Everything and nothing

My family’s financial downfall came at a time when I really needed some support to build my own life up, as a young man who had just finished highschool. To make matters worse, the extended family members who could have helped out where also affected by the country’s economic woes. They actually needed our help. The other members who were much better off and were immune to the chaos (mostly because they had left Zimbabwe a long while back) were just not willing to help out. Dysfunctional families are no new thing, but they hurt the young ones the most. I know this personally.

As frustrating as my circumstances were, I had been crashed. No one can ever know just how much I was hurt and how much my mind was changed by it all. Fortunately, Lady Luck was on my side and I somehow managed to not only survive, but I found myself a career and brought hope back into my life. The years that followed were filled with a lot of hard work, fortune’s favor and many lessons learned.

My family never fully recovered from the troubles it faced. There were moments of relief here and there, but the unit broke under the weight of life’s pressures; culminating in the divorcing of my parents. Ironically though, nowadays I feel closer to both my parents than I ever was, even though we no longer live together. I suppose my relentless efforts to keep in touch and cultivate love are paying off.

Back to the subject at hand, something happened to me during my troubled times though. Among the many lessons I have learned, a theme stands out. Having come to a point where I had lost “everything,” I realize that what I thought was everything was in fact nothing. I mean this in two senses.

Firstly, everything I had and lost that time was not of the most value in my life. Loss suddenly opened my eyes to see the more important things in life. Immaterial assets such as time, knowledge and skill became some of the few things remaining that I could hold on to, that nobody could take away from me.

Secondly, it all dwarfs in comparison to what I have now. This slight mishap, as I see it now, actually propelled me toward greater endeavors; setback put me ahead, loss gave me more in return and everything became nothing to give me everything again. The irony of it all is educating.

I had no money, no career to look forward to, the life I lived had been stripped of all its glory and luxury, and to top it all, I lost my family and those who I thought I had as family proved to have never been mine in the first place. What an eye-opener it was! This is when I developed a new understanding of “everything” and “nothing.”

Where you are privileged, you are disadvantaged multiple times more: you don’t know how cold the world can get if you’re locked up in a warm house all day. We should be more appreciative when we face problems in life because we encounter reality in the process. Life is a problem; one that no one has yet been able to solve. Living it is a never-ending, problem-solving process.