The year is nearly gone, what’s up for the New Year?

Lenox Lizwi Mhlanga

I will begin on a very sad note. A good friend of mine and fellow Founders High School alumni, Joe Maseko, was laid to rest at Luveve Cemetery this week.

Joe, who ran the iconic and yet under-rated, House of Rising Sound Studios in Gwabalanda, succumbed after a short illness. We had so much in common. Besides being a disarmingly humble person which also I am, we loved reggae music.

One does not have to go very far looking for the influence of that music genre on Joe. We would talk for hours about our favourite artistes and I gave him my vinyl collection to transcribe to MP3s. He never got to do it because of his super busy schedule. I will definitely miss our talks Joe. Lala ngokuthula mzala, cultural hero of Gwabalanda.

If you expect me to dish out predictions for the New Year, forget it. No predictions, just plain good old advice that I would recommend you seriously take heed of. I must admit, it is difficult to sometimes take anything in this column seriously. But for once, please take that silly smirk off your face and pay attention.

The following advice is from experience and with sincere apologies to one Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune and with slight modifications, it will be laid bare. In 2019, you should eat well. If I could offer only one tip for the future, eating well would be it. The benefit of food has been proven by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. Trust me, I turned 54 in June! In 20 years, you will look back at photos of yourself and recall how fabulous you really looked at the time. You are not as fat as you imagine, but damn it, you have aged.

Don’t worry too much about the future, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve a mathematical equation by chewing gum. Real troubles are apt to ambush you at 4PM on an idle Tuesday. Do at least one thing that really scares you, like singing. Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and I bet you, nothing worse will befall you for the rest of the day.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts and don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Brush your teeth. Remember compliments, forget insults. Keep old love letters. Throw away old bank statements. Exercise a lot. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t yet know what you want to do with your life.

Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t know what to do with theirs.

Be kind to your knees. You will miss them when they are gone. Maybe, you will marry, maybe you won’t, and maybe you already have. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, and maybe you already have several. Maybe you will dance the “gwaragwara” at your 75th birthday party. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself or criticise yourself too much.

Dance while you can because you will rue the day you can’t find your feet. Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them. If you are a woman, do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they will be gone. Be nice to your siblings. They are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you when the chips are down.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few, you should hold on. The older you get, the more you need people who knew you when you were young. Travel. Accept these certain truths: Prices will rise, politicians will philander and you too will get old. And you will fantasise that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders. Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you will marry a wealthy spouse. But you will never know when either of them will run out, or away. Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you take, but be patient with those who give it. Advice is a form of nostalgia.

Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the rubbish bin, wiping it off and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the food. The rest of you can queue behind me for your share of blessings. Halala 2019!