Nairobi News

BlogWhat's Hot

CITY GIRL: Like DP Ruto, own your past before it haunts you

By CITY GIRL February 3rd, 2017 3 min read

They thought they had him when they leaked news that a certain woman has sued the Deputy President for failing to pay child support.

They thought that they would push the guy into a corner and cause him massive national embarrassment. But the Deputy President handled them like a real boss and beat them at their own game. Ten. Nil. No less.

Now, I don’t know and I don’t care who ‘they’ is.

Also, I don’t approve of married men siring wild oats.

I also do not approve of politicians getting personal, and using children to drive their point home.

Most importantly, I absolutely, positively, do NOT approve of media making it such a big deal, even sharing a picture of the poor little girl enjoying a boda boda ride for the hits on their Facebook page. That is cheap journalism.

Deputy President William Ruto, unperturbed and unbowed, came clean.

Yes, he is the father.

Yes, he takes care of the child.

IMPORTANT LESSON

Those  people sending tweets and Facebook messages to ridicule him and the child, can go hang on a short tree, better yet, take a long walk to China and never return.

There is a very important lesson I learnt from this little sideshow.

Do not let anyone use your past to haunt you.

We all make mistakes in life. We have all messed up. We have done things we are not proud of. And when some of us write the stories of our lives, there will be some chapters, some dark moments that will not make it to the story of our lives. That is life. We all have skeletons in our closets. Deputy president or not.

It is easy for someone to dismiss you today because of who you were before. It is easier for people to rub your mistakes on your face than it is for them to reconcile themselves with the person you have become today.

You will meet people in this life, who will want to put you in that box of your past and who, every time you rise to say something today, will forever look at you through those past-coloured glasses. It is easier for people to remind you of your colourful past, to keep bringing to life those skeletons and to keep reminding you what you did or did not do years ago than for them to acknowledge your journey and how far you’ve come.

That is people for you, when you get something right, they never remember, but when you do something wrong, they never forget.

So, do you have a past that you would rather forget? Should God give you a rubber today, are there epochs of your life that you would easily rub because they are too scandalous? Are there people who are not allowed to tell your story because all they know is your past?

Don’t worry. Take a lesson from the DP himself. Own your past. Confess your past mistakes. Own up to the things you did. You know what that does? It frees you. It disarms your enemies. You leave their arsenal empty because now they have nothing to use against you.

OWNING THAT PAST

The truth sets you free, not just from your past, but free from the barbs of people whom, all they know, is to ridicule you. Laugh at yourself. Laugh at the mistakes of the past. When you laugh at yourself, people will have nothing to laugh at you for because you have shown them that you are unbothered and unmoved by the ‘dossier’ they thought they had on you.

See, this is the thing about the past. If you keep hiding it, sweeping it under the carpet, stashing it under the bed, locking it up in the drawer, it will still come out. Your enemies will dig until they find something they can use to rationalise your success today.

“Oh we knew Njoki when she was still…blah blah blah… huyo tunamjua…” Even though they haven’t seen you in years and God has blessed you so much, you are unrecognisable from the person you were before.

Suppose the DP tried to deny, deny, deny? It would have been such a big deal, the media would have had a field day and ‘they’ – whoever they are – would have triumphed.

Now that you have owned your past, the last step is to let it go. Don’t hold on to the mistakes you did years ago. Don’t keep replaying those events in your head like a broken record.

Move on! Nothing infuriates your enemies more than moving on to a better life. And when you move on, please, do not repeat the mistakes of the past. Because, when you know better, you do better and you live better. That is why it is called a ‘bright’ future.

I want to encourage you to start owning that past, laughing at your past and moving on.

And I will start.

My name is Njoki Chege and I have a past.