It was on market day. The unknown conman from another village confidently walked to the big tree at the middle of the market square and dramatically clipped a paper note on a leaf on the lowest hanging twig. It was a crisp one hundred shillings note. The market women and the male traders looked at him wondering at the meaning of such a dramatic act. And seeing the ill-camouflaged desire in their minds the conman flamboyantly announced, “This one hundred shillings paper money is yours if you can hit it with a ten shilling coin from a distance of 12 feet!” With that, he made several short strides and drew a line with the heel of his brown “hockey” shoes to indicate the distance from where the aim would be taken. Within a short time, many people – men and women – lined up to hit the big denomination note with the many coins that they had made when they sold their wares in the market. And they laughed gleefully at each other as they missed, while others looked desperate in the eye like they really needed to hit the note. Despite it looking like an easy feat, no one could hit the note and some even dismissed it as some work of “dawa” – the local juju. But others insisted on trying. And it was only after a person had missed many times that he realized that he had thrown away his 100 shillings worth of coins in order to get a 100 shillings paper note, but didn’t. Once again such folly was attributed to the work of the unknown man’s “dawa”.

Sometimes we get so transfixed with the future ‘big thing’ that we will one day accomplish and forget to acknowledge the many small things that we can do today. And yet as it turns out, the ‘big thing’ often is the build up of the many seemingly mundane things that we do each day. And so the ‘big thing’ of the future robs us of the moment like the conman from another village on market day.

Do not let future ownership steal from you the enjoyment of that which you posses today. Also, as you pursue that person that you aspire to be in the future, remember that you are already somebody today. Avoid the village market day folly of throwing away the present and losing the future as well.