{JP expecting…}

I was watching ‘Promised Land’ last Sunday after channel hopping for a while and my remote landed on Citizen TV. Of late I find it hard to get a good TV programme I can watch especially when I arrive home early and feel like watching TV. On many occasions, after 9PM news, I am a ‘cabbage’; my eyes and tired mind cannot allow me to be a couch potato and watch the more interesting programmes that come after 9 o’clock news except on Mondays when I watch ‘Invasion’ on NTV. Other days, when I am not sleepy, I have to stay late trying to finish up some moonlighting project report.

Talking of Citizen, the TV station is getting more limelight than before. Citizen poached leading presenters from KTN like Catherine Kasavuli, Swaleh Mdoe and Louis Otieno in April. It also went for Ephy Hunja of NTV. Inclusion of captivating (hint: male perspective) news anchors like Kanze Dena of KBC and an “Adhiambo C” called Belinda Obura (though none beats NTV’s Penina Karibe in Male Attention Disorder-MAD) has given the station fans more variety. Citizen has surely stopped crawling and may soon be walking steady. Since the poaching, there has been good progress with upgrading the Citizen reporters from Windows 98 to Windows 2000, yet to get to XP status. Poor reporters nearly aborted the Citizen rebirth.

MaDemon: “JP you are MAD! By the way have you noticed the way Penina caresses her ring finger when presenting the weather forecast? I know you have ideas. Any expectations?”

JP: “Get behind me satan, I wonna blog”

Apart from for the dull rift valley mural / painting (not sure) backdrop and amateurish camera close-up that leaves one staring at the presenters’ skin pores, all looks bright for Citizen. Catherine Kasavuli is not as beautiful as KTN airwaves had made her and this is bad for Kasavuli die hards. It could be that Citizen buys makeup from Kirinyaga road! Nevertheless, I find it hard to miss Citizen’s prime time business news since it has a section where they interview investment professionals on NSE activity for the day. However they should cast the net wider and should not rely only on Tsavo Securities Agents and Old Mutual professionals. Before this interview section, I had nearly forgotten that share prices are also affected by such investment turns like Ex-Dividend, Cum-Div, Ex-All, Cum-All and other “ex-cums”.

MaDemon: “Now this gonna be a long post, not meeting my expectations”

{JP egotistically ignores MaDemon and continues…}

In the mentioned TV series, Rusell Greene goes to a new town with his family. They live poorly in a trailer. One day while at the beach, a small girl drowns and the man is the only one able to locate her position in the water when the search begins. He performs mouth to mouth resuscitation and the girl ‘resurrects’. The residents take this as a healing miracle and build huge expectations of the man’s ability to heal. When the town press later follows up with the stranger, he disowns the incident as a miracle. He reveals that he was able to trace the girl’s position by observing the movement of the small ripples and waves on the surface of the water. The residents however staunchly believe it is a miracle.

A woman sick with cancer is one culprit who abandons her doctor’s prescription to pursue the stranger’s prayers and a kiss-akin to the mouth to mouth resuscitation. She feels alright after the kiss and the news about her healing spreads all over building more expectations. She however deteriorates later and the paparazzi are on the miracle working newcomer in their global-custom unearthing ugly things about the family, turning the residents praise into wrath. The lady is later hospitalized and eventually dies.

The stranger and his family are blamed for misleading the public about his healing powers and accepting gifts and money in exchange for healing favours. He loses his job and the rest of the family is emotionally harassed by the town residents. All these expectations arose from an unplanned drowning saving incident and the stranger’s belief in angels, not that the stranger purposed to masquerade as a miracle worker.

MaDemon: “Oh my, the post is getting longer, get to the point JP”

{JP continues…}

I have been wondering, how we manage the expectations of others on us and our own expectations on ourselves. Can we really get away with “it is my life; I will live it the way I want”? When do we get to have courage to say no to undue expectations of others on us? I have come to realize that saying ‘No’ is not an easy thing to do.

“You have very good grades, you will take medicine (ha ha ha, read ‘pursue medical career’); our family will do with a doctor in our midst”, I had to say no to my parents career expectations. Quite sad coz they believe that there is a lot of wasted energy in the trivia things I do to make a living. Energy that would have been used to raise our once-trodden family stakes higher in the village through referrals: “jp, so and so is sick, go see him”, “my son is a doctor at Nairobi Hospital”, “jp my eldest son studied medicine at the University of Nairobi” how about that for a family-name redeemer!

MaDemon: “JP, you got to cut this beating around the bush, it is not going to burn like Moses’ by beating around it!”

JP: “Ok, I will skip the other stories”

To manage expectations better, at the bare minimum, I keep reminding myself to;

1. Learn to say “No” to undue demands from others. This has been the hardest since I usually go extra marathons to accommodate and please other people. Too nice to say no?

2. Set realistic goals for myself and review them from time to time. Over-ambitious is not a new vocabulary, I go for the galaxies and end up landing on the moon of procrastination.

3. Perform averagely during probation periods, just enough to get a confirmation letter. In my first job, I nearly killed myself over-performing and when the confirmation letter came, thereafter, it was an anti-climax for my employer. Hence, I go for average performance and on confirmation steadily improve on my targets. I do understand that average performance is a risk in itself, but seeing the “managed satisfaction” of my employer as I grow from strength to strength later on is thrilling. I am in control.

4. Define the scope of any business consultancy I undertake, not leaving it open-ended. This calls for use of number 1 since most clients want you do their accounts, draft a quality assurance policy, buy furniture, clean the floor and serve tea while you are being paid to write a business plan to be submitted to the SME Solutions Center. By the way, the IFAC funded organization is running a business plan writing competition.

5. I am still expanding this list. I have been Googling and making debates among pals in order to get a better perspective of this topic. Is it really my life or do others have a fair pie of it? Should I just ‘float through life’ or should I expect something out of myself? If the answer is yes to these questions, then to what extent should these expectations be? How do you manage expectations?

MaDemon: “Yaani JP you had to be that lengthy just to ask that?”

JP: “Yap Imagine! Number 5 is the epitome of my post, Go to hell MaDemon!”

MaDemon: “I am outta here, will be expecting you down there”

The theme of death and human mortality has silently featured in my blog posts, a subtle background drive. I am sure it is a way of coping with my losses, some of which I have taken rather long to recover from. This tragedy in more ways than just being a Kenyan has put a toil on my mind and heart, I am in grief.

My sincere condolences to all those who lost their loved ones and to the KQ community. The way Kenya Airways MD, Titus Naikuni and his crisis management team have so far handled the crash despite the bottlenecks in Cameroon is laudable.

Paul the preacher once said that a time is coming when we will victoriously look at death in the eye and ask it/him/her ‘Oh death where is your victory, oh death where is your sting?’ in retrospect to the agony and heartache it caused us when we were on earth. That is a Christian viewpoint. When death strikes, anything that gives us hope and consoles our hearts that we are not as helpless as death trauma constantly reminds us, is welcome.

I also take this opportunity to express my distaste to a thread that ran on Stocks Kenya about KQ share price. While KQ will have to deal with business consequences that may arise from such a tragedy, it is unfortunate that “junk” investors would run such a thread on a Kenyan site hours after such a tragedy.

This is no different from a businessman who runs to an accident scene where his driver and delivery van are involved. He then starts concentrating on the condition and recoverability of his van unmindful of his van driver trapped inside.

Either way KQ is strong with strong business fundamentals which investors should research on or rely on qualified investment advice, not the junk tips and rumour tendencies that run on blogs and Kenyan forums. I am not in any way demonizing them, they have helped increase stock market awareness which is good for Kenya. However everyone (especially potential investors) should take what is posted on these sites with a pinch of salt.

In an UNRELATED loss, FarmGal pole sana. My thoughts and prayers are with you and the rest of your family.