real heroes like the avengers). He was everything I wanted to be, I thought the things he could do were limitless. A couple of months after graduating with a degree in electrical engineering, he realized playing with electricity wasn’t for him. A good decision I might add I’ve seen him struggle to safely fix the iron.

So immediately he decided to go back to school and become a chartered accountant and for a long time that was my lifelong dream. I felt like it was my calling, like we were going to start a family business, Madzika and son accounting. But again things changed, I was exposed to movies, sports and with better understanding working in an office just wasn’t that attractive anymore.

Now in the picture above that’s me at my final preschool play. I thought myself as the black Jean Claude Van-damme even though I was acting in the story of Christ. I played Jesus too so it was no small role. People who know me will ask where all that cute innocence disappeared to? And the only answer I have is that it got lost somewhere in between adolescent hormones and the discovery of alcohol. Though the two are not linked some say.

Again my knowledge increased and there was a shift. My mum became the real hero. I finally understood what she did. She was a pharmacist. She could legally deal drugs (That’s what it sounded like in my young brain). A few steps away from a doctor and I thought that was the coolest thing.

For two very different reasons. Firstly she was out there making decisions that could potentially save lives, she could heal and I sometimes just got sick because a professional was around. Secondly after watching tv shows like Breaking bad I thought as a pharmacist it would be so easy to start a drug dealing empire and make millions. It all made sense back then and if you haven’t watched Breaking bad then you should, it’s really good.

A time later I got myself on the internet and searched for the richest man alive (Because those are the kind of things you used the internet for back then). This is when I came across Bill Gates. My mind was blown. Computers was suddenly my calling, I was going to be the Zimbabwean Bill Gates. I was going to make it big. I was so absorbed in everything. I broke open remote controls at home to see how they worked, I opened the back of my dads computer, I opened toys, electric gate remotes, DVD players, vcr’s… (I’m sure someone reading this doesn’t know what a VCR is) you name it, I opened it. I felt computing genes running through my veins but then that faded too.

In between all these things I once went to a school of art but ended up dropping it. Because I was that kid who got told to draw an elephant and I drew a lion because I liked lions. I thought I was going a formula one racing driver, a painter, a rapper, an rnb singer. I also had a serious break dancing phase were I convinced myself I was better than Michael Jackson but that all came and ended.

Now in my mid 20’s I can proudly tell you I have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life. Somedays I’m a writer I feel like the next Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, the next J.K Rowling, the next Robert Ludlum, the next John Grisham and the next day meh!

I’m perfectly fine working the cash register in a supermarket or being a bank teller. Other times I want to retire at 30 and travel the world but my bank account balance brings me back down to earth.

I envy those who truly know their purpose in the life, who feel that this is what they were destined to do. Because some of us are still drifting with the wind.

But I’m perfectly fine not knowing what I’m going to do for the long distance because sometimes ignorance is bliss though not always. I know adulting pushes us into a lot of corners but maybe you shouldn’t be limited to just one thing, you should explore. After all a life worth living is usually one where we test our limits. So be a writer, a painter, an artist, an account, a fashion icon, fly to a different hemisphere and tell the rest of the world how the air feels.

Keep endless possibilities alive, because feeling closed in or limited is when a part of us begins to die.

But if you have found it, how did you discover your career, purpose or destiny in life?

#Day5

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