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- #56: I love you, Chris.
#56: I love you, Chris.
Shem Opolot
January 26, 2024
Hi! Welcome to The Friday Fix! You’re reading this because you probably stumbled upon this post somewhere on the internet instead of where it should be—in your inbox. But no worries; we can fix that.
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 🎉 My son, in one of his [now] frequent playful and hyperactive fits, threw his toy truck into the bathtub while his baby sister bathed, so now she’s terrified of him. The rivalry began a little earlier than I expected. I hope she internalizes this memory and wakes up a few years later and hides one shoe from each of his shoe pairs. I’ll keep y’all posted.
In other news, there’s still time for you—yes, you young, handsome man—to find love. Click here and thank me later.
Estimated read time: 4 minutes
LIFE.
I love you, Chris.
My eldest brother, Chris, is getting married next weekend, and I can’t attend the wedding, so I’m dedicating this issue to him.
‘Twas 2006. The bend and snap dance move rode the wave of T-Pain’s Snap Yo Fingers and Young Joc’s It’s Going Down and took off from ATL to the SMACK main hall; Italy won one of the best World Cups with a team of male models with perfect hair and the tightest jerseys; and redtop soldiers escorted my class out of the SMACK compound after our final exams.
I attacked the holiday, keen to make good on all the “threats” I’d made in my love letters to girls in similar prisons, er, boarding schools. I brainstormed hunting grounds for girls with my friend, Jacob, and we came up with the perfect place—CHURCH.
You can’t possibly judge me more than I judge myself.
I was running late for fellowship one day and couldn’t find anything nice to wear. For fear of setting off red flags, I couldn’t overdress for fellowship, but mum wasn’t home that day, so the little devil perched on my shoulder who hitched a ride with me to church every Tuesday gave me a bright idea: RAID CHRIS’ CLOSET.
So I used my stiff open palm to part the good shirts from the basic shirts in Chris’ closet.
Chris had a set of striped polo t-shirts from Woolworths South Africa (not that glorified Owino we have today), and striped polos were in (See early 2000s Hip hop and R&B when they weren’t singing in the rain or gang banging).
I picked the predominantly green polo that made me look like Nelly, resisted the urge to stick a white piece of tape on my left cheek, hailed a Luzira-Bugolobi taxi, stopped at Fido Dido, and sauntered into fellowship fashionably late.
The best part of the fellowship was after fellowship.
Oh, shoosh! I thought this was a safe space.
After fellowship, we lingered and talked to the cute girls, exchanged numbers, and promised to call after 7 pm when Mango had free minutes and messages. If we were lucky, the girls would let us rest our hands on the smalls of their backs and serve up tight hugs.
Amid one such hug, I lifted my head from this girl’s soft, brown, sweet-smelling nape, and guess who I saw…
CHRIS.
I would’ve frozen, but remaining in that hug any longer would’ve started a church rumor. Instead, I slowly peeled myself away from the girl while recalling all the solutions to the Maths problems I skipped in my UCE exams—a welcome refuge from Chris’ glare.
Chris saw me and saw me see him, but he said nothing and just went about his business of being at church for the right reasons. Such a square man, that one.
I rushed home right after because I figured it was better for him to find me at home in inside clothes instead of arriving late and having him greet me at the door (in his shirt).
But Chris came home that night and said nothing. In fact, he was chipper and cracked so many jokes.
A few weeks later, though, probably troubled by my logic from the polo shirt incident, Chris taught me one of the most valuable lessons I ever learned. Knowing that wearing his shirt must’ve meant I was succumbing to external pressures, he told me:
“If you don’t make your own plans, others will put you in their plans.”
Over the years, that advice took root and sprouted into this:
As early as you can, figure out what drives you (purpose) and what you want (your paradise), and figure out how to get there (plan).
Thank you, Chris. I love you, Chris.
SHAMELESS PLUG
Have you read the news lately? Media outlets everywhere are dying. Sports Illustrated, LA Times, etc. A sane person would say the news is a bad bet right now, but wethinks commonplace ✌🏾sanity✌🏾 is overrated.
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THINGS.
A quote
Nothing ever fatigues me but doing what I do not like.
The Good Library
Read a book this weekend.
A picture
I took the DC Metro for the first time this week, and man, it’s fantastic. Everyone else takes it for granted and talks about the delays, but for me, coming from where I come from, it’s the small things that blow my mind and leave me saying, “God, when?”
WORK.
Efficient roll call.
I can’t think of a good reason why this would happen, but it has happened to me before, so I’m giving you a solution:
Imagine you have a grid of names:
To convert the grid into a proper list in a single column, you can use the TOCOL function (Isn’t Excel so intuitive? Don’t get used to it 😅.)
The TOCOL function will pull the values in a range of cells into one single column
=TOCOL(range)
Done.
💡 Bonus. Some names in our list are repeated. If you want a single column of only the unique names from the original grid, you wrap the TOCOL formula you created in the UNIQUE function like so:
UNIQUE “swallows” the range TOCOL “spits out,” searches the range for repetitions, and returns only the unique values (names).
Done. For real, this time.
If you want to learn how to use Excel, this is a good place to start.
FUN.
The Friday Fix Playlist
Brain teaser
From Braingle.
In the beginning, nobody will object
That I am the matter, issue, and subject
Change the third, then I become
Poisonous, hazardous, even fatal, to some
Change it again, and then you'll find me
In the bars and pubs of the city
What am I?
Hint: 3 words
Answer below
Shem’s picks
✔️ This site will give you workouts no matter what equipment you have (or don’t have)
✔️ It should be illegal to know this website
✔️ Working hard and hardly working? This might help
Brain teaser answer
Answer: topic, toxic, tonic
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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