WHAT WILL MATTER

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.

There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.

All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.

It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.

Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.

So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.

It won’t matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.

It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.

Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought but what you built,

not what you got but what you gave.

What will matter is not your success but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned but what you taught.

What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched,

empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence but your character.

What will matter is not how many people you knew,

but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone.

What will matter is not your memories but the memories of those who loved you.

What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident.

It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

Choose to live a life that matters.

WHAT WILL MATTER was written by  Michael Josephson 

Michael Josephson, is a former lawyer, law professor, and successful entrepreneur, he is one of the most respected and sought-after speakers and consultants in the field of ethics and character, with a special expertise in the area of ethics and character in schools and the workplace. 

Something every Women should hear!

A Man and his work

A few years ago i read an article in the Daily Mavrick where Jonathan Jansen speaks about servant leadership and his work at the University of the Free State, i have also had the privilege of meeting this giant of a man at WITS and yes he is indeed a giant in humility and spirit, i have never met a man more dedicate to the needs of his children (students) or that resonates such peace. His love for people and his mission for change literally speaks without him needing to say a word.

Recently some of his other work has been making its way into my inbox and around Facebook, the more i read the more affirmed i am that it should definitely be shared. One of my favorites is his writing on South Africa through his eyes.

My South Africa by Jonathan Jansen (Published: 9 February 2011)

My South Africa is the working-class man who called from the airport to return my wallet without a cent missing. It is the white woman who put all three of her domestic worker's children through the same school that her own child attended. It is the politician in one of our rural provinces, Mpumalanga, who returned his salary to the government as a statement that standing with the poor had to be more than just a few words. It is the teacher who worked after school hours every day during the public sector strike to ensure her children did not miss out on learning.

My South Africa is the first-year university student in Bloemfontein who took all the gifts she received for her birthday and donated them - with the permission of the givers - to a home for children in an Aids village. It is the people hurt by racist acts who find it in their hearts to publicly forgive the perpetrators. It is the group of farmers in Paarl who started a top school for the children of farm workers to ensure they got the best education possible while their parents toiled in the vineyards. It is the farmer's wife in Viljoenskroon who created an education and training centre for the wives of farm labourers so that they could gain the advanced skills required to operate accredited early-learning centers for their own and other children.

My South Africa is that little white boy at a decent school in the Eastern Cape who decided to teach the black boys in the community to play cricket, and to fit them all out with the togs required to play the gentelman's game. It is the two black street children in Durban, caught on camera, who put their spare change in the condensed milk tin of a white beggar. It is the Johannesburg pastor who opened up his church as a place of shelter for illegal immigrants. It is the Afrikaner woman from Boksburg who nailed the white guy who shot and killed one of South Africa's greatest freedom fighters outside his home.

My South Africa is the man who went to prison for 27 years and came out embracing his captors, thereby releasing them from their impending misery. It is the activist priest who dived into a crowd of angry people to rescue a woman from a sure necklacing. It is the former police chief who fell to his knees to wash the feet of Mamelodi women whose sons disappeared on his watch; it is the women who forgave him in his act of contrition. It is theCape Town university psychologist who interviewed the 'Prime Evil' in Pretoria Centre and came away with emotional attachment, even empathy, for the human being who did such terrible things under apartheid.

My South Africa is the quiet, dignified, determined township mother from Langa who straightened her back during the years of oppression and decided that her struggle was to raise decent children, insist that they learn, and ensure that they not succumb to bitterness or defeat in the face of overwhelming odds. It is the two young girls who walked 20kms to school everyday, even through their matric years, and passed well enough to be accepted into university studies. It is the student who takes on three jobs, during the evenings and on weekends, to find ways of paying for his university studies.

My South Africa is the teenager in a wheelchair who works in townships serving the poor. It is the pastor of a Kenilworth church whose parishioners were slaughtered, who visits the killers and asks them for forgiveness because he was a beneficiary of apartheid. It is the politician who resigns on conscientious grounds, giving up status and salary because of an objection in principle to a social policy of her political party. It is the young lawman who decides to dedicate his life to representing those who cannot afford to pay for legal services.

My South Africa is not the angry, corrupt, violent country those deeds fill the front pages of newspapers and the lead-in items on the seven-o'-clock news. It is the South Africa often unseen, yet powered by the remarkable lives of ordinary people. It is the citizens who keep the country together through millions of acts of daily kindness. 

* This article originally appeared in Mango's in-flight magazine.

The Art of Letting Go

I am a bit of a control freak, a "need to do it myself" type that likes things mentally organised. I often use perfectly good energy trying to plan, predict and prevent things that i cannot possibly plan, predict or prevent.

I like things compartmentalized, i live with lists and schedules and i rather like it.

Unfortunately the world does not work this way, it is chaotic, scary and sometimes requires us to surrender. Easier said than done, i know.  It is one of the hardest things in the world to let go; of control, of that primal need to ensure safety, love and security.

I have realised in my short span of existence, that surrendering to the unknown is necessary because life is just too big to be placed in a safely padded box.

There are lessons in the out of control moments, the chaotic encounters and in letting go of the need to master it all. A definite sense of freedom and confidence comes from knowing when to cut your losses and move on.

Hall of Fame

For some reason that is beyond me i can't get this song out of my head, i rather like it!

Life...

Beyond the Noise

I do not care how many government officials and “important people” try and deny it; RAPE is a real problem in this country and the women who have been placed in that position NEVER forget it or get over it.

Statistics vary and sadly many cases are not reported but most agree that South Africa is the rape capital of the world. Police crime statistics released in September 2012 state that in 2011/2012 there were a total of 9 193 sexual offences reported to the South African Police Services (SAPS) in the Western Cape, almost 27 cases per day.

One Medical Research Council study among men from the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal showed a devastatingly casual familiarity with rape – more than 25% of the men questioned admitted to raping someone. A poll in 1999 among 1500 schoolboys in Soweto showed most thought "jackrolling", or gang rape, was "fun". 

I am no expert but when we have a 13 year old in school being raped, stabbed and left for dead we know we have a problem that is bigger than we think. We know we have entered questioning times when we have victims like Anene Booysen whose tragedies are sensationalised by political parties but forgotten by communities.

With less than 10 percent of cases resulting in conviction the victims are being made to feel like perpetrators because of the length of the skirts they wear, the pictures they might have taken or the party they attended. 

Enough is enough, the time has come for us to start giving a voice to the voiceless victims in this country!

"To this day" by Shane Koyczan

Stumbled across this video and i personally found it to be profound. So take the 12 or so minutes to really listen to what he says.

It is all part of the Journey

In Life and in Death: Letter to my MOM

Thank you mom for always attempting to keep me sane and protected from some of the ills in this world. For teaching me kindness, showing me how to care and passing on your selective patience. You have looked out  for me even when I didn't think I needed it and let me learn by making my own mistakes.

Thank you mom for always being there; for waiting up and worrying, for the late night lectures and the early morning cups of coffee while you laughed with me and at times also at me.

It saddens me to think that my future son or daughter will never know your unconditional kind of love, he/she will never get to call you "Ma" or "Granny". Will never have you in there corner and will never know your silent wisdom, i only hope i can stick up for them and encourage them with half as much passion as you have done for me through the years.

Thank you mom for teaching me to be honest, courteous, appreciative and loving.
Thank you for trying to teach me to be neat and tidy, even though we both know it didn't work so well.
Thank you for teaching me to try to see the best in people, even if it meant looking deeper than just the surface.

Your lessons on humility, fighting fair and conflict has been instilled so deep in my being that i would not be me with out them, so thank you for taking the time over the years to nurture my open mind and listen to my theories on everything from world peace to genocide.

Thank you mom for instilling in me a love for travel, books, flowers, photography and food. How i will miss the back rubs, talks, stories and reminders that i can do anything i set my mind to.

"A mother is she who can take the place of all others,but whose place no one else can take." Author Unknown

Things i wish i knew back THEN!

My niece is entering her teen phase and she asked me a very interesting question recently about things i wish i knew when i was a teen. This made me sit and ponder on lessons learnt from that very testing time when i was a little miss know it all.

I wished someone had informed me:

That i can do or be anything - That there wasn't limitations set by the world for my dreams as long as i worked hard. Oh and that 9-5 was overrated if i got stuck in something that i wasn't passionate about and that didn't get me excited.

The choice is always yours - Life doesn't randomly happen, in the end we choose what and who you keep in it.  In the end you need to take responsibility for your choices, the earlier to start the sooner you will see different perspectives.

Be different - Conforming to the norm is boring, don't try to be who you are not. Be the original you, not a carbon copy of someone else. So many young people try to be other people and in the process loose themselves to the ills of the world.

Never hand over your power or take things too personally  - If you hand it over now chances are you will go through your entire life doing it too. Walk away from the arguments that you don't see fit to be in and fight for the ones you believe passionately in.

Have faith and start believing while you young - The older you get the more you realise God is actually very real and that if you believed a little more in His plan and a little less in your wants, things may have turned out pretty different.

In the end i think life teaches you what you need to know on the journey!

Hey...

The journey of life...

This weekend i have been giving a lot of thought to the word "journey/s" and how it is different for us all. My favorite definition by far is "A process of course likened to travel, a passage: the journey of life".

Every journey is significant in its own way; it is within it that we every day discover facets of ourselves. We discover different ways to see the world, meet various people that walk a few miles with us or pass on some instant wisdom before they move off onto another path.

Like a "passage" where you pass through various versions of yourself and others . Where if you are lucky years later when you sit and reflect, you are left thinking "aaah that was interesting".

I realise of late that these journeys never end, they take us from point to point and lesson to lesson.

As we get "older and wiser" the journey evolves, it actually gets better as we get specific.Gradually we stop looking for the BIGGER picture and the cure to all the ills of this world and we can start changing the small things. The here and now things that create ripple effects in the lives around us.

The point is that "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step" [Lao-tze Tao Te Ching].

Read all about it...

Read All about it, Pt III by Emeli Sandre 

I am not one for sappy songs but i love this one!

Words...

OUR GRANDMOTHERS

She lay, skin down on the moist dirt,
the canebrake rustling
with the whispers of leaves, and
loud longing of hounds and
the ransack of hunters crackling the near
branches.

She muttered, lifting her head a nod toward
freedom,
I shall not, I shall not be moved.

She gathered her babies,
their tears slick as oil on black faces,
their young eyes canvassing mornings of madness.
Momma, is Master going to sell you
from us tomorrow?

Yes.
Unless you keep walking more
and talking less.
Yes.
Unless the keeper of our lives
releases me from all commandments.
Yes.
And your lives,
never mine to live,
will be executed upon the killing floor of
innocents.
Unless you match my heart and words,
saying with me,

I shall not be moved.

In Virginia tobacco fields,
leaning into the curve
of Steinway
pianos, along Arkansas roads,
in the red hills of Georgia,
into the palms of her chained hands, she
cried against calamity,
You have tried to destroy me
and though I perish daily,

I shall not be moved.

Her universe, often
summarized into one black body
falling finally from the tree to her feet,
made her cry each time in a new voice.
All my past hastens to defeat,
and strangers claim the glory of my love,
Iniquity has bound me to his bed,

yet, I must not be moved.

She heard the names,
swirling ribbons in the wind of history:
nigger, nigger bitch, heifer,
mammy, property, creature, ape, baboon,
whore, hot tail, thing, it.
She said, But my description cannot
fit your tongue, for
I have a certain way of being in this world,

and I shall not, I shall not be moved.

No angel stretched protecting wings
above the heads of her children,
fluttering and urging the winds of reason
into the confusion of their lives.
They sprouted like young weeds,
but she could not shield their growth
from the grinding blades of ignorance, nor
shape them into symbolic topiaries.
She sent them away,
underground, overland, in coaches and
shoeless.
When you learn, teach.
When you get, give.
As for me,

I shall not be moved.

She stood in midocean, seeking dry land.
She searched God's face.
Assured,
she placed her fire of service
on the altar, and though
clothed in the finery of faith,
when she appeared at the temple door,
no sign welcomed
Black Grandmother. Enter here.

Into the crashing sound,
into wickedness, she cried,
No one, no, nor no one million
ones dare deny me God. I go forth
alone, and stand as ten thousand.

The Divine upon my right
impels me to pull forever
at the latch on Freedom's gate.

The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my
feet without ceasing into the camp of the
righteous and into the tents of the free.

These momma faces, lemon-yellow, plum-purple,
honey-brown, have grimaced and twisted
down a pyramid of years.
She is Sheba and Sojourner,
Harriet and Zora,
Mary Bethune and Angela,
Annie to Zenobia.

She stands
before the abortion clinic,
confounded by the lack of choices.
In the Welfare line,
reduced to the pity of handouts.
Ordained in the pulpit, shielded
by the mysteries.
In the operating room,
husbanding life.
In the choir loft,
holding God in her throat.
On lonely street corners,
hawking her body.
In the classroom, loving the
children to understanding.

Centered on the world's stage,
she sings to her loves and beloveds,
to her foes and detractors:
However I am perceived and deceived,
however my ignorance and conceits,
lay aside your fears that I will be undone,

for I shall not be moved.

By: Maya Angelou 
(out of the book a Heart of a Woman) 

Unique WAR

“Nobody is perfect, and nobody deserves to be perfect. Nobody has it easy, everybody has issues. You never know what people are going through. So pause before you start judging, criticizing, or mocking others. Everybody is fighting their own unique war.”

Not sure who said it but i definitely like it!

When it gets Crazy..

It feels like overnight life just got crazy busy and i am doing my best to catch up and keep up. I am not complaining, it is a good kind of busy. The kind that keeps me on my toes and has me making direct future plans.  It’s been a bit of an adjustment, but I think I've found my new rhythm or at least i am definitely getting there.

Funny how the pace of life changes from time to time and how it is up to us to move with it and not against it.

It is a challenge but I am learning: 

• To bask in the moment -  even if there are very few; i am allowing myself the pleasure of enjoying it and  pausing here and there so i can reflect and share the moment. 
• To do the me things first before i extend myself to the outside world. Like the Beatles said " And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make"; you have to receive something first before you know how to give it. So before i share my space and my experiences, i am taking the time to receive and in the end to give completely. 
• To commit to things and see them through, even if i hate it or it challenges me and my comfort zones. I want to be fully engaged in the now and consciously move on to the next chapter or cycle. 

I have come to realise that life does not stay stagnant; it is always moving, always shifting, and evolving onto the next sequence of chapters. When life is slow, let it be (you will look back and miss those days) and when it is rapid put on those dancing shoes and get moving. 

Life is not as long as we might think so when it gets crazy (like mine) enjoy it, have fun and learn the lessons.  

Remembering...

My uncle was a remarkable man, he lived his life with such vigour and ease. He was a silent man most of the time yet when he walked into a room you would know that he is there.

He was sometimes hard headed and cocky but he loved being the only uncle we had; he relished being the big brother to his 4 bossy sisters (my mom and aunts), a husband and a father to his sons. As a teenager he use to knock down my room door just to check if i am alive, he is one of the few that never saw my eccentric nature as weird. He literally just let me go with it and i loved him dearly for that.

Knowing his really gone is harder than we all thought it would be, even though we have had months to prepare for it and say our "goodbyes" there still feels like a decade has been left unsaid.

His wife will miss him most as she watches their grand kids grow up and their sons marry off and start their own lives. My mom and her sisters will also miss their steadfast brother, even though they have years of memories he won't be a phone call away anymore. He won't be there anymore.

In all this sadness i take heart in knowing that God called him home at the right time and He has my uncle safely nestled against His side watching us all as we continue to soldier on. I pray his soul has found peace and that he knows he was loved and will always be missed.

“It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” ― Rose Kennedy

In loving memory of my Uncle Greg
26 January 2013

Some TRUTH

"New Things"

Before i delve into this new years list of goals I'd like to reflect on the year i have left behind. It was not the easiest of years to begin with, dealing with sick parents, hospitalisation and some curve balls that in essence led to some incredible revelations.

It was a year of closing chapters, leaving things behind, finishing projects and moving on.

It was one of those years you couldn't help but grow in. One of deep thought about life, love, loss and the world (in my head i think i have probably gone over solutions on world peace more times than most).

Reflecting back 2012 i realise it was a year of finding more of myself, the stressful bits and all.

For 2013 there is NO RESOLUTION for my goals are simple:

• Good Health 
• To nurture great relationships 
• To learn and keep grounded - life would be boring if i wasn't learning a thing or two from it. 
• To love 

It will be a year of new jobs (as i take on a juggling act of 2 very different roles), new surroundings, new relationships and a whole new set of lessons.

I am looking forward to the nail biting challenge of getting through this one still intact.