Content Management
The pursuit of the soft life. But not The Soft Life that is being sold in Instagram and LinkedIn stores near you.
This is a short one. I’m jet lagged and still absorbing the awesomeness of being around and communing and bonding with over a thousand African product people in one space, so my blown mind is still unblowing. Or for the old schoolers in here…still defragmenting.
I just saw a great piece on the comedian Damon Wayans this morning and he put some serious heat on me this morning. If you don’t know him, that tells me you are aging yourself…backwards. Look him up. Many of us grew up with him and his talented family of comedian brothers, sisters, children, nieces and nephews.
64 years old. Looks like he is in his mid to late 40s. Four kids, eight grandkids, one great-grandkid. Still doing what he loves.
Haba! Damon, wetin you dey smoke, this guy? Because we want to partake, abeg.
He articulated it one simple sentence which has stuck with me—"I am content.”
“Not happy?” asked the interviewer. Not happy, he said, because happiness is fleeting. Comes and goes. Hard to hold on to. He has abandoned the pursuit of happiness.
Instead, he has installed a premium quality CMS aka Content Management Systems. (aha…my media people’s eyes have lit up, if you know, you know).
I am in rooms and places and situations with a lot of so called successful people, and man…most folks are not happy o. Or content. Or tranquil. There’s a lot of angst, anxiety, suspicion, wariness and weariness.
Maka why, eh?
I wish I remembered who said this but the paraphrase is something like—your success in life depends on your ability to make good decisions. Your happiness depends on your ability to not care about the outcomes. Your peace (your contentment) depends on knowing the difference.
I am guessing Damon has figured out the difference.
I am not yet 64, but you and I are barreling towards that number and higher no matter what we do. Yes we are—some closer to that number than others—but remember this thing we are doing is a terminal diagnosis which I am not fighting o…that is an exercise in insanity, and me I want to reach 64, please abeg. However, I know that making it to 64 in one piece means the memory chugging content management system installed on the latest version of the ChidiOS has to be in full attack mode, managing this constant back and forth between the stack of decisions I make, the outcomes from those decisions, and my understanding that I can only directly control the former (decisions) and my reacts to the latter (outcomes). The suffering is when we think we can control the outcomes, then wallow and swim in the gap between trying to control every outcome and just letting life flow, causing unnecessary wahala and error messages on your PersonalOS.
So yes o…ah, me I want the soft life. I don’t like suffering. However, for me, the soft life is being content like my Oga Damon. If I am pursuing anything, I pursue to reduce my suffering, not to add to my katakata. Like I need more katakata?
Anyways, that’s it o. Let me come and be going.