Edwin's Corner

Cliff was tired. Tired of trying. Tired of beginning. Tired of explaining. Tired of watching other people’s lives seem to move forward while his seemed to circle the same drain. He started a printing business. It failed. He tried selling clothes. That failed too. Then he opened a barbershop. A few months later, that was gone. Each failure seemed different on the surface. Different product. Different customer. Different location. Different excuse. But beneath them was the same man. And the same beliefs. Unfortunately, Cliff couldn’t see that yet. All he could see was evidence that things didn’t work for him, that people didn’t support him, and that some people were simply born with advantages others would never have. And perhaps his father had been right all along. “MEDIOCRE.” Cliff was twelve when his parents separated. Until then, life had been reasonably predictable. His family was middle-class. There was food. School fees were paid. His mother cared deeply for him. His father was pr...

  Isabella knew it was time to let go. She had known for months, truthfully, even years. For ten years, she had built what most people would call a successful career. She was a corporate lawyer. She was respected. She was well paid. Her performance reviews were excellent. Clients asked for her by name. There was even a BMW sitting in her driveway with only three months of payments left. By most reasonable Kenyan standards, Isabella had made it. The only small inconvenience was that she hated almost every minute of it. Not the dramatic kind of hate that makes you throw a laptop through a window and resign in an email containing several words HR has to Google. Hers was quieter. She woke each morning and felt something inside her sink. Then she showered. Dressed beautifully and applied her makeup. Put on the heels. Picked up the expensive handbag. And went to work. Sometimes misery is extremely well dressed. For years, Isabella had called what she was doing hard work . But there are t...

  THE LIFE YOU WERE TOLD TO WANT A Two-Part Story About Freedom, Significance and Identity George could not stop thinking about the question. What if I tried to become somebody I actually enjoy being? Not look like somebody. Not impress somebody. Not prove anything. Become somebody. There was a difference. For most of his life, whenever George felt inadequate, he knew exactly what to do. Achieve. Buy. Provide. Upgrade. Make more. It had worked remarkably well until it didn’t. Now he wanted to experiment. Not on his business. Not on his family. On himself. The 100-Day Experiment George remembered the boy he had once been. Before the money. Before the cars. Before the expectations. Before success became his identity, when his father was too drunk to fix something around the house, George learned to fix it. He learned carpentry from an uncle down the road. He watched an electrician work around the village until the man eventually let him help. He learned farming. By twelve, George cou...

THE LIFE YOU WERE TOLD TO WANT   A Two-Part Story About Freedom, Significance and Identity Sometimes the life you desperately want to escape is not the real prison. “We are inherently flawed,” said the man on the pulpit. George opened one eye. Then the other. He sat at the back of a church near his home, wondering whether the preacher was speaking about humanity at large or had somehow received George’s file that morning. If it was the latter, George thought, the man was understating the situation. George had been through a very hard time. Peace had disappeared from his life so completely that he suspected it had changed its number. The previous night had involved too much alcohol, too little sleep, and several decisions that probably made more sense at midnight than they did now. Most Sundays were fairly predictable. Watch a movie. Recover from Saturday. Meet the boys later. Have a few drinks. Promise himself that next weekend would be different. Repeat. Church had never play...