That happened to me. As a child I grew up with a reasonably provided-for life. The first eight years of my life were in a rural part of a country which had been colonized since 1890. During that part of my life I experienced the last part of a war of liberation that had been going on for about 30 years. I saw and experienced things that no child should ever have to experience. Those experiences I shall look back on in another blog article.
Despite the circumstances of those years my father provided very adequately for the family. My older sister was able to attend school at a very reputable mission school and we were able to afford the basics of life and lived in relative comfort. Our happiness did not depend on the possessions we had but on the fact that we had family and everyone did their part in the best way they knew how and we just got on with the business of living despite the war going on.
When the war ended in 1980, we looked forward to a new way of life and that's when my father decided to move the family into town. Our whole way of life changed for the better and we had the opportunity to experience new ways of living and once forbidden opportunities - attending once whites-only schools, living in areas where you could have only gone if you were going to work as a gardener or maid. I could say that I almost took for granted the privileges that my father never had when he was growing up. He was able to provide a whole new way of living that I'd never dreamt off. Beforehand, my world was limited to the experiences I'd had in the bushes and by the streams of my life in the rural areas. Then, the only thing I really looked forward to was going on a trip into town and the opportunity to have a meat pie and a bottle of soda. My favourite flavour was Fanta Orange, and yes... it is still bottled in this part of the world.
My schooling was great. I remember the first white person I sat next to in class. Her name was Odette and I'm in contact with her through social media, almost 23 years later. I remember the first (and last) person who bullied me at school. His name was Louis and again I'm in contact with him.
My journey through junior and high school was filled with many wonderful and life-changing experiences, including evolving from being a sickly, slightly chubby asthmatic child, to a fully participating sportsman, learning how to play bridge and attending ballroom dancing classes, breaking bones during sporting activities. It was a rich life in terms of experiences and exposure to all that life could be. It filled my mind with all sorts of possibilities and I was not afraid to experience new things or to experiment and discover. I was the first in my immediate family to have the experience of attending university and I thought that nobody could stop me now. In my youth I had a lot of hopes and dreams, and despite that I didn't have any idea how all of it was going to be realised, I knew I had it in me to find a way to implement my ideas.
One other factor I must mention here is that I never thought much about what my passions were. My parents were both educators and as I watched them work (sometimes helping), I vowed to myself that I didn't want to ever be an educator. I focused mainly on what I didn't want to be but never gave much thought to my real passion. I assumed that all would be taken care of when the time came. Although I knew that there was a whole world out there for me to explore, I never searched deeper to see where I fitted in. As I explored the world around me, I was aware that there were a whole lot of problems to solve in the world and I began to formulate ideas as to how I was going to contribute to solving some of them.
To cut a long story short, this resulted in a 15 year career in teaching, where recently I asked myself, "Where am I going with this?" I'm not bashing teaching, and for those of you in teaching or intending to teach, this is not meant to dissuade you. I was merely asking the question of myself to find myself again.
I have enjoyed most of my years in teaching and have learnt a lot. I appreciate all that it has taught me and I can have no regrets about the path my life has taken thus far. I think I've learned some skills which I'm going to have to use, and further refine, in whatever direction my life will take from now. At this particular juncture I just have to revisit those days where I remember being inspired to be imaginative and creative. I have to return to the days of exploring and finding out more about myself, the world around me and what I can do to contribute to it. I have to find my passion, mission and song, and as author and entrepreneur Brendon Burchard aptly puts it, at the end of my life I want to able to say that I lived gratefully, l loved graciously and I mattered - my life had purpose.
So, on this blog we will celebrate anything and everything in life. I will listen and look around me and anything which inspires me to write about my gratitude for it in my life, will end up here. I want to celebrate life and instead of expecting life happen to me. I want to use the power of that gratitude to inspire the creation of more to be grateful for in my life as well as anyone that reads the material.
If you come back here often, you will laugh, you might cry, but most of all I hope you'll be inspired to live your life in gratitude and to create a life that you can be grateful for.
With love and gratitude always,
Sam.
