Bow Out Quietly.

Now I’m feeling a ka pressure about exiting my 40s but it’s more out of peer pressure. I recently saw a lady on one of the WhatsApp groups I am in who turned 50 last month. She’s now telling the story about her life lessons so far and the 50 things she did in the run-up to her 50^th birthday. That’s made me wonder if I’m squandering my grand exit from the fourth floor.

I wanted to just celebrate chini ya maji (privately) by going to Carni for old-school music as we send DJ Paco Perez home in style. Paco is the oldest DJ I know at 67. He has been on those decks even before I knew what a disco looked like. His last performance will be on my birthday. What a coincidence. Paco hanging his headphones on the day I turn 50. Maybe it’s a sign I should take over his career and become a DJ ama… I do like old-school music sana.

The other significant coincidence that convinced me to celebrate on my actual birthday is that it falls on Easter Sunday. As a believer in Sir God, I wonder what that means. Well, I have said in the past that my life has been a series of God accidents or what I coined as God-incidences. This may be just one more. Easter Sunday is celebrated as the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Will I resurrect as a DJ?  He he… I will probably dig deeper into that connection next week. There could be something there.

So back to the pressure I felt from the lady with 50 things she did as she approached 50. I don’t naturally plan stuff for too long so there was no way I would be that organised. The closest I came was considering running a 50 km marathon, one kilometre for every year lived. That’s a tough one but I might still run a marathon, maybe in Kili next year. It’s next to Mt Kilimanjaro which I loved summiting back in 2022 as we celebrated my buddy Sancho’s 50^th and my bro’s 40^th.

The end of an era or season always comes with either a pressure to deliver or eagerness to exit. It depends on what one has achieved throughout their tenure. It plays out loudly in government. I remember the immediate past president Uhuru Kenyatta rushing to maliza (finish) projects he had begun before he left office. At the beginning of a job, term or project why does it appear as if that season will last forever?

A misconception makes us waste time thinking we have all the time in the world. Just to wake up and realise time is up. Folks whatever role or season we get into may we remain chonjo (alert) from the onset and start executing our mandate from day one. That way we will be ready and eager to exit when the time comes. Hopefully, we will slide into our next phase ready to deploy and with fewer regrets. Maybe a lack of preparedness to exit is what makes people hang onto a position because they can’t envision themselves leaving. We start leaving on the day we start. In my case, I started getting to 50 when I turned 40. I realise that now.

It looks bad when we rush to do so much at the eleventh hour just for our successor to cancel all the effort and decisions we made when they took over. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. We see that often when there’s a regime change. A lot of decisions from the previous administration are reversed. We have no power over that at a national level but luckily we can control this at a personal level. A lot of what we do in a season of life remains a memory and scorecard as we progress in life. And there will probably not be a successor (especially of how we made people feel) because we live with most of our decisions and their impact yearly and decade after decade.

I think the reason I’m not frantic about exiting my 40s with a bang is that I have been working on Project Lucas for most of my 40s. I have transitioned to career I love, dug up new passions of photography and writing that I have put into practice and grown some thought leadership on transitions. A recent validation was being listed this week on the Halftime Global website as one of their coaches for the East African region, the first ever. I’m excited about that and I hope it attracts more Africans to consider the halftime program in their quest to find and live a meaningful life. I’d love that to be the assignment of my 50s.

I feel ready to leave the stage of my fourth floor. It started tumultuous but with time I have learnt to keep my raft from capsizing in the stormy sea of midlife. What began as a midlife crisis is ending as a midlife awakening. That’s how I choose to look at it. A lot of internal work has been done but I still consider myself a construction site, being worked on to live out my mission for the fifth decade as best and effectively as I possibly can. The sign still reads (ME)N AT WORK

Folks make friends with the dots that often don’t make sense during midlife. They add up only in hindsight. I’m glad I eyeballed and wrestled my demons early in my 40s. Little did I know I’d be calmer (and hopefully wiser) at this older age hehe. It’s good for the heart you know haha. I’m looking forward to exiting my furious 40s and welcoming my fortune 50s because that’s what they will be.

Is there something I wish I had done differently in my 40s? mmmmm nothing specific comes to mind. I think it was messy on purpose. Just many lessons learnt that I will hopefully share in a book so that a few others can learn from my errors and save themselves time, pain and some sleep. Let’s close this decade next week folks.