Master Your Unique Life Patterns To Seize Opportunities

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.

SENECA THE YOUNGER

Social class status symbols were real in my village.

Affluent families possessed a light blue rickety Renault or a tiny deep blue and silver Yamaha motorbike. The middle class, like ourselves, owned humped cows, and their precious accessories. Like an ox cart or a plough, to show prosperity. They also produced their own milk despite the mean volumes from bony zebus.

Morning milking session at home was a stressful chore—half asleep and cold. While thinking about the gruelling run to school afterwards. But the evening one was a bliss. My brothers and I squatted under tethered cows, squeezing the milk into old cooking fat tins. Competing to finish at times, but in most cases, sharing the big stories of the day. Evening milking was a lot more enjoyable. It marked our close of business and ushered the starry night with all its fun at the family courtyard.

We never attached much value to milk until it was introduced in school.

We had never seen packed milk before. But the Nyayo milk, a nutrition programme by our semi-literate president, brought a fresh aroma and taste of dairy. Boxes of pasteurized milk came in old trucks, whose arrival brought unseen excitement. When they arrived, all lessons halted. Children shouted wildly and drowned the voices of teachers. The big, muscular boys rushed out to offload our school portion, while the rest of us stood by salivating in awe.

When done, the truck proceeded to the next school, leaving us in great anticipation of the following day. In the end, we retreated to classrooms and settled for our loud lessons. That afternoon, we struck promissory trade and relationship deals. Because milk became the most famous barter and romance commodity.

Milk changed my schooling experience.

At the beginning, it was brought in one-litre packets, shared by several children. That meant taking drinking cups to school. That Tuesday, everyone brought a chipped, enamel-coated, metallic teacup. Tightly secured to the hoops of torn shorts with sisal string. Some girls tied theirs around the neck like a cowbell. Crafty students brought the most giant mugs available to drown the leftovers.

My case was rather unique. My mother decided to risk her guarded tea glasses, I guess to build my reputation. Those days, drinking from a glass pronounced affluence and elevated a family’s social status. The glasses were not bought. They were recycled milking salve containers that lived forever locked in our tiny, formica-decorated, kitchen cupboard. Mum wrapped the glass in an old newspaper and tucked it in my green canvas school bag. I was the only kid in my class who enjoyed this prestigious display of drinking milk from a glass.

I was the class prefect and apportioned milk for everyone as part of my responsibility. Rationing milk was the mightiest instrument of power. Beautiful girls and friendly boys earned my favour. So, they made sure that they brought larger cups and sat at my table. The rest enjoyed their fair share, but a few faced my wrath. There was no process of appeal; hence, everyone always tried to play it safe with me.

But the real deal was not the milk but the empty packet.

After a while, smaller packets were introduced and vanquished my stature of drinking milk from a glass. Yet, a new opportunity presented itself. Each milk pack had a drab sports caricature at the front. Depicting running, boxing, wrestling and netball. When emptied, we fished out old razorblades from our bags and meticulously cut out the front face to make playing cards.

The four patterns were akin to the print in standard gaming cards. We invented a village version of poker, with bets placed with commodities like ink droplets, wild fruits and fired maize cobs. There was even a type of monetary control. Broke fellas’ list was often announced to warn players to keep off risky gamblers. The game became more popular than drinking milk.

Predicting the patterns became a new skill.

On the milk day, the bell rang earlier and louder than usual for class prefects to collect milk from the store. This presented an opportunity of selecting the milk cartons to haul back to the classroom. And more so, predicting the patterns concealed in the boxes. At times, we secretly tore off the packages to peek.

The ability to speculate patterns was not a mere survival technique, but also, a wealth-building skill. Every time I went to the store, I had an opportunity to get the most valuable patterns. The ones famously known as “boxing” and “wrestling” were priceless. Mediocre prefects ended up with “netball” or “running” packs and disappointed their classmates.

Our school life changed in many ways.

Gambling became a new norm, and barter trade took a new dimension. Our school bags ballooned, pockets bulging because of stuffed, smelly Tetra Pak pieces. Running around and shouting in the dusty compound ceased. Instead, we started to sit quietly on the ground in small groups—betting, trading, and playing.

Our personal networth was no longer determined by the quantity of writing ink in pen. But by the number of ‘playing cards’ at hand. Some boys, being crafty merchants, hawked anything to amass a huge pile of stinky cards that they proudly displayed. Others stopped carrying books home, and all they hauled was their poker treasures.

Eventually, the school milk programme ended without notice, killing our game. And so did my class prefect prestige. Its disappearance did not leave me ‘wealthier’, but I gained the skill of predicting and mastering patterns. I continued to earn admiration and respect from favoured girls and boys. For others, it was the end of their academic life since free dairy was a big incentive to attending school.

Patterns permeate our everyday lives.

Have you ever tried to decipher things that keep recurring in your life? Ever wondered why your current relationship is taking the same course as the last? Does it bother you that the same thing keeps happening to you after a while? Like getting hit on by married guys or winning the love of older women? Why is the issue that made you botch your last job birthing in your present one?

Upon deep reflections in my adult life, I later came to learn that there are precise numbers and patterns of my life. There are repetitive signs and figures of how things have been in the past. And how they are likely to turn out in the future. To a less intuitive or observant person, these are coincidences that carry no meaning.

My life is woven in patterns and numbers.

Take, for example, my learning and earning life. For long, I had not noticed that a year that begins with a numeral nine brings about a significant shift. Academically, economically, and professionally. I joined school in a year with a digit 9. Decided to pursue higher education in a year with a 9. Got a job a decade later with a year 9. Lost everything I had worked for until another year with a 9 came along. And I started rebuilding my financial health when the 9 came. Every year with a 9, including the last one, presents me with unique transformation opportunity.

In the same way, I was born in a year with a numeral one. When I clocked a decade, and there was a numeral 1, my parents shifted to a new village. I got the opportunity to move to the city from the village in a year with a numeral 1. My first experience to work far from Nairobi and live in a completely different part of the country came in a year with a 1. My opportunity to start the motion for my long-term stay in another rural town came in a year that began with the same numeral. In other words, a year with a digit one starts me off to a geographical migration.

My patterns are not mere numbers.

I have analyzed and studied cycles and patterns in my past life. The years when I was falling ill quite often as a child, were marked by high levels of stress. This drew my attention to the fact that if I am stressed, my likelihood of falling ill is high. Meaning that managing stress, as I grow older, takes higher priority.

Adult years have brought in complications of compounding stress levels with my weight. If I drew my body weight graph, it would show a clear correlation with stress levels. A spike in stress means a spike in body weight—twin struggles. My weighty moments were when I had stressors like job insecurity or lost investment. If you want to know when I was getting divorced, recall the years of my chubby look.

This makes me wonder how different it is between me the villager, and me the townie. When I was young in the village, stress caused thinning. Now that I came to the city, stress fattens me. This pattern tells me that if I need to lose weight, I should move back to the village and get stressed. It also means that life is better stressed in the village than in the city. You end up with a lighter burden to carry around.

Patterns of life are not hidden all the time.

You do not have to endure suffering, crunch numbers, or draw curves like I do. It all depends on your ability to observe and decipher occurrences. There are recognizable patterns in your life, whether you are paying attention or not. Repetitive incidents, relationships, experiences, and other things are not mere coincidences.

Patterns can only be decoded through careful observation. They are rarely visible if one is too busy and absorbed in the everyday busyness. Reading patterns is about paying utmost attention to one’s life. Intuition, deep feeling, learning, and deconstructing the past and present events of your life is the way. Observing what is happening and its outcome. Comparing the present with the past. To see if there is any time, number, or causal relationship.

But the signs of the patterns are always visible and repetitive. Attracting the same people, related self-destructive behaviours, financial losses or even illnesses. They could be the constant struggles. Like procrastination, relationship conflicts, gaining weight or even sleeplessness. They seem to recur as soon as we think they are gone forever.

Practice pattern recognition for a better life

Our brains are prediction machines. Pattern prediction is a simple, inherent practice that has existed for as long as man has lived. From the days of our primitive ancestors, we have predicted patterns in weather, seasons, natural calamities and celestial events. We sense heavy traffic when it showers, or tribal violence based on public utterances of our reckless politicians.

But often, ordinary mortals predict the usual things for basic survival. Like guessing the winner of a political election or a foreign football league. While the select smart lot pay attention to patterns in events, incidents, behaviours, or feelings in their lives. They collect data and use it to decode patterns that predict the future to their advantage. They can read the signs and put in measures to mitigate bad happenings, or lay strategies to maximize future opportunities. The most excellent enterprises in the world were created by apt futuristic pattern readers. Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Uber, Tesla and the other commercial giants of our times came as predictions.

Reflect and decode the patterns of your life.

Patterns are the good and the ugly cyclic forms of your life. Believe it or not, they exist and speak to you. If you learn them, you can take advantage to capitalize on new opportunities that the universe has offered you. If you do not, the obvious will happen. You will lose another chance, or a new tragedy will come along. In my case, I now plan my search for professional opportunities, investments, lifestyle change or even relocation based on my numbers.

You do not have to specialize in self-study to predict behavioural or causality patterns. You have a specimen of 7 billion living people, and many more billions who are long dead. If you want to know what lifestyles lead to a long, happy life, there are specimens in your past and present experience. If you want to know the behaviours that lead to poverty or riches, look around. There are patterns of lifestyles, attitudes and behaviours that clearly predict the future outcome of every aspect of human life.

Your life is a canvas, mind the patterns you are sketching right now.

The patterns in your life have been crocheted by you, your raisers, and the universe. Your past life has formed patterns that are influencing where you are and what you are doing right now. And every minute, you are busy stroking prints on the canvas that is your life. The thoughts flying in your head, the decisions you are making and the actions you are taking are the sweeps of your brush.

In the words of speaker and writer Denis Waitley, “Winners have the ability to step back from the canvas of their lives like an artist gaining perspective. They make their lives a work of art – an individual masterpiece.”

Live your life like an artist creating a magnum opus. Step back and observe your life patterns for signs and messages. Choose to observe, learn, and decide differently. Use patterns to change your identity and your life.

Because the patterns you have drawn will ultimately influence when and how your life will end.