My love for nature and adventure is ever at hyper levels and one Saturday in July was no exception. The chilly weather was not going to deter me from challenging one of the majestic creation of nature by the name of Elephant hill. This place gained notoriety after a plane crashed there a few months ago.
Elephant hill is south west of Abardare ranges in central part of Kenya. The weather and vegetation up there changes as you climb higher You start with some low growing vegetation, thick forest bamboo and then moorland. The temperatures drop as you go up. At moorland level, the temperatures are almost at freezing point. It is also very rocky and you wouldn’t expect any plant life there but shock on you, there are plants growing there.
Curiosity about this got the better of me so I sought to figure out how this was possible. Upon closer inspection, I realized that this was due to the harsh conditions up there, these plants have developed mechanisms to help them thrive up there. From the roots system, the stem and the branches and leaves all these are set in such a way that they are able to fight off the extremely low temperatures and make use of the little moisture and nutrients up there.
The key word here is “Adaptability”. Sometimes life throws us into situations that we never planned for or even expected to be in. It gets to a point where it is no longer a matter of choice but making do with what is available. Most of the time, these are not of our own making but rather, stem from conditions and situations beyond our control. It could be the loss of a job, death of your guardian who was paying your fees, an accident that leaves you maimed for life, or even a nasty break with a person you had invested so much in. The question is, when we find ourselves in this situation, what do we do? Do we sit there crying, miserable and hoping for sympathy or do we rise up and make lemonade out of the lemons that life throws at us?
Life will not always give us what we want and you can never question it. So we need to develop in our minds that ability to look at things not as they are but as the can and should be. So many successful people have succeeded from a point of disadvantage. It is not so much where you find yourself but what you do from that point. Learn to adapt but don’t conform. To read more by Mwangi, click HERE
