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#101: Changing change
Shem Opolot
December 13, 2024
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Who am I? I’m Shem Opolot, a health professional turned content creator, passionate about helping people be their best selves in life and work.
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Happy Friday 🎉 For years, I’ve been trying to host roasts within my friend group, preferably on birthdays, but no one wants to be roasted first. So I’m volunteering as tribute. This year, for my birthday, I'll ask my friends to roast me. If you see me in the city square, breathing heavily, covered in war paint, with a stone in each hand, know that I grossly underestimated how sensitive I am.
After a couple of successful workshops, I want to host one more before the Christmas fog sets in. The next one, backed by popular demand, will be virtual and shorter!
Time: Next Friday from 11 am - 1 pm EAT
Topic: Making better presentations
Cost: Shs. 100,000
If you’re interested, reply to this email.
LIFE.
Changing change.
Michael John Goodman, The Victorian Illustrated Shakespeare Archive [December 12, 2024]
When was the last time you changed your mind?
Listen, I like nice things. I get it from my dad.
My dad’s the kind of man to find a brand that suits him and patronize it, getting the same shirt in every color, the same pants in every color, and if they have shoes, he’ll cop pairs in black and a kaleidoscope of browns.
He’s like this whether he’s flush with cash or there’s some money he’s expecting.
Dad’s also probably the source of my love of consistency.
Last week, Dad and Mum gallivanted through downtown Kampala searching for the perfect pair of shoes for Dad. A simple task for literally any other man on this planet, except my dad.
When I heard this story, I romanticized the experience. I pictured them holding hands and skipping along the sidewalk while the breeze combed their hair and the sun battled the Christmas lights beneath their skins to make them glow. I pictured clear streets with boda bodas following traffic rules and taxi conductors not hurling insults. I pictured women—scantily clad and unscantily clad—not getting catcalled by idlers by the wayside. I imagined a noiselessly humming city, toothy smiles, and several good bargains reached inside the canopy of shops.
But I imagined all that.
In reality, my dad, full of frustration midway through their itinerary, abandoned hope somewhere between the prevalent peak price points and the sweltering heat.
He asked to go home.
And mum said she wouldn’t accompany him for the inevitable sequel of the quest.
As they debriefed me at home, mum called dad unbending, and dad—defiantly and obstinately—essentially said his fashion choices were forged in the furnace of boarding school ages ago, and changing them would be tantamount to castrating him.
Unbending.
My mind bent toward that word in a sort of mind muscle pull.
The river of the conversation with my parents bent towards change and how much we struggle with it, and like every tributary of conversation about life in Uganda, it poured into politics. Jokes about dad’s penchant for white shirts and the finest leather products merged with my parents’ generation’s aversion to political change.
Most of your resistance to change is rooted in cram work and ego. But for my parents’ generation, it’s those two plus this: a generation that were teenagers during a time when people were kidnapped, tortured, and dumped in shallow water bodies for nature to devour has no desire to rock the boat for fear of capsizing back into familiar conflict.
They’d rather be sycophants, walk around with invisible duct tape over their mouths, and squabble in their homes and barbershops.
And I get it.
I simply said—from my perch of privilege that knows not what war is like—I could think of few things scarier than rigidity. Than the fear of change. Than the failure to adapt once new superior information is presented.
I don’t wish that on anyone. I don’t wish it on you.
So, let’s start a new tradition. As the sun sets on another year and your desire for self-improvement threatens to burst through your flesh like that pimple that begins as a tenderness on your skin, consider the possibility that you might be wrong about some of your core beliefs.
It’s scary, but the untangling of your cram work and the death of your ego will produce a better, much more refined, you.
THINGS.
A quote
There is always something to do.
There are hungry people to feed, naked people to clothe, sick people to comfort and make well.
And while I don't expect you to save the world,
I do think it's not asking too much for you to love those with whom you sleep,
share the happiness of those whom you call friend,
encourage those among you who are visionary and remove from your life those who offer you depression, despair, and disrespect.
A picture.
We made a deal. He’d swing until they called us for lunch. He agreed. Still ended up dragging him—kicking and screaming with a contrived elbow injury—to the lunch table.
WORK.
Make it count.
It’s useful to count things, but in Excel, it’s important to know how to count things.
You have data:
Let’s assume you want to count everything in the list or just the numbers.
Excel has two functions that can help with this: COUNT and COUNTA.
COUNT only counts numerical values, while COUNTA counts everything (as long as the cell isn’t empty).
Count ignores the names and counts only the numbers.
However, COUNTA…
COUNTA counts everything.
If you need help with Excel, book a session with me or get this guide.
FUN.
The Friday Fix Christmas playlist
Shem’s picks
✅ The danger of people pleasing.
✅ Some of the most unusual places on earth.
✅ Can you trick the chatbot into giving you the password?
✅ A well-curated bible on all things AI for your reference during a bar argument
✅ Why some artists become famous.
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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