Sunday 15 / February / 2026
I was in the mood of watching people as they go about their business this weekend and I saw a cleaner doing his job on the streets.
Then a Bentley pulled up on a parking space and a man walked out and stopped to light a cigarette, just a few minutes away from the street cleaner. I stopped and watched them. One man with a big account in the bank and the other who was obviously struggling to make a living.
They were standing almost side by side separated by a dirty pavement. They were both lit up by the morning sun and shared the same gentle wind that was blowing their direction. I also noticed they never looked at each other though they were standing just a few feet away. Seconds later, they went separate ways but I could not help thinking about them.
There was a question in mind as I was watching them walking opposite directions. Was that cleaner lost the opportunity to make it as a successful businessman? If you are an advocate of that, than the word is discriminating and is used to split the society in different classes. A cleaner may struggle in the financial aspect but it does not mean they missed the opportunity to lead a successful life. They usually raise law-abiding children and that saying a lot more than the word 'opportunity' can express.
Dreams, hopes and desires all mean the same thing, leading to the same destination. Write ten of your plans on a piece of paper that you have been expecting to achieve in the past five years. How many of them have come true? If none, perhaps you have been rushing them, instead of giving them time to flourish. If the tick goes to a couple than you must feel good about it. In a wider net, you caught a few and you should be grateful. Perhaps you should ask a ninety-year old man about the achievement in his list.
Good ideas never come with the rush of the blood. They slowly simmer and take shape in good time. As they mature, it gives you the 'opportunity' to spot faults and correct them, instead of taking the plunge to the deep end. The brave thing, I have learned the hard way, is to courageously abandon the plan when there are too many faults, instead of getting into a stressful mode. There is always the next time.
In theory, a person born in a huge mansion is supposed to have a successful life while one in a hut will be struggling. But that is not always the case because life has a way of humbling all of us. In conclusion, there is no successful path to embark on but we all have ourselves to rely on.
Whether you are rich or poor, we all breathe the same air, walk on the same ground and lit up by the same sun. An advice I give to the youth is that they have to chart their own future. That future does not have to be littered with rose petals. But at least a stable one with no stress along the way. Weather you drive a Bentley or mop the floors, life has the same meaning.
For now, I wish you all Ramadhan Kareem.
