Klaire Komakech is a leader in media advertising with 12 years of experience currently working with Vision Group, the leading Media House in Uganda. She’s a reading enthusiast and CEO of Klaire’s Life Makeovers. She holds a degree in Industrial Fine Art from Makerere University, a post-grad in Management Studies from Uganda Management Institute and currently pursuing a Masters in Management. She’s a mother of four and a wife. Her passion is to mentor girls to lead. This is her story.
Saturday, 3rd August 2019 will forever hold a special place in my heart. For on that day, I made a decision to make my life count. On that day I decided to live for a greater purpose than self. I decided to give of myself and to share my passions with others. Since I joined Girls for Girls (G4G), my life has never been the same. I came with a truckload of stuff called “Life”! I have been blessed with so much yet, my life was lacking something. I dreaded my job and despised my team. In short, I was in a bad place.
Over the last few months, I have learned so much and I have come to this one realization: life is short. I turned 40 years old in February and just like a soccer match, I consider this my second half and I intend to make it count. The G4G sessions have enlightened me to the fact that I seem to believe I will live forever. I have been spending time and money as though I will always be here. I have been buying shiny things as though they matter and are worth the debt and stress of attachment. This is my take-home: we put off the so-called “trip of a lifetime” for another year because we all assume we have another year. We don’t tell the ones we love how much we love them often enough because we assume there’s always tomorrow. And, we fear — oh, do we fear. We stick it out in miserable jobs and situations because we’re afraid of the risk of stepping out. We do not reach high or far enough because we’re worried we’ll fail. Forgetting — or never realizing — that it’s better to fail spectacularly while reaching for the stars than it is to succeed at something we never really wanted in the first place.
We think we’ve got forever and that these concerns that weigh us down are so pressing. We worry about the trivial to the neglect of the most precious thing we have: moments we’ll never see again. We talk of killing time, passing time, and getting through the week, forgetting we’re wishing away the moments that comprise our lives. We say time is money when in fact the time we have is ALL we have. Money can be borrowed, time can’t. We fear taking risks, unaware that the biggest risk we run in playing it safe is, in fact, living as long as we hope and never doing the things we dreamed of. And then it’s too late. We watched our favorite TV shows, we fought a losing battle with our weight, we picked up that book once in a while and never quite finished the courses we wanted to do. We managed to get a large flat screen, new house and a new car, but the list of things we would have done if we could really, truly could have done anything, kept growing. And we never did them.
This has been my revelation from G4G: Whatever your dream is, find a way to make it happen. Your kids can come with you. Your job can wait. You can find someone to keep the house. I know, I know, there are so many reasons we can’t and some of those reasons are valid. Life is not only short; it is also sometimes profoundly hard. But I think sometimes our reasons are in fact only excuses. If that’s the case, take stock. I talk a lot about living the dream, and I’m an idealist, I know it. But it’s not self-help, positive-thinking, wish-upon-a-star. It’s the realization that life is short and no one is going to live my life on my behalf. And one day, my candle will burn out; I want it to burn hot and bright while it’s still lit. I want it to light fires and set others ablaze. Life is short. Live it now. And live it with all your strength and passion now. Don’t keep it in reserve against a day you might not have. While the ember is still lit, fan it to flame. Be bold about it, even if your circumstances mean all you have is to love boldly and laugh boldly. Because now is all we have, and these dreams won’t chase themselves. I thank Girls for Girls for it has given me the opportunity to live out my dream and to be a mentor to young women. It’s been a long walk trying to defy gravity! But, I am now ready to live a life that counts.
