Life can be short - Begin with the end in mind

I've tried to live life from relatively early on by my own mantra of 'Life can be short, so begin everything with the end in mind'. Not in a melancholy way by any means, but merely to try to make the most out of this life, as there is no other, and "don't dream it, be it" (to coin a phrase from The Rocky Horror Picture Show).

That means, I stopped or never even embraced chasing things that just don't matter in the end - to me, (e.g. climbing taller and taller corporate ladders, playing business politics, accumulating material wealth for the sake of it, befriending and even entertaining pretentious people, stressing about what other people think, living to work as opposed to working to live life, sweating the small stuff, not saying what you honestly think, getting caught up in a group of negative political propagandists, not having enough time to do the things you truly want to do and places to see, not eating food and drinking wine that feeds a ceremony, etc. ). Rather I have done the opposite, in attempt to chase and do things that really do matter, do things and visit places that feed my 'soul' and surround myself with those who really mean something to me, challenge me, impart wisdom, thrive in vociferous debate covering.., at times, controversial subject matter to many who prefer the PC, 'rather not go there' approach.

That makes life rich to me, as much as a game ranger friend once remarked to me years ago, that he didn't earn much money by what he did, but got paid in sunsets instead. A profound comment that said so much about him and what 'life' truly meant to him.

Sometimes I forget however and need reminding, sometimes other people's experiences help put it all into perspective too..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgnREvtTdew

Partnering with the largest, professional Business Coaching firm - ActionCOACH

https://youtu.be/OZyLpnun_xs

Ramaphosa - a time for renewed patriotism

There's euphoria abound, and rightly so.  Cyril Ramaphosa is an impressive man, no matter his country of origin.  Despite being my preference to succeed Nelson Mandela's one and only term in office in the late 90's, sadly he was sidelined by a more internally politically astute and aggressive Thabo Mbeki at the time. 

So it seems that it has taken the ANC a while to come around, but better late than never for the country as a whole.  Now the mountain of work stands before him, starting with a cleaning up of the rot and dead wood within his inherited Cabinet.  There is no doubt that the turnaround has merely begun, but that's the beauty of it all, we've only just started to show what we can really do here.. This is going to be a very exciting ride..  Already the exchange rate is reflecting a positive outlook (at R11.66 as I type). Never before, in my opinion, has there been such a positive time in SA politically to be a South African right now,  (even compared to the early uncertain, Nationalisation rhetoric days of the Mandela regime).

I may sound like the eternal optimist, but perhaps we needed to hit such a low in order to realise exactly that which should never be repeated again.  As I type, the Gupta family members and their henchmen are being rounded up, and this is merely the start of weeding out the rotten and corrupt relationships that have underlined the Zuma era, starting with the Shaik affair.  But for it to really work, we all need to play our part in speaking the right speak to encourage foreign investment and unlock the more than a Trillion Rand of local cash awaiting positive business sentiment and investment.

Next step is is a serious focus on education and support for Small & Medium sized Enterprises to encourage growth and boost the much needed employment, which in-turn will turn around the social ills of crime and grime. 

Why would you want to be anywhere else right now??

Farming for Sympathy is a Nation-wide Symphony

I'm all for supporting ethical, socially and environmentally responsible farmers at the best of times, in fact to coin a cliche, 'many of my best friends are farmers..'.  However as much as one can never condone murder, no matter where, I just don't see why farmers should see themselves as any different from the rest of South Africans when it comes to crime.  Why aren't folk standing up for the residents of Nyanga, the ganglands of Mannenberg, Atlantis (or anywhere else for that matter), where the murder rate far exceeds that of farmers. 

This is not a unique issue facing farmers alone and is more likely to polarise rather than generate sympathy from majority of equally frustrated citizens.  This has nothing to do with politics, as much as the Right Wing and frustrated Expats would have one believe.

Let's approach this as 'All of Us', as opposed to 'Poor Me'..

Always travel with airport friendly bottle openers and clean shoes

I'm glad to hear that it's not only me who gets pounced upon like a reprobate terror suspect at Australian airports (I fear that I may be opening myself up here..), but one should always travel prepared to open bottles of wine no matter what. In Aus however, they sort of eliminate the need for a cork screw, with 95% (my estimate) of their bottles being screw top, so I always take my finger along, to pop my cheek with a cork sounding 'pop', just to bring the romance of the wine opening ceremony back.

But even still, they pounce on me at the airport every time. Just armed with my finger... Only place in the world mind you, taking themselves awfully seriously, only to look so dissapointed when they only discover my 6 bottles of SA wine I'm bringing in as gifts. So they turn to my shoes (seeing I've come from the 'war-torn, dirty' continent), and instruct me to take them off and bang them, I suspect to quash their natural attacking instinct (being leather of a once wild beast you understand..), and then 'kindly allow me' to move on.. 

I can't say the same for the poor dude wearing a fez and his mate with an apparent 'dangerous' turban, both carrying worry beads in their luggage.., not even a sip of wine between them.. I could hear the smack of the invasive latex gloves behind the small curtained cubicle..  So clenching my butt cheeks tightly, I briskly move on to pop corks another day..

See:
Kaley Cuoco Reveals Awkward Discovery Airport Security Made In Her Bag

http://www.ladbible.com/entertainment/celebrity-film-and-tv-kaley-cuoco-reveals-awkward-discovery-airport-security-made-in-her-bag-20170929

Getting Paid in Sunsets

Sometimes it takes a matter of 'stepping back' to assess the treadmill that many of us refer to as life, only to realise that what most folk are chasing day-to-day is nothing more than frivolous stuff.  Most, I would argue, don't even know what they're chasing.

Having nearly lost my father, at the age of 15, to a heart attack, induced by major, high level corporate stress (and some poor Russian genetics, it must be said), I suppose that I've been in the somewhat fortunate position to have been able to understand the two options of life from a very much earlier age than most.  Wealth or Happiness.  They need not be mutually exclusive, you understand, but the weighting is what's key.

As much as having had a very privileged childhood, my parents were very careful not to spoil us in the material sense.  But we had the best education money could buy, holidays both locally and internationally to extraordinary places, luxury cars to be ferried around in, and a beautiful home in a very upmarket neighbourhood.  However, whilst many of my mates had every electronic thing that opened and closed (yes there were some in those days), motorbikes and monkey-bikes at very young ages, brand new top of the range vehicles when they turned 18, paid for private pilot's licenses for fun, and the like, my recollection of my most prized possessions were purely sentimental.  My prized cricket bat (nowhere near the level of today's average school boy bat) was one that stands out.  I still have it.  I proudly tried to pass it on to my sons, but they thought I was joking.  So I oiled it and put it back in it's bag where it remains to this day.

Having just returned from a two week break up in the deep African bushveld, in the Greater Kruger National Park on the banks of the Olifants River, I am reminded once again of my desperation to hop off that treadmill and smell the 'wild potato bush'.  One of the more erudite writers and contented souls that I know, is perhaps ironically to some yet not for me, a game ranger in that part of the world.  A man who lives for the bush and all that naturally live within it.  A man who once said to my then teenage son, deliberating his future career, "You know my boy, many people say that Game Ranging is a poorly paid profession.  But I'd have to disagree.  If it's money and possessions you need to bring you happiness and self fulfillment, then perhaps.  But I get paid in sunsets, and that is something that money cannot buy".  Certainly if money could buy one 'sunsets', it would only be on a short holiday or in one's retirement years, by which time only a few if any sunsets may remain to enjoy.

By contrast, a dad with a son at school with mine some years back, a guy who was by this stage many times over a very wealthy fellow, once said something that I'll never forget.  He said, "Greg, you know I really envy you."  On asking why somewhat perplexed, he responded, "You really know your boys.  You've made it your mission to be a major part of their lives, to be at every sport, cultural or other event possible that they've taken part in, and you clearly have a close rapport with them.  I on the other-hand don't.  I've seldom been to my son's matches, or award evenings, music events and the like, because I was working.  I honestly don't know my sons, nor they me."  Reflecting on what he had just said I was truly flattered and yet saddened by his honest comment. I replied, "But why?  Why do you carry on working so long and so hard?  You've had more money than most, for decades already.  You have a younger son (youngest of 3) who is still at school, with only a few years left.  Why don't you change your envy to reality for yourself?"  He agreed that it was a very good idea.  But never did it.

Even I'm embarrassed at times that it takes my recharge in the bush or on my favourite remote strip of beach in the Eastern Cape, to once again be reminded of that which is truly important in life.  I suppose those places are just so back to basics, that is a complete contrast to city life as we know it.  As much as I often joke that life is just to short for bearable company, palatable food and average wine, there are times when the city-slicker world in which we live envelopes one above the eye balls, so much so that we are running on the ever-demolishing wheel of self destruction without realising it.
Sure there are important things in life where money can certainly help, no-one's saying it isn't important to a degree.  However it is that degree that often get's blurred, and our apparent drive to Self Actualisation on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, that tends to get stuck in the bottom part of the hierarchical pyramid of rather basic needs & material wants.  Simply put, motivated by shear greed.   Poking one's head out above it all to 'smell the wild potato bush' becomes a desperate need for a paid for holiday as opposed to a life changing event or merely a very different, yet logical mindset change.

I have been convinced since early on that chasing riches ends in tears at best, but most likely one's premature demise.  Some of the saddest people are those I met whilst working briefly as a water-ski instructor in Monte Carlo teaching billionaire rich kids to ski in the Mediterranean.  They were the saddest and loneliest kids I'd ever met.  The sad state that most of us wake up to too late is perhaps only on reaching retirement (assuming one makes it that far), only to wonder what happened to life, to one's family and true friends.  Surrounded by one's magnificent mansion overlooking the best view money can buy, with one's luxury yacht moored on the jetty, 10 permanent crew all bustling about to get it ready for a week or two cruise of the year, helicopter on the pad and Learjet in the expensive hanger up the drag.  And yet the kids don't call (except for money occasionally), friends, well just aren't true friends.  No hobbies of note, because one 'just didn't have the time for such before', and a large empty void that can never be filled.  You may get a few Sunsets to watch, but can you really enjoy them?  Not likely.  Sunsets need passion, excitement, romance, friends and family to share them with, otherwise they merely become the period before darkness.

So.  Open that special bottle of wine tonight, the one you've been hording for years for that one special occasion that never comes.  Go off up the mountain or to a remote part of the beach, bush or wherever you can just ponder alone for a few hours this weekend, and write down your remaining life's Mission Statement, fleshed out into your top 5 or 6 objectives, one for each part of what you regard as important in life.  Family, Friends, Work, Play, Personal Development, Travel, or what ever.  You may just be surprised that money and wealth are nowhere to be seen on your list.  If they are, well then I'm sorry for you.

Perhaps this video will give some further inspiration..  Enjoy!

From wherefore 'hail' ye Julius Malema (alias Caesar)?

Think of him what you will, but Julius Malema is no fool. He may have some seemingly outlandish ideas at times, but when one really thinks about it, they make theoretical sense for the poor and disenfranchised. Where I have to differ with him though is on the subject of so-called (Land Reform).

e.g. Will the Zulus need to also give back the land they violently grabbed from the Xhosa and Pondos, Swazis and Sotho? (Perhaps also some of their stolen women, children and cattle?), or is this thing merely racial?  If so, do the Coloured folk need to only give back half their land, and if they don't own any do they only get half back?

But it gets trickier.. What happens if you're a direct descendant of the Khoisan of the Cape, and a descendant of a 'Strandlooper'? Do you get the land up to the Spring Tide mark, and which beach exactly, or nothing, because they moved constantly in those parts long before the Khoi-Khoi, Dutch and English arrived?  The Xhosa and Pondos never occupied land west of the the Fish River.  What about the land owned by a Venda dairy farmer, having bought and now settled in the Eastern Cape?  Tricky Julius, tricky..

As for me, I think I may demand land back from the Romans, stolen from my Ruski and Scottish forebears. Or do I have a claim from the Moors for stealing my Pagan ancestral land whilst my rellies were painting themselves blue and picking fights with the folk from across the peat-bog?  I don't know.. Perhaps I'll have a better idea after a glass or two of wine this evening.