Today is not your end...

There are times and moments...

There are times in life where giving up seems like is the only option one has in life. When you have done everything that you can do in your power to advance your life, only for your world to come crumbling down around you.

There are times where life becomes so hard that holding on feels like a burden. There will be moments also where work will not come your way, where all interviews you have attended are turned down due to technicalities, sudden or unforeseen turn of events, deliberate delay tactics or simply not having enough experience or qualifications needed for that particular post. That should not spell the end. for you but should in essence encourage you to work on that which you lack and improve in areas you need development in.

There are times where your world comes crashing down on you just as you start rebuilding from your last unfortunate experience or recovering from bad circumstances. These will leave you with a lot of unanswered questions, self doubt, depression or anxiety. The one option your mind will play over and over is that of giving up. Giving in and allowing that mentality to win over your life will see you waking up only to die inside each and every day.

That is when and how your charector is built and tested. That is when you might just find out how resilient you are and how much courage you have inside of you to keep you optimistic that a better day will come. The moment you realise and accept that: 'Today was not my day'', will be the awakening you need to keep negative thoughts at bay and the ammunition you need to fight depression/anxiety.

In everything that you do or decide to do, always remind yourself that not all days will be the same. Some days will get you to feel like you are making progress and other days will have you feeling like your world has just crumbled on you and there is little or nothing that you can do to stop it from crumbling further.

When moments like that find you, reach out to a friend, a stranger, or anyone and talk about it. Do not be afraid to open up, do not be afraid address certain behaviours holding you back, honest conversations with self are difficult to hold but are liberating and constructive. Share moments with other creatives, open up to your partner, you brother, sister or cousins.

In everything that you are going through, remain optimistic that you will find a solution to your challenges.

There has been moments and points in time where I had totally given up on myself, given up on finding love, work and a stable income. This has not been a single moment, it has happened at various stages of my life and have had a negative impact to my efforts to better myself.
Getting out of that mental state remains an ongoing process, a not so easy process to undergo if you do not have support structures that will be there for you when you yourself don't see any hope that life might change for the better. I know to be hard and can easily be returned to with every new curve ball life unexpectedly throws at you.
I do not wish that you follow suit when your world gets turned upside down, find a way out or risk living in self pity for many years to come, like I have been doing for the most past years of my life.

Learning to Let Go

Getting left behind

Things fall apart

In a community plagued by a high rate of unemployment, only a handful of young adults who hold tertiary qualifications can afford to secure themselves employment that will sustain their livelihoods. This got me thinking about the odds and prospects of a better tomorrow for those with no such qualifications at all, especially young adults from rural areas or locations where surviving means giving up on ever attaining a qualification in order to bring enough income to see the family through until the next day/week/month. Places where one must do what one can do to survive. In most of these cases, some men and women are forced to learn the true meaning of making sacrifices. Sacrificing their own worldly pleasures and comforts for a better tomorrow to those looking up to them.

From a man's perspective, there are many other downsides to this than securing income on a monthly bases. There is the thought of finding a partner. The challenge of explaining yourself or what is it that you have studied / your position at work / places you have travelled, etc. What car you drive or how much savings you have accumulated. For a man above 30, society dictates that you must have already have a house or paid up property, and a bit of investments here and there...all these expectations wear heavy on some men and see them reduce themselves to a shadow of what they are or capable of becoming.

There are also her friends to deal with. Even if she finds you attractive and sees potential in building with you, you still have that challenge of convincing her friends that you can be the man she needs.

"Friend, what do you see in him?"

"He doesn't strike me as your type."

"What will he be doing while you are at work, what if he....?

These are but a few questions that can further reduce a man an impact on how one sees himself from a perspective of others and can be a catalyst into how one gets reduced to becoming a shadow of themselves  

If you have been through a lot or if you have allowed yourself to remain incarcerated by circumstances from your past, know that you are responsible for the years wasted not doing anything to escape your past 
Any ambitiou man can free himself from their mental prison if they can think beyond the obvious and focus on finding solutions to their challenges. It is never too late to turn your life around. Your background or current place of residence doesn't define you. What defines you is your courage to make something out of yourself and the willingness to change your current circumstances.

With new challenges comes new rewards and satisfaction. "you are never too old to learn new ways of doing things", believe in  that and never stop applying this in everything you set your mind on doing. I am going to utilise these few opportunities I have been rewarded and make the most of all the years and days I have ahead of me.

I will overcome and prosper.

Dreams don't die but lay dormant until one finds that spark that will reignite the passion and will to start anew.

Find yourself, remember who you were before bad circumstances threw you off your rails. Remember your passion and be brave enough to ask where for assistance when you are uncertain, propose where you see an opening, and ask for opportunities instead of waiting for your name to be called.

Take good care of yourself. Have less regrets and apply yourself without losing your:

          (i) Integrity

          (ii) Humility

          (iii) Kind-heartedness

          (iv) Morals

          (v) Vision.

Stay true to yourself.

Learning to Accept

Who are we...?



We are who we are because of what we have been exposed to. We are how we think because of debates, conversations, arguments, listening, reading and any other form of exchange of information. All that we are helps us shape our future in many ways. It can help us avoid unnecessary arguments. It can shape and strengthen existing and paly a major role in shaping future bonds.

 

A lot of people assume and believe that "Truth hurts".....my thought on that is: Truth hurts, only if it comes from people who do not value you, people who are blunt and self centred, people who have been hurt by being confronted about matters relating to their behaviour or for being in denial and reacting negatively when confronted. We are who we allow ourselves to become. We are how we react to situations around us. We are also what we allow ourselves to believe what every has been saying we are. We forget to define ourselves according to our circumstances/conditions or desired goals.

What are we...?



Hurt people hurt people.

In most cases, hurt people fear experiencing the feeling of being hurt. Their best defence mechanism they apply is hurting others before anyone can see through them and spot the vulnerability they are trying to hide. Have you ever encountered a person so scared of settling with someone whom they think might be weak or not doing enough to change their circumstances for the better? Have you ever been in a conversation where one or two individuals would speak the loudest about age limit on reaching certain goals and how embarrassing it is for a man/woman of a certain age who has not achieved what they have achieved?

"Tough love" might be a good way to motivate a person to work harder, but what is tough love when you are using it to hide your own vulnerability and consciously break someone down in the process? What is being hard on a friend amount to if your motives are to show everyone how better you are than everyone?

Before jumping into conclusions or assuming, have you ever given yourself time to understand your friend/boyfriend/girlfriend/relative,etc? Have you ever given yourself time to listen with the intention to understand more than an urge to respond? 

Hurt people were never born hurtful or defensive. It takes years of repeated emotional/physical abuse to push them towards becoming that which they initially feared. It takes a lot of rejection to turn a person into a shadow over what they aspired to become.

Being misunderstood by those you trust with your past can send you spiralling down a path of self destruction. It can break you and result in you completely giving up on ever making it through in life.

Effort, failure, attempts to try again, encouragement.....these and many more positive support from those in your life can be all the difference one needs to keep going and never giving up. The opposite of that is as toxic as a tongue that whispers words of hope, only to turn around and share your shortfalls with the world.

"Hurt people hurt people.....not by choice at times, but the hurt happens and remains with those who got hurt."

There will come a time in life where you will have to decide which person you want to become. Not all 25 year olds make it through tertiary with diplomas or degrees. Not all 30+ year olds are financially stable or in a position to purchase property, have holidays abroad, luxurious vehicles,etc....that doesn't mean they are not silently making efforts to change that.

That doesn't mean their attempts are weak. That doesn't mean they have failed in life. As much as nature has to retain a certain balance on everything, that doesn't mean we should impose our lifestyle or expectations on those who were not awarded the same kind of opportunities we had.

 

Moving on

History only becomes a reality when we look back at how good/bad we did. History becomes a point of reference only if we choose to admit our yesterdays without feeling a sense of resentment towards ourselves for the bad choices we made or towards those who have wronged us, hurt us, betrayed us or achieved more than we did. The only way to make a difference in your life  is taking each day as it comes. Take the negative criticism and use it to your advantage.

Take your rejection and use it as your own measuring tool. Use it to gauge how far you have come, how far you've fallen back or how much further you need to go, even if it's by yourself. The best that you can do in any situation is to find 1 positive outcome and find a plan to use that moment to better yourself.

There are plenty opportunities around you. Yours is to spot them and make the most out of them.

DO NOT BE DISUADED by anyone or anything.



 

On the verge of giving up

Inception

After years of trying to live off that which you love the most and not getting it right, there comes a point in time where one  feels like giving up. Be it due to frustrations of not getting the formula right or bad choices that result in immense loss of capital, investment, time and disappointing potential clients.

"It's been years trying, nothing seems to be going well in my life....I'm depleted, giving up is the only sane option I have left."

How often have you heard this line before, or something similar. Even better, how often have you heard this response: " Hang in there, things will get better soon/someday."

When is that day? After years of struggling, many young men eventually give up on trying and resort to living to see tomorrow instead of building for better tomorrows. The lucky few, who get their voices heard survive to change their lives and try reach out to others in similar positions.

The majority from locations/rural areas remain in the darkness, suffering from depression, anxiety, regrets or stress of being failures in life.

For those in the middle class, who were afforded tertiary education and managed to build careers out of what they learned are sometimes blinded about the realness of the situations their peers are suffering from.

It is easy to presume it can be done because you have made it. It is easy to dismiss others as not putting in effort towards making their lives better. It is easy to tease someone on twitter for living in his mother's house in the back yard, or teasing someone who is above 25 years for not having anything going for himself.

The difficult part is submerging yourself in their lives and understanding where they are getting wrong. The difficult part is seeing people shunning those who are struggling with making a living the best way they could.

Until you walk a mile in someone else's shoes, what makes you think it's ok to criticise, judge and shun those struggling with what they haven't manage to comprehend?

Until you spend time with someone you share a drink with and ask them where are they struggling in life, what gives you the right to sub-tweet them and call them a failure?

I come from an environment where friendship has a different meaning than what I have thus been exposed to here in the big city. I come from a time where if one makes it, others follow by not ridding the wave of success of the other, but by being exposed to HOW it is done.

I come from an era where sharing your ideas with a friend didn't end with a simple "Good luck" but escalated to "I know someone who can help you polish off your dreams and see your ambitions through."

What kills a lot of young men's dreams in the locations is not the fact that they are from disadvantaged areas, it is because of the lack of information and knowing how to get started.

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"Hang in there, one day you will make it."

How is one going to make it when he is struggling with getting started? How is one to succeed when those entrusted to share valuable information on being self-sufficient are the ones shutting doors to ideas that could be solutions to what most communities are struggling with: Moral Decay, Drug Abuse, Infidelity, Drop in pass rate, etc.

We live in a time where lessons from cultural teachings/disciplines are shunned upon and deemed outdated.

We live in a time where everyone wants to be seen as being in a better position, albeit being shallow/empty inside. We want to be seen, no matter the cost of making it happen.

How many young men/women from your area do you know that can benefit from outreach projects offered at your work place that you hardly share information on or talk about?

How many young minds can you help through sharing valuable information that you have access to?

We would rather spend our time musing on who's uhdirty laundry got hung out instead of building platforms that will help others get started towards changing their lives.

This is by no means a crusade to change the world overnight, but a challenge to you and yours on how best can we change people's lives through sharing valuable information on how to be self sufficient and create opportunities that will see those who have dreams of being self employed enter that realm better equipped.



I am

I am my own choices

Welcome to September, the beginning of spring to many. A season characterised by birds chirping, flowers blooming, love sprouting, longer and warmer days/nights. It is a new beginning for many hopefuls and lovers of love and everything beautiful. It is a new beginning for young souls and those young at heart. It is a time where everyone exhibits traits of starting afresh, traces of old flames that were almost obliterated by woes from since the year began getting rekindled. The air is filled with hope, joy, laughter and new beginnings.

Welcome to September, a month most South Africans dedicate to everything cultural and colourful.

We showcase our diverse heritage in many ways. Through our bright colourful attires, to our diverse form of dance and song. Our voices can be heard from many miles away when we are gathered in song and celebration. We give wholeheartedly, love endlessly and unify in song and dance. 

It is a month where we celebrate all that is valuable to us, from our core values (discipline, respect and integrity) to our women, cattle, history and heroes celebrated world wide. We celebrate the end of winter and welcome summer. We till our lands, marvel at the beauty of our rolling hills, flat lands, wetlands, wildlife and sunsets. We remember ourselves for who we were and hope to change our circumstances for the better.

I should be more than song and dance. I should be more about celebrations that are more inclined towards achievements beyond my cultural comfort zone. I should be financially stable, I should be financially savvy/educated. I should be educated and speak languages understood by the world. I should be able to communicate business, diversity, progress, connectivity, collaborations, development and investment without having to be shy/turn my back on my cultural upbringing.
I should be more than a man.
I should be vocal on matters relating to women abuse, ill-treatment of the elderly, the injustices faced by the defenceless, the young girls and the less educated.
I should be all this and more because I believe in the core values passed on to me by my grandfather from his grandfather, who in turn got it from his forefathers.
I should be all this because I understand how creating new cultures without losing track of old ones can help change my world for the better.


I should be all this because I am a young man who believes we need more young&old men who will stand up and be good examples to those who have lost their ways and forgot their ways.
Those who have never knew affection, motivation, encouragement and support.
I should be part of a generation that is looking for and implementing solutions that will rid our communities of all that is currently inconveniencing everyone.
I should be all this and more because I too once never had anything. I know the pain of being limited. I know the difficulties of not having that male figure to talk to, guide and look up to. The frustrations of rejection, condemnation, being cast aside or undervalued, I know it all too well and am not afraid to admit the destruction it can cause to a young man trying to make it out of the location/rural area/difficult conditions.





I pray for the day where we will face our challenges head on, without favour or discrimination against each other for all the mistakes we have made and the time we wasted having fun instead of building towards our tomorrows.
I pray for a day where we will create a culture of unity and prosperity. Where friends will advise each other against bad behaviour/habits and the importance of knowing how to save for tomorrow.
There will come a time where we will unit as men and face our shortcomings and help each other see the impact of our destructive ways.
Instead of condoning bad behaviour, we are ought to be encouraging each other to learn from each other's success, no matter how small our victories are. If we create and promote good habits from an early age, we will eventually raise a nation of even greater men, greater leaders, better men.

"We are our own choices"

As a man, you can not dream of a million rand house and not start working towards building it now. You will not wake up to your dreams without putting effort towards making them a reality. Old habits are hard to kill, best you start forming good habits that will see you prosper instead of habits that will tear your future into tatters. We all want a better life, that life begins with:

(1) Accepting your current situation.

(2) Having a drive to change your current situation.

(3) Rekindling your passion for what you are good at.

(4) Asking the right questions, knowing how to adapt and knowing the relevant people who can help you get your life back on track.

(5)Being determined and disciplined to see yourself through. Determination and Discipline are everything.







"We are our own struggles..... A stumble in your path should not be the end of your journey."

Taking each day as it comes.

Learning to Let go

- Picking up the Pieces -

There is no time better than the time where as a young adult, you accept and acknowledge the following words:

"I have been suppressing a lot of emotions. Not consciously or willingly, but the truth is staring right back at me, reminding me how I have become that which I feared the most: a young adult who has not made it to where he/she planned to be at his/her current age. It is time I face the reality of the pain I have been running away from for all these years, pain that I have been afraid deal with."

As a young adult, trying to keep abreast in life and stay afloat, I have decided to look back at what I have not been doing right and come up with possible solutions that will enable me to overcome my grief, forget my regrets and start all over again from the bottom up. Being able to deal with the past negative emotional moments and frustrations seems like a good place to start. This will ensure that I move forward with no baggage from my past weighing heavy on my conscious. That is where I will start to rebuild my life. I am reminding myself that, doing so is not a sign of weakness or shifting blame to my father, his family or relatives or anyone else who has had a contribution towards the person I have become. Doing so is nothing more but a sign of acceptance and acknowledging that not everything in life will work out the way I plan or would love it to.

With my 3 years experience of moving to Johannesburg, I did not anticipate life to be so hard that I would find myself in tricky and difficult situations. These include: getting caught up in family politics, living on a R200 budget for over  year, facing prospects of living in a squatter camp kind of setup/shanty town or going 2 years, a job that took more than rewarded, manipulative friends, etc.

Amidst all this, I did not give up or look down on myself. Yes, my self esteem dropped, I distanced myself from those who publicly proclaimed "You can not be in my company if your life is not going anywhere". I hid under a rock, dug a hole and berried my shame of not being part of the elite that has made a name for themselves. It hit hard and the blow was nerve wrecking.

 "Things fall apart."

With all that, I made a conscious decision to focus on that which drives me, I reached a point where I told myself that I will no longer run away from my past, where I come from, the pain I have been through or the fear of openly talking about it.

I am at a point where I have come to accept the past for what it is and acknowledge the lessons it has taught me. I am too old to be afraid of facing my skeletons and the unfortunate truths they might come with. Bottling in emotions and frustrations is by far the most dangerous thing anyone can do for themselves, especially a young man growing up to be a different man. How different will you be if you follow on the footsteps of those who raised you without opening up to you about issues that concern you?

If you bottle emotions, you easily create room for depression to sink in and slowly eat away the happiness in you.

That said, it should also be accepted that not having an outlet or means of releasing these emotions can be viewed as a reason why most men bottle their emotions in. There are many other reasons why men cannot talk or do not talk about that which they can no longer deal with emotionally. Fear of being judged or called weak is one of the reasons, but I believe not knowing how to deal/cope with life’s challenges is the main culprit behind men not coping.

I have always told myself that I will figure things out as they come, in the process, reducing myself into such minimal thinking that certain opportunities passed me by without even realising. This level of thinking also created a perception about me that not many people who saw greatness in me liked. It portrayed me as weak person, a person looking for pity from others, someone who wore his emotions and heart on his sleeve. With time, I grew to believe what was said about me. I grew to notice how petty I have become, how easily I would find myself relating my life’s story to anyone who would give me an ear. The intention was always to try and voice out all the bottled emotions and frustrations from years of hardship and difficulties. The results didn’t serve the desired purpose, instead, it portrayed me as a weak individual lost in his woes. That created a reason not try and talk or voice out my frustrations and difficulties.

Once you allow how others perceive or say about you to be true, you unwittingly sign away your life to a way of living that is determined by validation from others. I have been a victim of such for some time and I know that I am not the only one who has been reduced to such levels or that many other young men are suffering in silence.  It is easy to be reduced to a shadow of the person you once were but it takes a lot of work undoing the damage caused and to regain one’s sanity.

As a young man/young woman, I strongly suggest that you find ways of dealing with whatever has been causing you grief. Social media is not the right platform to air your frustrations/emotions, that move will only be met with a large number of following that has never been in your situation or similar situation, thus leading to your intentions of reaching out for help to be distorted or mistaken for an attempt to gain re-tweets and likes. Not taking away that social networks has a strong following of individuals looking to help young men in your position, the difficulty is getting your message through to them on time before the wrong crowd picks on it and gives you feedback that will make you wish you had not voiced out any of your worries.

Without losing track of things or spending too much time recollecting bad moments in life, I urge you to do like I did and start fixing your life. You are responsible for who you eventually become. Bad circumstances in life are there to strengthen you, not to further break you down. There are there to toughen you, not to harden you up or turn you into a horrible person with little or no emotions left in him/her. You are greater than all the sum of mishaps you have ever been through. I say so because you have made it through it all like you were made for it. Subconsciously, you are prepared to face whatever tomorrow may come with. Believe in yourself and stay true to your path. You will never be left behind if you stay/keep in your lane.

"Is it too late to rebuild oneself?"

(This is my parting question to you.)

Learning to let go

I know what is waiting for me

“There is little that I can do to prevent what is coming my way if I continue to ignore the glaring signs and live my life pretending I am different or that I will do things differently once I reach a certain age. I have seen through my father, my uncles and their brothers, how my life can turn out to be like if I keep on ignoring these signs.”

Some wake-up calls come in a form of death in a family and the sudden change in behaviour between family members who cannot tolerate each other. When everyone is gathered to lay to rest a family member, a temporary truce is put into place. Those who hate each other find a chance/moment to put aside their differences and focus on burying the deceased with dignity. At that very moment, silently observing how close your cousins are with their parents and siblings can leave you wondering where did your life go wrong?

Seeing how they support each other, help each other out without having to ask to be helped, how they encourage each other and amplify the good in each other can leave you wanting to be a part of their family.

The pain of having an absent present parent is heart breaking to a boy child, especially when he reaches a stage where he can make sense of his past hurtful moments, experienced in the hands of those he calls family and how they react towards him in the presence of other family members. The most painful part being hearing someone ask his father: “How is your son doing?” and his responds by saying:

“I don’t know, I do not talk to him much.”

As a young man, you will be destroyed by such words. You will be ashamed to call him your father in front of everyone knowing he has subliminally let everyone know how little your growth means to him. Bad memories will cloud your mind and fill your heart with anger and disappointment. At that very moment, you will find yourself caught between a hard place and a rock. Your reaction will subconsciously determine the kind of a man you will become in future.

 

If anger and hate win over your will to do better, you will stand a chance of becoming a bitter person yourself. The pain of watching his brother’s children laugh and interact with your uncle will shatter your heart into many pieces and turn you into a similar version of the man who helped bring you into this world, a heartless man who doesn’t know how to love his own flesh and blood.

As young adults, we are expected to be better fathers yet we are not taught at an early stage how to be better men. Were expected to forget the influence of the circumstances we were brought up under and change to be better versions of our own fathers without having access to them to teach us anything about being a father. It is easy to point out what is wrong in a person but difficult to help that person change for the better. It is easy to want a perfect man, but difficult to contribute towards building one, especially if he has been through a lot in his life.

 

 It is every man’s dream to find a good woman. The kind that is pure at heart, has no child or drama, is well educated and earns well, etc, but it is hard to accept that most of the women today are the way that they are today, because of us men not willing to play our roles as structures of support in their lives. Instead, we cheat on them, abuse and use them for sexual benefits. We see them in the same light as the one broken woman who ended up breaking us in the process. Likewise with absent fathers/mothers, the pain they bring into your life can harm those who had nothing to do with it. The rejection, the many years of being mistreated and subsequent favouritism shown to children

The hurt you cause someone today will end up being grief that the person you have hurt will exert on an innocent soul who had nothing to do with the pain you caused them.

 

“Most elderly people and grown folks complain about the youth of today forgetting they are the ones who raised it.”

A few people will have the courage to break it down to you on how your father/mother/aunt/uncle ended up being the bitter person you see today, even more disappointing is the fact that less will see the need to warn you when you are starting to become like them either. (Truth be told, miserable people don’t want to be alone in being miserable.) We are what we have been exposed to, especially us young men. We are the direct result of how our parents were raised.

“If he was never shown any love or given the chance to be close to his father, how can anyone expect you to be close to him or be a better version of him?”

If you were raised under harsh conditions, how can anyone expect you to be understanding and be a different man? At what stage/age do they think you will wake up to the realisation that you have to start being a better man when you are still trying to understand the reasons for your father’s absenteeism in your life?

I have lived long enough to know where I have gone wrong and where to start fixing my wrongs. I have seen the consequences of my shortcomings and know the kind of results they can have in future if I don’t make an effort to change my path. I will not wake up to a better tomorrow without building one today. I have lived long enough not to be scared to try a different approach to my challenges, live differently and relook all the beautiful ideas I had about life growing up. Happiness is a state of mind. That has been proven to be correct if we were to compare the childhood memories we had v/s how life has unfolded from then, right up to our present day. The visions we now have lack happiness due to the worries and problems we have inherited from absent parenting. Do not allow anyone destroy what you can become by allowing them to live their failed dreams through you.

This might not be applicable to you but it may help you gain a different perspective on how certain men in your life are the way they are.
If you already have a child outside of marriage and you are in your prime, I encourage you to try and be involved as much as you in your child’s life. Put aside your pride and fear of being judged for the mistakes you have made and think about the happiness of your child. Think not about what your family wants or what they think is right for your child. Your relationship with him/her starts with you willing to put your differences aside and getting involved emotionally and physically. You cannot always provide financially but you can fill the void money cannot buy by being present in your child’s life. .

“Be the change you want to see in your life. Never let fear hold you back from learning to let go."