No Loss

When I was young my parents and elders would pacify us with sayings and aphorisms advocating delayed gratification. Gems such as; “not everything you like is good for you”, “you can’t always get what you want” and “your time will come”. As it turned out everything I liked actually did do me some good. I never actually got anything I wanted. And; as for my time coming, I’m still waiting. However, it is a fact that not getting something your heart was set on may be painful but doesn’t always amount to a loss in the greater scheme of things.

In 2016 I could not imagine the prospect of Trump becoming president of the USA. He was clearly a moronic megalomaniac. As it turned out millions of Americans disagreed with me. Proving the points  that you can’t always get what you want, and your time will come in one crushing blow. However, as much as I despised Trump I was very uneasy about the prospect of a Hilary Clinton presidency. Her losing, strangely enough, allowed me to make peace with Trump winning. In the UK I despaired at the thought of Boris Johnson remaining prime minister but couldn’t imagine any good coming of Jeremy Corbyn  being in charge, of anything. I didn’t expect Labour to lose so heavily but I did not shed any tears. In Nigeria, anyone with a memory or capable of reading knew that Buhari lacked vision and strength to turn the the country around but Jonathan Goodluck had facilitated such a corrupt cesspit that Nigerians preferred to jump off a cliff rather than re-elect him. As it turns out the bottom of that cliff is proving quite the rocky hell but good riddance to Goodluck.

At some point, all of us will experience or have experienced heartbreak in a relationship. Whether it is a rite passage or one of life’s necessary evils is of little consequence. Heartbreak comes to all people either by commission or omission. Some relationships go wrong because of a mess up, a refusal or inability to see things clearly, a bad fit; you name it. What is sure is that when it ends one or both parties may feel some measure of heartbreak. Whether it is justified or not the head and the heart will feel some separation anxiety. However there are times when in spite of this anxiety the spirit feels freed. Shattered and broken-hearted the spirit knows when it has taken a mauling even while the head is smiling widely and the heart is yelling c’mon! So even while a person is weeping uncontrollably and hurting like whiplash the spirit is skipping into the sunset sighing, “no loss!”.

For some recreational runners the main focus of running is getting up and setting off. Personal bests and records just aren’t the one thing occupying the mind once you hit the asphalt or track. Some days the run is bad and others it’s better. But that’s ok because you ran and you didn’t give up. Even if you race you don’t have to get put out by your time or placing. You just put your heart into it and knowing you did all you could is all you ask of yourself. As long as you don’t get injured not being devastatingly fast is just no loss.

You can be underwhelming, come up short and end up sub par. You can have your world turned upside down, heart ripped to shreds and be under appreciated. However, you need to know that not everything you lose is a loss.

Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows

Politics appears to be that one arena where partisanship is valued a lot more than higher principles. In order to get ahead in politics some people are forced to set aside their principles while others just completely abandon principle in favour of a front seat on the bandwagon. In the 2016 US presidential election a lot of people have lined up behind Clinton and Trump racked with no small degree of ambivalence, and through gritted teeth.

One politician who hasn't been too discriminating about entering one room or the other with people of dubious reputations has been Nigeria's President Buhari. He swept to power claiming to be a new broom committed to changing a culture of public fraud and corruption. However, he didn't hesitate to join forces with Atiku and Tinubu to rally support for his presidential bid. Both men have been tainted by accusations of enrichment in public office and facilitating fraud. Raji Fashola (the well loved former governor of Lagos State) who Buhari appointed to key ministerial portfolio failed to properly respond to claims that millions of public funds were spent on a personal website for him.

Hillary Clinton has appeared happy to apologise for things she has been found to be wrong about but never prepared to explain what really happened with the deletion of emails from her private sever, speeches she was paid to give on Wall Street or links between donations to the Clinton Foundation and her role as Secretary of State. Michelle Obama says she believes Hillary Clinton is a truly good and decent person. But she couldn't have forgotten the things Hillary said and did during the Democratic Party nomination contest with Barrack Obama. Hillary Clinton's appointment as Secretary of State was mainly intended to ease her bitterness and avoid any acrimony from her loss. Bernie Sanders is campaigning for Hillary but he knows that Hillary stands for everything he is opposed to. However Sanders knows that the best chance of adoption of any liberal policies is if Hillary becomes president.

Donald Trump's candidacy is literally ripping the Grand Ol Party a new one. A lot of Republicans are desperate for a return to the GW Bush era when social projects were a liberal evil and sleazy lobbying and corporate greed ruled the day. However there is a recognition that with Trump as president even these things are likely to be taken to such an extreme that the party will become so toxic that it will fall out of public favour and its members start to devour themselves. However most Republicans will get behind Trump even if there are more than a few who won't stand beside him.

There's nothing wrong with having someone new and inexperienced in the White House. What's required is someone with integrity and vision. Trump is definitely not that person. Unfortunately, neither is Hillary Clinton.