Life. Seasoned with perspective.
“A reflection on life’s changing seasons, the hardships that test us, and the resilience that carries us through. It reminds us that both joy and pain are temporary, and that even difficult moments often leave behind valuable lessons.”
“The bad news is, everything is temporary, which is also the good news.”
Those are not my words. I came across them while scanning the internet this past week, and I found them rather profound. In simple terms, if life is currently serving you the time of your life, then please enjoy it unapologetically. Laugh loudly. Celebrate deeply. But if life is currently squeezing every ounce of joy out of you, be comforted by the same truth. It too shall pass.
Life has a curious way of teaching us lessons, often when we least expect them. All we really need to do is remain good students as we journey through.
This past week brought forth such mixed feelings.
For starters, a double tragedy struck in my estate. A gentleman who lived alone and had reportedly been undergoing treatment for an illness, the details of which were not entirely clear, stopped answering his calls. At first perhaps no one thought much of it. We all miss calls. We all occasionally go off the radar. But when he became completely unreachable for two days, concern grew. His family eventually raised alarm, the house had to be broken into, and unfortunately, he was found dead inside. Then, as if grief had not done enough damage, his elderly father passed away the following day.
That sequence really got me thinking.
What exactly is life?
So fragile. So feeble. So fleeting.
That same week, being the avid podcast consumer that I am, I came across two stories that, in a strange way, offered perspective.
The first was an interview by Lynne Ngugi with a gentleman speaking candidly about divorce. In a nutshell, the man described a season where life had become unbearable. The emotional pain was simply too much. All he wanted was peace of mind, yet it remained painfully elusive. He tried different things, but nothing seemed to work.
Then he made a decision that many of us might initially dismiss as extreme.
He sold his car, bought land about 97 kilometres from Nairobi, built himself a cottage, and essentially started life afresh.
Now before you judge him too quickly, hear me out.
The man looked alive. Properly alive. Beyond the peace he was seeking, he also discovered a new revenue stream by building similar cottages for other people. What looked like the collapse of one life became the birth of another.
The second story was equally moving.
A gentleman featured on another well known online platform that gives people space to narrate triumph over tragedy. In his story, a few things really stood out. He had lost his wife to cancer, a devastating blow in itself. But as if that was not enough, on the very day he was burying her, his city home worth millions was demolished over claims that it stood on fraudulently acquired land.
Imagine that.
Grief in one hand. Devastation in the other.
And yet, today, the same gentleman is remarried and currently building a new family home in Kitengela.
Life truly has range.
Look, there is almost always light at the end of the tunnel, however bad things might seem in the moment. But the reality is that we must go through the motions. It reminds me of that familiar saying, it is always darkest before daybreak.
Every single one of us has gone through moments that felt insurmountable while we were inside them. Yet with time, they become stories, scars, and sometimes even lessons we are strangely grateful for.
On 5 January 2022, I had one such moment.
I was in a foreign country seeking treatment for a loved one. If you have ever watched someone you deeply care about suffer while feeling utterly helpless, then you understand this kind of pain. It becomes yours too. The suffering is not yours physically, but emotionally, it consumes you.
That night, I hardly slept.
I lay there staring at the ceiling while my loved one, then in ICU, lay surrounded by tubes and machines. The pain reaches a point where it almost becomes too much to bear, and then strangely, you become numb.
Morning came with a 12 hour surgery.
It was successful.
Today, four years later, life looks completely different. Better, even. That story deserves its own telling, and it will come, because I am currently writing a book that explores that chapter more fully.
But here is what I have learned.
These moments change you in ways you cannot imagine.
Usually for the better.
Strange as it sounds, some of the strongest, wisest, and most grounded versions of ourselves are born in seasons we once begged to escape.
That is not to romanticise pain.
Pain is painful.
Loss is cruel.
Heartbreak is heavy.
Disappointment can flatten even the strongest among us.
But reason must prevail.
A painful season is not a failed life.
A bad chapter is not the end of the story.
Sometimes life simply asks us to endure, to breathe, to keep moving, even when nothing makes sense.
And eventually, clarity comes.
So if life is currently being kind to you, enjoy it with gratitude.
If it is currently testing every fibre of your being, hold on.
Because the beauty of life’s temporary nature is that neither joy nor pain stays forever.
And maybe that is both the hardest and most comforting truth of all.
This too shall pass.
About the author:
Kibisu Mulanda is a media executive and strategic communicator with over 20 years of experience in television, NGO storytelling, and youth focused content. He is the Acting Head of Switch Media Ltd and teaches media at the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (KIMC). A Certified SIYB Trainer, he blends storytelling with strategy to drive social impact.
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