On the brink of 2002…let’s abstain from paltry resolutions

Another year has gone by and for many this is a time to reflect on how the year went by and on what new resolutions are to be made when the clock strikes twelve at midnight on coming Monday. In life it is good to sincerely self appraise one’s life in order to amend or tune it towards future constructive living and the end of each year is one good time of making such self- appraisals.

An inherent quality of human beings is the desire to make life enjoyable for oneself and sometimes for those around us. Going on holiday, relaxing on the beach, participating in sports, climbing mountains, horse riding, surfing the oceans, swimming, reading, writing, watching good programmes on television, taking up hobbies, involving oneself in social and philanthropic activities, setting targets on what one wants to do in life, seeking higher productivity at work, involving oneself in challenges facing one’s family are some of the ways that individuals occupy themselves in addition to their normal routine of earning a livelihood. 

Having meaningful ways to make life enjoyable enables individuals to maintain good character and good health, both of which contribute to make them highly successful and respected in their business, social and family lives. However success, progress and a peace of mind cannot be alienated from religion because religion provides us with a true understanding of our existence. A daily relationship by way of supplication to the Almighty arouses awareness that we are living a short span on earth that could end this minute, today, tomorrow, next week or a few years from now. 

A New Year or our birthday arouses a realisation that our temporary span on earth has actually been cut by 365 days. Yet if one has a cursory glance on how we normally approach a New Year, we find newspapers talking of beer parties, wild dancing sprees, special offers of free gambling chips at casinos while resolutions are blended with greed for wealth and desire for illicit relationships. Radio announcers hosting music programmes are paid to sound sexy and television is considered a bore without nudity. While Tanzanians may so far be spared from locally printed pornographic magazines, in the west there are special Christmas issues of pornographic magazines to mark this occasion --- a terribe paradox associating filth with nobility! 

If life is dictated by an ethereal approach we become numb to the consequences of our negative wrong doings. By restricting religion to only places of worship people tend to become polemical about their own moral positions to the degree that they even justify harming others who disagree with them. We have seen the phenomenon of double standards take place in country after country leading to numerous deaths, poverty, disabilities and even a serious effect on the environment through massive destruction of terrain and forestry. 

True religion yields a person to the realities of life and death, thereby putting an end to the struggle for survival and instead assisting in the surrender to death. Surrendering to death tunes one’s life towards morality because there is constant realisation that our life is made up of minutes ticking away. As the minutes tick by, no disaster becomes bad enough to bear and no pleasure becomes good enough to endear for too long. Rather than being bogged down by disasters or being egoistic about success, the religious take these in stride as stepping-stones towards recuperation or towards further success.  Taking cue from exemplary examples of saintly lives of those who collectively prescribed or who continue to prescribe to a common code of public and private etiquette helps to curb human restlessness in achieving worldly gains at the expense of mental, moral and physical health.

On the brink of the New Year, Tanzanians need to make sagacious resolutions rather than opting for paltry ones. Take this Tanzanian lady who has said that her new year resolution is to represent the country in the South African Big Brother show that places cameras in a house to monitor the conversations, activities, reactions and doings of inmates who are gradually eliminated. One condition for participants to this show is that they should be prepared to shower in full view of television cameras. Tanzanians who make a resolution expressing their desire to come naked on television certainly need guidance. Such resolutions also prove how satellite television is drawing our youths towards frivolity.

 Happy New Year.