Top 30 things I'll miss about south africa

In no particular order (except for #1!)

Top 30:
30. Tuesday eve life group...is everything really meaningless??!
29. Wednesday night #parkhurst community group. What awesome guys/gals!
28. Warm days and cool nights. mostly. regardless of season. At least in joburg!
27. Braai's! it's more than just a bbq!
26. The privilege of sharing my birthday with the whole country on freedom day. I always knew SA and I were meant to be!
25. 26 Dorset Place, Parkwood with Craig Campbell! #nodrama@26!
24. Cape Town. Yes, even with its horizontal rainfall, anti-human winds, and village-like cliquish backward-ism, it's still got the beauties of table mountain, lions head, 2 oceans, wine lands, muizenberg beach, Olympia cafe and a *few* good men and women!
23. Biltong. Beef jerky, whaaat?!
22. 1st wednesday film club at atlas studios, auckland park. Though couldn't go today, 1st wed is always good times, especially with Mophethe Moletsane, Marcel Tsholofelo, Dolapo Adejuyigbe and many others! -->; (http://www.atlasstudios.co.za/filmclub.php)
21. Sunrise, sunsets, and sundowners! [wish i could say #parkhurst church community group again, but that's been used!] anyway, driving home from work today (finally at a reasonable hour) i realised how gorgeous the sunsets are in this country. like this:

20. The NEPAD Business Foundation. Saving the developing world one private sector company at a time.
19. Service! shockingly bad service! ok, i wont miss that at all, but will miss the very few restos with shockingly good service, like posticino's in sea point (cpt), cafe del sol (jhb), thomas maxwells (jhb) and i'm sure 1 or 2 others.
18. Arts on main at maboneng! Love Jozi!
17. Wooden spoon/private open mic nights at chez folu-craig
16. Mangoes! big, juicy, organic, *african* mangoes!
15. My joburg-MBA crew. Will miss u guys dearly!
14. The drakensberg! When God created the world and thought to himself, "how do i show these people a glimpse of my beauty", he created the drakensberg mountains! truly amazing..
13. Local comedy shows... e.g. trevor noah
12. Insanely large mugg and bean muffins
11. Neighbourgoods market, the post, market theatre and many more places in the rapidly evolving braamfontein, newtown, and Jozi CBD
10. Concerts and concert 'halls' like the former house of nsako in brixton! Special mention to jazz on the lake and joburg day..
9. Game parks. and the big 5. I'll never step inside a zoo again!
8. A helper. I've been so spoiled! How am I gonna survive cleaning after myself..
7. Long weekend mini-road trips and drives...and those who accompanied me! Some favourites: groot marico, waterberg, sterkfontein dam, Kruger, pilanesberg, magaliesberg, sabie, tower of pizza, Pietermaritzburg, and on...
6. The beauty in the chaos of a developing country. All the crap we complain about (cops, traffic, bad service, construction, politicians...) actually keeps things quite interesting!
5. Tumi, Bliss, Kaelo - my nieces and nephew - and of course their respective parents! Marcel Tsholofelo Adam McKendi Mpho Tshweneyame
4. The motley crew with Mina Demian and Vije Vimage Vijendranath! Not racist, just real!
3. "Eish", "heita", "ja ne", "voetsek"...sad that in 5 years this is pretty much all I know of the local languages and slang, but hey, it's taken me far! ... and of course "shap shap"
2. Afro-jazz! "...I may be walking in the streets in a city called London (or New York, St. Louis, Chicago, DC...), but the dust on my boots and the rhythm of my feet and my heartbeat say Africa..."

• Those lyrics are from "Say Africa" by Vusi Mahlasela. Others that I'm quite fond of include: Oliver Mtukudzi, Hugh Masekela and Zonke

1. My name-sake, my God-send, my love! ... I certainly did nothing to deserve you or your love and feel so happy and blessed to have you in my life. Missing you like crazy every day you're not around...

the *real* secret to success in life!

so, as most people do not know, one of the things i'm most passionate about in life is entrepreneurship. not so much being an entrepreneur; i'm too risk averse for that. more so, finding a way to encourage entrepreneurs and hopefully one day helping govts and organisations to see the benefits of entrepreneurship and develop practical ways to reduce the often overly obtrusive barriers to entry. besides those closest to me, however, you would never know that this is one of my passions. sadly, it is one of several "hobbies" that i have absolutely no time to devote to.

this post is not about my lost passions, though. it is precisely about entrepreneurship. kind of. a couple days ago i read a blog post from an org i've been following for the last 5+ years, called growthink. this org focuses on everything and anything to do with entrepreneurs, particularly in the states. from writing business plans to consulting to investing, etc, this org is pretty clued up and has grown significantly over the years. the moment i saw the title and tag line of this blog, i was intrigued. i have to admit, when i saw the title ("the secret of success in business and life") appear in my inbox, i immediately searched for the delete button - much like you probably wanted to ignore this post when you saw the title! for some reason, though, before i did that, I managed to skim through the tag-line and my interest was peaked. it went something like "you're probably skeptical of anyone saying they have the secret formula (i was/am), but like nothing else i've ever read, this is spot on (hmmm...)". the parenthetical italic-ed comments are my own, btw.

anyway, i decided to go to the blog to find out more. you can check it out here. the blog was about a book title The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner (recently added to my list of "soon" to read books). This is what peaked my interest: the author says "the secret to success in life is to stay in love"! WHAT? or better WTF??! apparently:

"Staying in love gives you the fire to ignite other people, to see inside other people, to have greater desire to get things done than other people. A person who is not in love doesn't really feel the kind of excitement that helps them to get ahead and to lead others and to achieve. I don't know any other fire, any other thing in life that is more exhilarating and is more positive a feeling than love is."

just some BS logic to sell a book, right? i also found it interesting that, like any good businessman, dave, the author of the blog and owner of the org, put his 3 cents in and translated the quote to mean that people must be passionate about what they do. while i think that's true, i also think that's pretty much given, and not really a secret. and quite frankly, i don't think it captures what Kouzes & Posner are saying. i sincerely think that by being and staying in love, Kouzes & Posner mean, being and staying in love. not with your business or with your ideas (duh), but with someone. i am absolutely no expert on this, but do find it strangely interesting and worthy of some thought, discussion, and of course, another blog post.

more on this. coincidentally, i was having drinks with a close friend the day after reading this, chatting about everything and anything, from girls (the fact that i have none) to work (bleh) to the many business ideas that we have and never implement, etc. completely out of the blue, he blurts out, "you know, folu, i've decided that we really need to find you a girl...i really think what will take you to the next level in life is to be in love"! i typically brush off these types of comments with a joke or a voetsek, both of which i used artfully to get out of this topic as well. but, in my mind, i was reminded of the blog from growthink. next level? love? success? whats the connection? could it be my hurt from my last failed love that holding me back and enabling much of the dissatisfaction i have in my current job? could it be true that finding and staying in love will somehow translate to success in business and in life? is it that simple? i guess being in love does teach you a lot of things in life. Kouzes & Posner use words like "excitement", "desire", "fire" "exhilarating" and "ignite". Those terms, used to describe feelings of one who's in love, can also be used to describe the day-to-day outlook of an entrepreneur, no? you need excitement and desire to start your own thing and ensure that it grows and thrives. hell, you need excitement and desire to live life to its fullest and be satisfied in what you do and who you are.

so what does this mean? if you're not in love, you can't be a good entrepreneur? if i dont find love, i wont move to the "next level" of mankind and achieve satisfaction or, as jerry mcguire would put it, completeness? what is it about this warm and fuzzy feeling anyway that inspires people to action and enables entrepreneurs to get the most out of their businesses and employees? do i actually believe in this hog-wash? makes a bit of sense. actually makes a lot of sense. so its on like donkey-kong. the search for love and this elusive next level, that is. any takers?

love lost

my dad told me a story once. not sure why he told me this, but it was one of those rare times when he decided that i was grown enough now that he could speak to me as an adult and talk a bit about his past. his story was about what happened right before he decided that my mom was the one for him. there was apparently another lady that my pops had his eye on and i guess whom he had been hangin out with (or whatever they did back in the day!). So right before he decided my mom was "the one", he had to settle his feelings about this lady. so he went to her to tell her how he felt and see how she felt about spending the rest of his life with him. according to him, he was quite unsure about this move and about his relationship with this lady in general, as his friends were also not sold that the lady was the right one. so he got to this lady's place and they had a nice little chat during which she told him that she was also seeing someone else and the guy had asked her to marry him and she had accepted.

my dad often stops there? im then left wondering how he felt with that shocker from the lady. was he heart broken? as a christian man, did he feel that it simply wasnt meant to be and that God would provide the right "one" at his time? did he try to convince her to take him instead? did he walk away with his pride? head held high? did he regret being too late?

so i asked him some of these questions recently and his response was that he was ok with her response. he wasn't sure if she was the right one anyway, and her response just sealed the fact that she wasn't. so he was just happy with the closure. hmm... i guess hindsight is always 20-20. i wonder if he wouldve responded the same way 33 years ago coming back from the lady's house after being utterly rejected. a man's pride is a well-guarded and treasured artifact.

why did i think of this story from my dad? and why now? well, i was talking to a friend a week or so ago and he told me a story that sounded so similar and as he got more emotional about his encounter with this girl, i remembered this story from my dad and subsequently gave up on trying to find an answer to his questions. after giving it some more thought tho, i actually think the questions that such encounters pose are far more worthwhile exploring and allowing to simmer in the deep centres of our minds than simply an answer that may not embrace the intricacies of the situation. my friend was going through what a lot of men have probably gone through. here he was, just after having poured his heart out to a girl he was crazy about and being utterly rejected. how does he deal with that? i'd heard him speak about this girl so many times and he must have been closer to in love with this girl than he's been with any girl he'd spoken about in the past. the problem was that this girl, although a friend, apparently knew nothing of his love and was busy carrying on with her life. he had somehow convinced himself that she felt the same way and that additionally brought him to an edge of self-despair, regret, and hurt. i'd seen this guy through a lot in the short time i'd known him, but never had i seen him in such a state. the power and hold that women can and often do hold on us guys is real and immense!

as this guy wept and i brewed over our conversation, i began to ask myself some of those same questions that he was wondering as well. when do you know when the one is the one? how can you keep from regretting decisions made in the past? when do you hold on and how do you know when to let go? how far do you go to convince the "one" that she belongs to you and you to her? after all that convincing, assuming you win in the contest, will there be more pressure to perform? how much/far do you chase? do you just do as my dad and brush it off as something not meant to be, or do you try relentlessly? maybe God knows better than us and she's not as perfect for you as you once thought? for how long does this feeling of hopelessness, despair and loss last? how do you guard from having that love become a lost love?

was this normal for my friend to go through? i thought so. but it was painful for him. i think it still is painful. but we all grow from each experience we face. and my word of the wise (tho he probably didnt want to hear it) was that "the one" is the one we decide/choose is the one. therefore there would be many more opportunities to meet another "the one". (if anyone has better and wiser words, pls let me know!). i hope i'm right! i could feel the hurt in him.

on a completely unrelated note, i'm currently listening to a tiiii-te tune that is definitely worth checking out! i've had it on repeat now for a couple hrs!

~The Garden~