Tag: life

• You Have the Watch, But I Have the Time

  A concerned citizen captured it perfectly: The bus driver timing the lights in Suva, lunging forward while the signal is still red. The taxi honking before green even flickers. The overtaker on Ovalau’s narrow coastal road, speeding past serene villages, forcing oncoming traffic to swerve—while the Pasifika glistens quietly on one side and children play on the other.

  Her question haunts me: Where are you rushing to? Was there a tuna sale at PAFCO?

  It’s funny. It’s also deadly serious.

  Fiji prides itself on island time—that unhurried rhythm we hold up as our cultural signature. We take it slow with laughter, with talanoa, with Sunday afternoon naps and funeral kava sessions that stretch into the night. We joke about being late to a family gathering or showing up an hour past the scheduled wedding start. Yet on our roads, we transform into sprinters. We shave seconds off red lights, we overtake on blind corners, we treat 60 km/h signs in places like Pacific Harbour, as polite recommendations. We become people we wouldn’t recognise at a village gathering—impatient, aggressive, reckless.

  Why this contradiction?

  It’s not just about being late. It’s about ego—the subconscious belief that the rules apply to others, not me. It’s about the illusion that those two seconds saved will somehow matter in the grand story of our day. It’s about the lie we tell ourselves: I’m a good driver. I’ll be fine. And worst of all: It won’t happen to me.

  But the morgue at Colonial War Memorial doesn’t care about your hurry. Thirty-one families this year already know that. And as the concerned citizen reminded us, many of those deaths happen not on highways but on rural roads, in urban intersections, in places where pedestrians and schoolchildren and elderly couples are just going about their lives.

  Our infrastructure doesn’t help. In Suva and Nadi, traffic lights are often treated as suggestions. In Nadi, they flicker or fail entirely. On Ovalau, you’ve got beautiful scenery on one side and sheer drop on the other, with barely enough room for two cars to pass. Add speeding drivers, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. But while we wait for better roads and working lights—which will take years—we have choices we can make today.

  There’s an old saying that guides me: “You have the watch, but I have the time.”

  Think about that. The watch is mechanical—ticking, relentless, demanding. It measures microseconds. It stresses. It says hurry. But time is human—flowing, forgiving, patient. It bends around laughter, around farewells, around the extra minute you take to let someone cross the road safely. When we drive, we surrender to the watch. We race against numbers on a dashboard. We forget that time itself will always be there, waiting for us—if we arrive alive.

  Imagine if every driver paused. Took a breath. Let the bus go. Let the car pass when it’s safe. Left five minutes earlier so there’s no need to race. Told themselves: I am not late for God. I am just going to the shop. The Rewa Milk will still be there.

  And passengers—this is where you come in. Too often, we sit silently even when our hearts are pounding. We don’t want to offend the driver. We don’t want to seem dramatic. But that silence is collusion. If your driver is speeding, tailgating, weaving, or running reds—speak up. Say, “We’ll get there. Slow down.” Say, “I’m not comfortable.” Say, “Pull over if you’re tired.” It’s not weakness; it’s wisdom. It’s love for your own life and for theirs.

  Some will say we need more mobile speed cameras, higher fines, road humps, stricter vehicle inspections. And yes, absolutely—do all of it. But no camera can cure arrogance. No fine can reach into a driver’s heart and remind them of their grandchildren waiting at home. That work is internal. It’s personal. It’s each of us deciding, every time we turn the key, that we are not more important than everyone else sharing the road.

  We are a laid-back people by reputation. Let’s live up to it—behind the wheel, not just in our living room.

  So next time you’re driving, remember: the watch says you’re late. But time says you’re still breathing. Choose time. Choose life. Arrive a minute later, but arrive whole.

  And if you see me on the road—kerekere give way to this child of the universe. I’m not rushing. I’m enjoying the view. I’ll get there when I get there.

  And so will you.

  2026.08.13

• The Drafts of Our Lives: Why Intention is Not Enough

  We have all felt it: the hot rush of blood to the head, the rapid-fire typing of a furious rebuttal, the satisfaction of hitting “send” on a message that perfectly articulates our righteous anger. In that moment, our intention feels pure. We are defending ourselves, correcting a wrong, or standing up for what is right. The emotion gives us clarity, or so we believe. But as the graphic so succinctly puts it, “when emotions lead without wisdom, even good intentions lose their way.” Intention, it turns out, is not a sufficient compass for action; it needs the steadying hand of context and clarity.

  This is a lesson I learned not in a philosophy seminar, but in the trenches of global institutional email. A sharply worded message would land in my inbox, and my immediate instinct was to retaliate with equal force. The draft I would write was a masterpiece of emotional candor—raw, unfiltered, and utterly destructive. It was a perfect representation of emotions taking the lead, of a good intention (to set the record straight) being driven by a blinding fury.

  The wisdom, however, came not in the drafting, but in the delay. I would save that volatile draft and walk away. An hour later, or the next morning, the fog of emotion would lift. Reading the draft back was like reading a stranger’s angry manifesto. The core issue I wanted to address was often valid, but the delivery was a weapon. The emotion had not provided clear direction; it had provided a blunt instrument. By stepping back, I could separate the legitimate substance of my concern from the corrosive emotion that had surrounded it. I could then rewrite the draft; not from a place of reaction, but from a place of strategic purpose. The “good intention” was finally given the clarity of direction it deserved.

  This personal ritual highlights a crucial, often overlooked aspect of emotional intelligence: the need for space. The graphic asks, “Does intention itself need context?” The answer is a resounding yes. Context is the time we give ourselves to reflect. Context is the wisdom we apply to temper our initial impulses. Good intentions are like a powerful engine; without a steering wheel, they can drive you straight off a cliff. Wisdom provides that steering mechanism, allowing us to navigate complex situations, with a clear view of our ultimate destination.

  When we fail to provide this context, we are not just risking a bad email. We are risking a fractured relationship, a professional misstep, or a deeply regrettable personal decision. We are acting on the heat of the moment, mistaking intensity for insight. A true leader, a truly wise individual, is not one without emotion, but the one who respects emotion’s power, while refusing to be ruled by it. They recognize that the gap between an impulse and an action is the most critical space for growth and decision-making.

  The practice of drafting and waiting is not about suppressing emotions; it is about mastering them. It is the process of taking the raw material of our feelings and refining them into a message that is both authentic and effective. It is the difference between being a reactor and being a responder. By institutionalizing that pause in my own life, I transformed my professional interactions and, by extension, my personal peace of mind. I learned that the clearest direction is rarely found in the heat of the moment, but in the quiet reflection that follows.

  2026.08.04

• The Conversations We Avoided, The Monsters We Created

  We were raised on the well-meaning but ultimately cowardly advice to avoid talking about politics, religion, and sex. This was not wisdom; it was intellectual disarmament. By silencing the conversations that matter most, we failed to build the muscles of civil discourse, leaving us unable to navigate disagreement with grace, to understand the faith of our neighbors, or to articulate the sacred boundaries of our own bodies with confidence.

  This vacuum of understanding has now been filled by its most toxic counterpart: the performative, often destructive, culture of social media, particularly embodied by a certain breed of Fijian TikTok ‘influencer’ we should all abhor.

  These digital performers are the grotesque product of our silence. Having never been taught how to have a difficult conversation, they instead master the art of the provocative spectacle. They trade in the currency of shame, scandal, and sensationalism because we never learned the value of substance. They reduce complex human beings to simplified caricatures and complex issues to inflammatory dares because we never cultivated a appetite for nuance.

  When we avoid teaching our youth how to debate politics thoughtfully, they learn to substitute reason with rabid partisan trolling. When we avoid deep, theological discussions about faith, they exchange a mature spirituality for the hollow theater of religious performance, using scripture as a weapon rather than a guide for compassion. And when we fail to have honest, consent-based conversations about sex and touch, we create a environment where these topics are not explored with respect, but are exploited for clicks through sexualized dares and risky behavior, further blurring the lines of what is acceptable.

  These influencers are not the cause of our societal dysfunction; they are a symptom. They are the harvest of a culture that prized polite silence over honest, messy, and necessary dialogue. Our silence did not create peace; it created a void, and nature abhors a vacuum. Into that void rushed the loudest, crudest, and most attention-seeking voices.

  The path forward is not to scold them, but to out-compete them. We must consciously build a culture that values difficult conversations. We must teach our children—and ourselves—how to listen, how to question with respect, how to hold a conviction without dehumanizing the opposition, and how to use our platforms not for self-aggrandizement, but for genuine connection and understanding.

  We tried silence. It gave us a digital screaming match. It is time to find our voice.

  2025.10.10

• The Unforgivable Choice: My Struggle to See a Human Behind the Enemy

  I am writing this to myself, because the person I fear I’m becoming is watching closely.

  The news of Charlie Kirk’s death didn’t sadden me. My first reaction was colder, sharper—a quiet, unsettling sense of irony. It was the easy response, the one that required nothing of me but a cynical shrug. It felt like a victory for my side. And that is what terrified me.

  Because just a week earlier, a different death in the Pasifika, reflected my own hypocrisy back at me. In Fiji, Dr. Isireli Biumaitotoya—a beloved, controversial, and vibrant transgender known as Leli Darling—was murdered. The social media response was not grief, but a grotesque eruption of hate, a chorus of bigotry celebrating the silencing of a voice that dared to live openly.

  Two deaths. Two ideologies. One identical, chilling failure of humanity. And I felt it in myself.

  This is my uncomfortable truth: my initial instinct was not compassion. It was tribalism. It was to perform a crude calculus of grief, to measure the value of a life based on its political utility. To see a point on a scoreboard, not a shattered family.

  I am writing to fight that instinct. I am writing to choose the harder path.

  To the family and friends of Charlie Kirk: Your grief is real. To dismiss your pain as an acceptable casualty in a culture war would be to commit the very sin of dehumanization I claim to oppose. To love people who loved him means I must honor the weight you carry. I choose your humanity.

  To the memory of Leli Darling and her grieving mother: Your humanity was attacked twice—first by violence, then by a torrent of cruel words that shame our species. To remain silent in the face of that hatred would be a betrayal of everything I believe. I choose to condemn that poison unconditionally.

  This is the unforgivable choice we are forced to make in a broken world: to hold two crushing truths at once.

  1. Truth One: A complex, imperfect human being is gone, and a circle of love around them has been shattered.
  2. Truth Two: The ideas they championed have real and often devastating consequences.

  To ignore the first truth is to become the cold, cruel monster you oppose. To ignore the second is to be a naive bystander to harm. The only way through is to stand in the painful, dizzying space between them.

  So this is my challenge to you, and my note to my future self:

  The next time a polarizing figure falls, pause. Breathe. Before you share, before you comment, before you let that wave of tribal satisfaction wash over you, ask:

  • Do my words widen the rift or help stitch it closed?
  • Am I arguing against a deadly idea, or am I celebrating the death of a person?
  • Does my reaction make violence more or less likely?

  We are sliding into a world where our digital rage licenses real-world cruelty. We are becoming mirror images of our enemies, arguing against hate with hate.

  The world does not need more soldiers in this war. It needs healers. It needs people brave enough to do the hardest work: to see a human behind the label of “enemy,” and to choose empathy, not because it is easy, but because it is the only thing left that can save us from ourselves.

  I am trying to build a soul that is a refuge, not a weapon. This is the mirror I choose to look into.

  Which will you choose?

  2025.09.12