Living in the present

One of my reasons in coming here was to get rid of unnecessary planning and hurrying. Back home I tend to schedule everything well in advance; work, training, meeting friends, doing laundry, watching a movie, everything. With systematic planning I have time to perform that everything. I wanted to change that, at least for a while. I dreamt of a morning with no day program in my head - just getting up to sit under a tree doing nothing more than thinking.

Matuga village is the perfect place for that because there are not many distracting entertainments around, not even if I wanted to. I feel I need to be forced to stay still so that I can listen to my inner thoughts. I have a lot in my mind and in order to process it I must seek solitude in a peaceful place.

I imagined that after arriving in a simple place calming down would be easy. No way. I keep bouncing with alternative plans for this half-a-year. Should I move around and change projects? How do I best meet cool, like minded people? When will I run out of money? What national parks should I discover? I am more occupied in planning the future than living in the present. I constantly miss the message of this moment. For instance, right now I am sitting at the front porch alone, drinking mint tea. It is dark and I am accompanied by a single lamp. Air feels warm and soft, and I can only hear insects around me. Come on and grab this one specific moment!

With determination I will adapt to a slower lifestyle enabling me to get closer to finding myself, I believe. I am working with this belief: "Things will happen as destined and for a reason. Accept them." The cool thing about life is that you cannot predict the future. In order to find out, you must keep living day by day. When unpleasant things happen they seem unfair, but later on you may realize that they actually opened doors to other things or at least gave you a good lesson.

Pictured are sunset at Lake Victoria and Saturday afternoon at Serena hotel (a moment when I was fully present - finally, after a week's grawing, cold beer at a quiet terrace).