Alice’s Wisdom for the New Year

If you could meet Alice Otupiri, you’d never forget her. It was my privilege to teach alongside her, many, many years ago. I’ve aged, she hasn’t.

It’s Alice’s trove of African proverbs which stays with me, and from time to time one will pop into my head. In particular, one has resonated in my mind over the course of this grinding pandemic: “Don’t wish your life away!”

In our staff room, as in staff lounges everywhere, plans for upcoming weekends and holidays were boisterously shared and bragged about, the general refrain being something like, “I just can’t wait! I wish this were the end of June!!!”, or “I wish today were Friday!”

If Alice were within earshot, she would look up from marking French papers, fix you with those soft, deep black eyes, wag a finger, and say solemnly, “Don’t wish your life away!” Endearing, but deadly serious. In her Ghanian culture, life was slower and more deliberate, and each moment was to be treasured. Life happened right here, right now. You didn’t have to wait for the weekend to make life worth living. For her, it was appalling that you would wish away the days of your life.

So during this awful pandemic, each time I would catch myself thinking “I wish we were on the far side of this!” or “I wish this shutdown were over!”, I would hear those gentle but firm words, “Don’t wish your life away!” And I would think to myself, “Yes, Alice, you’re right. Let’s find the joy in the here and the now.”

“Don’t wish your life away!” reminds us that the most precious currency we have is our time. Yesterday is gone and cannot be recalled, today will soon suffer the same fate, as will next week, next month, and next year.

If we consider 2021 as a precious gift that lays before us, which once spent will never come round again, the question implicit in Alice’s dictum is what we are going to do with it. Each day, each hour, each minute is a gift– it may not yield what we want, but it is what we get, and we only get it once. Each moment is a currency which can be wasted, spent, or invested. It is not to be wished away.

So my wish for you and for me in 2021 is not that we were at the end of the pandemic, but that whether it is here, or whether it is behind us, we prove worthy of every hour we are given.