Believe in Yourself

Are you postponing your success?

How successful are you right now? Where do you place yourself on a scale from 1 to 10? And wherever you put yourself, are you happy with your score? If not, what would you need to do in order to really succeed?

I believe that the Western (read: American) version of success is all messed up, outdated and tired, in serious need of a revamp. It’s all about fame and fortune and power and money, no matter what the personal cost. It’s about striving towards some future goal in the hope of someday finding inner peace and happiness. It’s about comparisons to others and keeping up with the Joneses and showing the world how well we are doing. All too often success has a price and the price is our well being. Continue Reading

How Do We Heal our Schizophrenic Society?

As the end of 2010 rears its inevitable head, it is time to pause and reflect on what has been a year of 2 halves, with a delicious, squishy middle. I don’t know about you, but for me this has been a somewhat schizophrenic year, with some definite lowlights and highlights. I recall the first half of 2010, still suffering under the hangover of the global economic crunch. The World Cup was coming to SA and we had absolutely no idea of what was actually going to happen. Was it really going to take place? Would the stadiums be ready?  Would anybody come here to watch the tournament after the sensationalist British tabloids ran a headline on “Machete Wielding Gangs” roaming our streets? Life seemed to be on hold, in a surreal sort of limbo. We heard of scary possibilities like our kids being kidnapped by human trafficking syndicates and the supermarkets running out of fresh produce. It was a crazy time, uncertain, unpredictable and stressful, filled with the contradiction of a deep desire for success and a very real possibility of failure Continue Reading

South Africa – Seeing is Believing or Believing is Seeing?

Eish

It’s not easy being an optimist in these challenging times.  The forces of sadness and negativity are finding more and more evidence to justify their unhappy existence. The psychic vampires are conspiring to drain my positive energy.

Also, I am beginning to think we South Africans suffer from a form of collective national erectile dysfunction. Or at least a massive countrywide inferiority complex, with a smidgen of schizophrenia thrown in. It seems to me that many other countries believe in South Africa more than we believe in ourselves!

The Indian Premier League is a prime example. The people of India (who completely idolise their cricket players) were concerned about the IPL players’ safety due to possible unrest during their elections. So they sent them all to SA, in the midst of our elections, to play the IPL tournament here. They believed that their players would be safer here than back home in India. In addition, we were given only a few weeks to prepare for this massive event and, in true SA schtyle, we pulled it off magnificently! Continue Reading