(From the Cocoon Diaries of a Reluctant Ringmaster)
There are days when life feels like a carefully designed leadership workshop – structured, purposeful, outcome-driven.
And then there are days when life looks at your workshop plan, laughs loudly, throws feathers in the air, adds animal poop analysis, a missing staff member, and a monkey on the tree… and says:
“Let us see how strong your leadership skills really are.”
I often feel my life operates in a strange scientific zone – somewhere between crazy and idiosyncratic, between chaos and routine, where the final outcome is what I call motionless suspension.
You are moving.
Everything is moving.
Yet nothing seems to move.
The more you react, the less happens.
The more you plan, the more the universe improvises.
The more you try to micro-manage, the more the situation expands like badly kneaded dough.
It is almost like life follows Newton’s lesser-known Fourth Law:
For every attempt to organize life, there will be an equal and opposite outbreak of nonsense.
Take a typical morning.
I wake up with what I believe is a strong, determined, well-planned mind.
Within 20 minutes I become the Chief Crisis Management Officer of:
• One turkey who has mysteriously lost feathers (again)
• One beagle whose digestive report now requires veterinary interpretation
• One Indie whose health bulletins are discussed with more seriousness than national budgets
• One monkey screaming motivational speeches from my tree
• Pigeons conducting what appears to be a protest march on my terrace
• Staff members who exist theoretically but not physically
• And a workshop schedule that assumes human cooperation
Meanwhile I stand there with my cup of tea wondering:
“Was my destiny always going to be this?”
The funny thing is — none of these problems are big.
Not one.
And yet together they form what I call The Federation of Small Disasters.
Each one individually:
Manageable.
All together:
A Netflix thriller.
The real comedy begins when I try to fix things.
Because I belong to that dangerous category of people who believe:
If there is a problem, there must be a solution.
So I begin.
Turkey feather inspection.
Google search: Why do turkeys shed feathers emotionally?
Beagle stomach concern.
Google search: Signs of worms vs dramatic personality.
Indie poop analysis.
Let us not even discuss the research dignity lost here.
Workshop coordination calls.
No response.
Staff follow-ups.
Double tick. No reply.
Meanwhile the monkey continues commentary like a sports anchor.
At this point my brain begins offering 47 solutions simultaneously.
Make lists.
Call doctor.
Reschedule session.
Check supplies.
Order medicines.
Send reminders.
Check transport.
Prepare Youth Parliament files.
Respond to messages.
Drink tea.
Drink more tea.
My mind is a management institute.
My life is a circus. And I am both the faculty and the clown.
The most fascinating discovery I have made over the years is this:
Big responsibilities rarely exhaust me.
Small unpredictability’s do.
Organizing a district-level Youth Parliament?
Manageable.
Training hundreds of teachers?
Energizing.
Designing educational programs?
Exciting.
But:
Missing keys.
Delayed staff.
Animal health mysteries.
Unexpected logistics.
Minor disruptions.
These are the real villains.
It is like preparing to conduct Parliament and being defeated by a missing stapler.
And yet – somewhere between the sighs – there is humour.
Because honestly, if I step outside myself and watch my own life like a documentary, it would probably be titled:
“Woman Attempts Nation-Building While Managing a Small Zoo.”
There is also something deeply grounding about this madness.
Because in between policy discussions and SDG goals and youth leadership frameworks, life reminds me:
“You may plan global change, but first please deal with this turkey.”
And strangely, I think this is balance. Because ambition without groundedness becomes ego. And nothing grounds you faster than discussing your dog’s digestive health at 8 AM.
What saves me most days is humour.
And tea.
Mostly tea.
There is something profoundly therapeutic about holding a cup of tea while everything refuses to cooperate.
Tea does not solve problems.
Tea simply says:
“Yes, everything is falling apart. But let us watch it calmly.”
Then come the conversations with my son.
Those random ruminations between crises.
Half philosophy.
Half comedy.
Full sanity.
Somewhere between analyzing people, laughing at situations, predicting outcomes, and mocking our own overthinking, life regains proportion.
Because he has that dangerous combination:
Logic and humor.
Which means he can reduce my most complicated worries into one sentence:
“This is normal in our life.”
And maybe he is right.
Maybe this is normal.
Maybe my normal is not supposed to look peaceful.
Maybe my normal looks like movement.
Noise.
Animals.
People.
Workshops.
Ideas.
Unexpected friendships.
Unexpected responsibilities.
Unexpected chaos.
And maybe the mundane is what gives meaning to the big things. Because if everything were perfectly smooth, would victories feel real?
If nothing went wrong, would resilience exist?
If chaos did not visit, would humor survive?
Sometimes I think these small daily absurdities are life’s way of preventing me from becoming too serious. Because seriousness is dangerous.
It removes laughter.
It removes perspective.
It removes softness.
And perhaps that is why my life insists on including:
Monkeys.
Turkeys.
Beagles.
Indies.
Pigeons.
Missing staff.
Endless tea.
And tiny daily catastrophes.
They are my humility curriculum.
My patience training program.
My emotional gym.
My comedy script.
There is also another quiet truth I am learning:
The mundane is not the interruption.
The mundane is the story.
We think the big events define us.
The conferences.
The achievements.
The recognitions.
The milestones.
But memory does something interesting.
Years later we rarely remember the perfect event.
We remember:
The chaos before it.
The people who helped.
The unexpected laughter.
The ridiculous problems.
The small victories.
No one remembers the perfectly executed day.
They remember the day everything went wrong but somehow worked.
And perhaps that is why, even while sighing, I know I would not trade this life.
Because my small world is noisy.
But it is full.
It is inconvenient.
But it is meaningful.
It is unpredictable.
But it is alive.
And somewhere between endless tea refills and crisis management, I realise:
I am not managing chaos.
Chaos is managing me.
Teaching me flexibility.
Teaching me humour.
Teaching me to pick battles.
Teaching me to laugh at what cannot be controlled.
And most importantly:
Teaching me that perfection is overrated.
Because real life is not symmetry.
It is feather loss and policy notes.
It is dog medicine and leadership sessions.
It is missing people and dependable animals.
It is exhaustion and purpose.
It is sighs and satisfaction.
So tomorrow when chaos reports for duty again – as it certainly will – I will probably do what I always do:
Pick up my tea.
Make my lists.
Solve what I can.
Ignore what I cannot.
Laugh where possible.
And remind myself:
This strange, noisy, unpredictable life…
…is not a distraction from my purpose.
It is my purpose.
And honestly?
Between us?
I think I would be very bored without it.
Wickedlyours 