A friend if mine invited me to go for a walk with him the other day. Taking walks is something I imagine I love to do, I mean once i'm out there and going it's great times but it's that period before getting out of the house that bogs me down...you know how they say getting out of bed to go to the gym is the hardest bit? It feels kind of like that with me and walks. Buuuut Anyway......I've got this mental picture though of me and my husband taking walks every evening, just to get away from stuff that may clutter our minds and talk. To keep some sort of peaceful communication between the two of us where there is nothing else to interrupt or get in the way. Walks will be our daily escape! :) Husband if you are reading this-this is part of 'our' plan! lol
So anyway I was saying, the walk was an eye opening experience for a number of reasons and it actually led onto something even bigger but yes....
1) During that walk I realized just how much I had been missing out on. This park we went to is literally 2 minutes walk from my house and although I had been there before I had never walked the full trail before. The beauty I saw astounded me: the leafy green trees, the river flowing so graciously and then transforming into a beautiful waterfall within moments as well as the peacefulness of that environment was just marvelous. And I think just in relation to this, before I go too far, it's a sacrifice worth taking to take time out, stop whatever you are doing and get out of the house. Get some breathing space.
We live in a world today where you are constantly bombarded with information. Be it voluntary or involuntary. I'll take myself for example. I'm active on Facebook...I check my account every few hours. A habit I have developed over the years and whatever other people have posted on their profiles is going to be infiltrating my mind each time I do so. There is no Chido in that. I'm also active on Twitter and Instagram-same story. I live in a house where we are constantly playing music. Whatever the artist has to say weather I like it or not infiltrates my mind day in day out. In some cases it can be TV, were the natural state for the house is TV on or Laptop on. I've also got Whatsapp downloaded on my phone. This means anyone and everyone who has my number can contact me anytime and unfortunately for me, who cannot ignore people, this often leads to full blown conversations. These conversations are often not necessary and neither are they beneficial to the advancement of Chido and yet countless hours are spent texting or on Snapchat or GTalk or Skype or whichever instant messaging site you choose to find me on.
Although these technological advancements have been great in-terms of keeping the world connected I'm beginning to understand more and more that for me personally it may be a wise idea to take a step back and regroup. Find me without all the 'noise' entering and leaving my mind constantly. What do my thoughts sound like without the prompt of a Facebook post or a newspaper article?So essentially you may not need to go as far as to take a walk but turn stuff off. Disappear from the radar. Liberate yourself from technology. Learn to enjoy your own company and your own thoughts. I'm single at the moment and I figure now is the time to fully BE Chido....just Chido!
2) Second thing I learnt is there is beauty all around us. Sometimes you don't even have to look too far. For me it was nested sooo openly in what I like to call my back yard. Nothing New is a post I wrote a few months back after actually SEEING the beautiful scenery and flowers on my way to the library. A route I used to take everyday.
Okay so I understand not everyone is a nature lover and may not be in awe of this like myself but I guess this can also be extrapolated to general life situations where I believe there is so much beauty in the ordinary. There is so much good in what we at first glance look at and term 'normal' or unexceptional. If only you'd open your eyes to really see or even just look more closely. I never thought I'd have such an appreciation of dull England but three years later here I am singing praises for some of the good I see being cultivated like their parks. Another example is people I have met in the past and immediately brushed them off but with time due to close proximity with them that I could not avoid, I began to discover such wealth in them in terms of the love they have to share, or just the wisdom they have tucked away in their dreams and visions. All I had to do was take time out to look closely or dig deeper. I have since oath-ed to never take people for granted again but anyway yes learn to appreciate and look closely, you never know what's in plain sight but you are missing out on.
3) This could actually constitute another blog post on its own but one other thing I wanted to mention briefly was that I have always thought of them Environmentally friendly people as 'fanatics' with nothing better to do with their time but after this walk and then watching a TED talk by Allan Savory it really dawned on me the severity of the situation and how back home in Zimbabwe we actually do have desert areas now, that were not there before. If we do not take measures to fix this soon it's going to keep getting worse and worse. We are already crying foul about droughts year in year out and in all honesty stuff like that has nothing to do with politics or sanctions. Its climate change and how we manage and treat our environment. We really need to take this more seriously. In his talk Allan Savory highlights effective and easy to implement ways to keep our grasslands sustainable and I'm not sure if anyone who owns a piece of land would be reading this blog but you never know there may be future leaders among my peers. In fact I know there are so yes guys consider this, have it down in your hearts and minds. Hunger and drought is not our portion and we need to take a stand and do something.
One thing that could help is that about 5 years ago I was all passionate about the environment and went and planted about 100 trees at our farm in Kwekwe. The trees were not expensive to buy and if I am not mistaken they are not too difficult to maintain, once you plant and water for the first few months they can pretty much grow on their own. We got them form the Forestry Commission in Highlands, Harare. If anyone needs more info feel free to contact me or the Forestry Commission or Allan Savory but I suggest you watch the talk first. It's really eye opening and can be accessed form this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnNaLSKDf-0
Chido Dziva Chikwari
P.S Thank you to the friend who took me for a walk! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment