Speeches by Nduati

Recently, I was watching a film called Time Bounce. In the movie, the hero finds himself trapped in a time loop—every single day repeats exactly the same. 

On that repeating day, his love interest, gets shot. Over and over again. So, he tries to stop it. He tries to warn her. He tries to warn his colleagues. Tries to stop the shooter. Tries to change that part of the repeating day.

But no one believes him. He just looks… crazy. The harder he tries the crazier he seems. To the point in one of those repeating days he is fired and even arrested and sent to prison for his behavior.

And as I watched, I found myself wondering—would I do the same thing? Would I risk looking insane to save someone? Am I willing to be viewed as weird or odd or abnormal so as to do the right thing?

I doubted that I could based on something that happened a few years back.

At that time I had completed my university studies and one day in the evening, I had picked up my favorite burger from a spot called Steers in Nairobi—a glorious burger. I was ready for a quiet night: me, that burger and a movie. I was super single.

As I drove home, I noticed an elderly woman sitting by the side of the road. She looked tired—possibly unwell. I slowed down. Something told me to stop.

But I didn’t. 

As I drove away I kept telling myself I was not a doctor. If I stopped, what else could I have done other than stand there the way you sometimes see people standing around a person on the street. And what if it was some kind of scam? What unknown risks would I be taking by stopping?

But my conscience was not buying it and when I got home, I dropped off my glorious burger and went back.

She was still there. She said she was unwell. I offered to take her to the hospital. She agreed. She got into my car

But the moment I got in the car and shut the doors… I immediately knew I had made a big mistake. She smelled like a brewery. She wasn’t sick. She was simply drunk. Supper drunk.

I started the car and as we drove away I thought, “damn!” I felt like a fool. 

So I came up with a plan to get myself out of the situation. I drove a bit and then acted like there something wrong with the car. I asked her to step out for a moment while I checked it. And the moment she did, I drove off.

I am not proud of any of it.

That experience shook me. For a while, I told myself: “See? That’s what you get.” 

I learned to stick to the routine, to the normal, to just mind my own business.

As I continued to reflect on that movie, I didn’t like that I was not willing to act selflessly like the hero. The question I had was, “ how could I become a person like the hero – willing to be viewed as crazy to do the right thing?”

Another time loop movie gave the the answer. The movie is Groundhog Day.

In it, the main character is a self-absorbed TV weatherman who’s stuck repeating the same day in a small town. At first, he was frustrated but then uses the loop selfishly—he tries to manipulate people, get what he wants, charm a woman by learning her every preference.

But eventually, something changes in him. He starts to see the repeating day not as a curse, but as a chance.

A chance to grow. A chance to serve.

He learns piano. He reads. He performs quiet acts of kindness—helping someone avoid stepping in a puddle, catching a falling child, changing the flat tire of some old ladies.

Tiny but meaningful things.

In a world that kept repeating, he redefined himself. In a word that stayed the same he changed for the better.

The concept of these movies is not too far off from our lives.

Ecclesiastes says, “There is nothing new under the sun.” 

And sometimes, life feels exactly like that. Same routine. Same problems. Same world. Think about your time. How does you day starts and ends, how does you week unfolds or your typical month. It is like in reality we are caught in a time loop.

But we can choose to be different everyday. Not in a spectacular way. Bit by bit we can choose to become better human beings. 

We can read a book that has views opposite to our own. We can talk to someone we otherwise wouldn’t talk to. We can try to see things from the other persons perspective in our relationships.

Like the hero in Time Bounce or the weatherman in Groundhog Day, you and I have a choice. Even if life feels repetitive—even if the world doesn’t care—we can still choose to become more patient, more generous, more kind.

We might not always be able to change the world, but we can change ourselves.