We are told to earn a living. To win the day by holding a job, drawing a salary, keeping food on the table.
And yes, that is survival. But is it life?
James Baldwin once said, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”
What he showed us is that most of what we call “progress” has left the next generation unchanged, still fighting, still aching, still locked in cycles they did not create.
To win the day, and yet leave tomorrow untouched, is not winning. It is only marking time.
Work, as we have known it, can become a narcotic. The job becomes the proof that you are doing enough. That you are enough. But ask yourself: if all you do is sell your hours, what seed are you planting?
The illusion of winning every day is the quietest theft. It robs our children of what they need most: a future different from ours. If we do not teach them to fish – if we do not invent, build, and dare to create – then all we leave them is hunger with better tools.
The world is changing. Machines are learning to work faster than us. The old promise, “work hard and you will live well”, has already broken.
What remains is this: either we teach our children to win the future, or we condemn them to repeat our present.
Earning a living is not enough. We must leave a legacy.
Play your role well. Then pass the torch.
— Uzanenkosi
Torchbearer, Marantu