Since 1994, the issue of race relations has been a trending topic in the formal and social media in South Africa and with good reason: many lives had been affected by the Apartheid dispensation. The key issues are mostly being viewed from totally different perspectives, depending on whether you were “previously disadvantaged” or not. I am going to refer to the latter group of people collectively as “black people” for ease of reference. Many black people feel that white people should recognise and admit that apartheid was wrong and that they should apologise for it and the fact that they were beneficiaries of the system. Many white people, on the other hand, feel that they are and were peaceful law abiding citizens, they personally never did anything to hurt or disadvantage anyone and that it is unfair to blame the apartheid system on them. They are also suffering economically at the moment and were not receiving undue privileges. They also feel that black people must “get over it” and move on and start contributing instead of moaning.

I would like to tell you a personal story that had a profound impact on my perspective on this topic, even before the public debate started. This is something that happened to me whilst the Apartheid government was still in power and the ANC as an organisation was still banned in South Africa.

During the late 1980's and early 1990's, I was involved with a company that sold computer systems to farmers and agricultural corporations, one of them being the Venda Agricultural Corporation. During my many visits to the capital of Venda, Thohoyandou, I met a black consultant and we became friends. I have not had the chance to obtain his permission to identify him, so let us just refer to him as Josh. Josh and I liked each other and eventually he invited me for dinner at his home in Thohoyandou. We agreed that we would build our friendship by learning each other’s culture and the invitation to his home gave him the opportunity to expose me to the African way of socialising.

At the required time I arrived at his home for my dinner appointment. Josh also invited an old friend of his to join us for dinner. He was a Venda man working in education. Let’s call him Frank. Frank was an impressive guy with a wide general knowledge. He also knew some of the Apartheid politicians personally. What impressed me most was his knowledge about Afrikaans language and culture. He knew some of the poems of A.G. Visser and I was embarrassed that he knew more about Afrikaans poetry than I did, being and engineer who was mainly interested in mathematics and science at school.

We had a typical African dinner – the men eating outside (with their hands) and the women and children inside. I had to "braai" the meat because us white guys were known to be much better in that department, whilst the rest of the food was prepared by Josh’s wife. After dinner, us men sat outside under the African stars and discussed the tense situation in our country. Please be reminded that we were still under Apartheid rule and we were well aware that the discussions had to be kept private and confidential.

Then quietly Frank asked me to please tell him about my first job interview. I felt that I was able to show off about my first interview because it took a whole day and it was exhausting. Whilst I was in matric I had applied for a bursary to study industrial engineering at the then steel manufacturing company Iscor and had been shortlisted for interviews. When I arrived at Iscor early morning, I had to complete a number of psychometric tests, IQ tests, aptitude tests and questionnaires of all sorts. After lunch I was called into a room where a group of seven people interviewed me. They asked me a lot of difficult questions and I was exhausted afterwards. A few weeks later I was informed that my application for a bursary was successful and I was appointed at Iscor before I finished my matric. Frank did not interrupt me once but he also did not look as impressed as I thought he should have been, listening to my colourful recollection of a difficult interview.

Then Frank asked me a question that would change my whole view on Apartheid from that day on. He asked me permission to tell me about his first job interview. Of course, I was interested, if only to compare notes. He said he was a young unemployed rural black guy and he wanted to work in the mines to earn some money. So he was routed to a specific mine where he arrived one morning for "interviews". There were a lot of black men there, from different age groups, some as young as he was, some already "madalas” (older men). They were instructed to remove all their clothing and strip to the bone. It was hugely embarrassing for most of them, amongst others that in African culture it was impolite for a youngster to look at an older man whilst he was naked. However, none of them had any choice if they wanted to be employed. They were then lined up naked in front of a long wooden counter and were instructed to put their penises onto the counter. A young white guy with a white jacket then approached them with a ruler in his hand. He then pressed very firmly onto every guy’s penis with the side of the ruler. If a drop came out of your penis, you were given an injection and told to take a hike. If there was no drop, you were hired. Frank said there was no drop from his penis and he got the job.

I was literally speechless for a few minutes. Then I found myself apologising. I apologised that I had such an impressive first interview and he was treated worse than a dog. I apologised that he had to re-live those most embarrassing moments that were clearly hurtful to him in order to open my eyes. I felt ashamed and sorry as if it was me who did this to him. When tears eventually came from my eyes he did not cry with me. He touched me and said that we were going to make this a great nation together. He told me that white rule was coming to an end, but we should all take hands and work together to make this a great nation. And that it would be hard. It would never be easy. There was too much pain already for it to be easy.

On that day, I realised that Apartheid deeply and profoundly hurt millions of people. It deprived them of humanity, it deprived them of education, of living a free life and having a fair chance to have a normal middle class life, maybe owning a decent place to live, having a decent job, having a normal family, watching sport and enjoying the good times with your friends and family and going on a nice vacation once in a while. The sort of things that white people were having. And yes, although until this day I have not wilfully and intentionally done something to hurt any other person, including black people, I was a beneficiary of an inhumane system and I am sorry and ashamed for all the appalling things that took place under Apartheid, although I did not cause it myself. I was bewildered by the fact that Frank did not carry any hate in his heart.

I agree with Frank that we can make this a great country. I also agree with him it will never be easy. On both sides of the colour divide, there is a lot of work to do. Real leadership will be required to manage us out of here. A lot of changing of attitudes need to take place. I do not want to lecture anyone on what needs to be done, I am not qualified to do it. What I am qualified to do is to participate in a positive manner in building our nation and making our country a beautiful place for all. I think a very important thing we need in our country at this time is EMPATHY. We need to show more understanding for our different cultures and backgrounds. We need to stop hating people who are different from what we are. Do we really understand and respect each other’s cultures? Do we really want this to be a great country? It starts with ordinary people like Frank and I. And you.

Unless you grew up on another planet, or have languished for years in a rain forest eating fruit all day, you probably have a very good idea what stress is.  Or at least you have felt it.  That feeling of having knots in your stomach, a racing heartbeat and several other possible physical effects that are all caused by  "SOMETHING".  The Oxford dictionaries define stress as "A state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances".  I remember that as a student I stressed so much before exams that I developed insomnia and a runny tummy.  I went into panic attacks and as a result found myself unable to do anything meaningful about my situation.  This was normally a downward spiral into procrastination and despair.  Naturally I had a keen interest to find out firstly what caused these panic attacks and secondly how to avoid them in the future.  Luckily I did and I would like to share it with you.

There is a saying "The obvious is only obvious once it becomes known", which basically says that once you discover something it seems to have been obvious all along.  So I discovered a simple, obvious thing about stress:  "WORRY causes stress."  It sounds like something everyone should know, and most of us probably does.  So if we know stress is caused by worrying, why do we still stress so much?

"WORRY causes stress - is it that simple?"
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I had spent a lot of time pondering about my earlier tendency to worry about a lot of things.  Was it a genetic disposition or was it lack of skill to deal with stress?  Fact is that most of us live a very busy life.  We have very tight schedules, tight deadlines, we have to frequently multi-task to get things done and there is simply not enough time in a day.   Whilst my own life became busier and more demanding I found the actual cause of my stress and a fireproof way of dealing with it.  In fact, this is so simple that I have taught it to my whole family, including my 9 year old boy and even he uses it with success.
The biggest cause of stress in our lives is that we do not worry about things at the right time.  We know we have to resolve problems but we do not have time to resolve it immediately, therefore we tackle the next task and its problems, many times not being able to resolve all the issues and so the issues pile up in the back of our minds where in the end it becomes a big pile of worries.  And worries are thoughts about problems that we are unable to resolve at that specific time.  Oxford Dictionaries define worrying as "The state of being anxious and troubled over actual or potential problems".  If we can stop worrying we can stop stressing.  So how do we take the stress out of worrying?

"We do not worry about things at the right time"

So here is the secret: I would like to call it a "just-in-time" approach to worrying. Next time you have a problem and you do not have time at that specific moment to resolve it, do not let it dwell in the back of your mind.  Follow these steps in order to eliminate stressing about it:

1. Take a few minutes and define what it is you have to resolve.  Get clarity in your mind about what the real problem is.
2. Take an additional few minutes and define exactly when you need the problem to be resolved, in other words what is the deadline for the problem to be resolved.
3. Now the secret:  Ask yourself this very important question:  Is there anything at all I can do right now, at this very moment about this particular problem?  If the answer is yes, then do those things immediately.  If the answer is no, then decide on a date and time when it would be appropriate to deal with it and what amount of time you must allow to resolve it. 
4. Schedule having to worry about this particular problem to the date and time you have determined for it, when you would be in a position to do something about it.  Make a note of it in your diary or task list.  
5. Let go of the problem completely until such time you have to deal with it.  Focus your brain power instead on the things you can resolve right now. 

Schedule your worries with a "just-in-time" approachMaybe you are thinking right now that what I have told you is pretty obvious.  But was it?  If it was, why are we still stressing about a lot of things at times when we can do nothing about it?  For example, how many things can a person productively resolve whilst lying in bed waiting for sleep to come?  Can we make phone calls at that time?  Can we hold meetings at that time?  Rather spend those times on positive thoughts and deal with your worries when you have to.

We live in a world where we are constantly bombarded with information.  Almost from the moment you open your eyes in the morning, you are being fed information.  A huge percentage of information is accessed from mobile devices, such as cellphones, so many people access their cellphone shortly after awaking in the morning to get updated on the news and the activities of friends.  Then we switch on the TV or the radio, or read our newspapers.  The question is: how many of the information we are receiving can be believed?  Is it true, is it something that I can trust?  And is it possible to distinguish between truth and lie?  I believe so, yes.

I have figured out a simple principle:  "Something that IS right also LOOKS (and sounds) right. If it does not look right it requires scrutiny".  Let me elaborate on this principle.

Almost twenty years back I got involved in the interesting field of document security.  I learnt that many documents are protected from being copied or falsified and those are called "high security documents", of which bank notes, cheques, ID cards and credit cards, ID documents and driver's licences are good examples.  The reason why these documents are being protected is so that people with ill intent will find it very difficult to falsify it in order to defraud honest people out of their money.  There are various techniques that can be applied to protect the security of a document.  You may have heard terms such as watermarks, holograms, micro-printing, rainbow printing, encryption in this regard.  In fact, there are encyclopaedias full of measures that can be taken to prevent document fraud.  One of the leading experts on the subject lectured us and he cautioned us to "never underestimate the ignorance of an honest person".  What he meant was that most people are honest and they do not live lives of deceit:  they accept things at face value, they expect the other person to be honest and trustworthy.  So most people are not on the outlook for fraud and deception on a daily basis. They live simple lives where they expect other people to behave likewise.  Today, the average person treats information in the same manner:  we expect information to be trustworthy, especially when it comes from sources that we perceive to be trustworthy.

It is this so-called "ignorance of an honest person" that many people use and misuse to pursue their finely crafted and planned deception, mostly for their own personal gain.  And it is not limited to security documents; in the "information age"  people use words and images and sounds to deceive.  It is sad and indeed frustrating that many of our public figures use these techniques to hide from us the real facts, the cold hard truth.  Before information is presented to us, or when it has accidentally became public knowledge, the facts that can hurt is removed or obscured to paint a different picture to the reality that exist.  And it almost always is for personal gain, to the intended detriment of the receiver. 

And this is where my above principle is applicable.  We need to listen more carefully.  We need to watch more carefully.  When we consume information, we need to evaluate it.  If something IS right, it will also LOOK (and sound) right.  Honest people do not try to deceive you, they tell it like it is, they give you something from their heart and soul that is embraced by honesty, integrity and is handed to you with respect and ethics.  They do what they do and they show it to the world.  They do not have to employ spokespeople and legal teams that must follow them with a verbal broom and wipe their ill intended actions and their selfish behaviour under the carpet.  They are not shy of who they are and what they do and they especially do not mind if their actions are evaluated by others, because they have nothing to hide and they are confident in their good intentions.  If only all public figures, especially politicians could be such people.  

Listen and look beyond the obvious: if it does not look or sound right, it deserves scrutiny, it needs to be investigated. And you will find that people who cannot be trusted will almost always resist any attempt to investigate their actions.  Do not believe everything you see and hear.  Evaluate, check, make up your own mind.  Trust your gut feel.

There is one universal law of the universe that many people have tried to change for their own personal gain, but all attempts have been unsuccessful: and that is to change facts.  Facts are a footprint of what happened, you cannot change it.  Yet, many people try do do just that every single day.

Being an optimist and a positive person, let me explain it in positive terms in line with the figure: "The truth is like a lion.  You don't have to defend it.  Let it loose.  It will defend itself - St. Augustine".

When I first saw this quote, it immediately struck me as a fundamental law of the universe.  It is the basis of all science.  Science discovers the facts, the truth.  And it is present anywhere in the universe.  Some facts out there are still a few hundred light years away from us and our science and we have not yet discovered it, but is is there and it will not change on its way to us.   Forensic science discovers the truth in microbiology and by studying what the naked eye mostly cannot see - the truth will always be there - no matter how small and unobtrusive.   

I want to make it more practical.  Let us look at the way you deal with the truth at your work and in your relationships.  Do you realise that you are creating your own truths every day of your life?  You do a lot of things every day - you make decisions, you create documents, write emails, text messages, social media posts, you write letters, you have conversations.  You interact with other people and with nature.  You perform transactions.  In everything you do you are creating facts.  You are the creator of your own truth.  What happens later cannot change it again - you can try and deceive, you can try to hide it, you can deny it, but you cannot change the truth.

And here is the beauty of it all: if you live with honesty and integrity, if you are trustworthy, if your yes is your yes and your no is your no, you don't have to ever try to control the truth.  You can let it free.  It will defend itself.  You don't have to remember what you said to whom - as long as you stick to the truth, it will never come back to hurt you.  It will defend you.

If you live your life by the virtues of  honesty and integrity,  the truth that you create will defend itself, and it will defend you too.  Not only will you be respected, but you will simplify your relationships.  Stick to the truth.  It will defend itself.  It will defend you.

The well known South African golfer and golf presenter Dale Hayes has said many times that he has never in the history of golf seen a hole go to a golf ball.  You have to actually hit the golf ball to the hole - that simple.  Any golfer will be painfully aware of this simple truth in putting skill: the challenge of putting is to aim your shot at the target, the hole, taking into consideration the distance and the obstacles of slope and green speed.  If you do not aim your shot at the hole you will simply not hear that little sound of victory when the ball drops into the hole.  You have to aim at your target.

Anyone who has known me for even a few months would have heard my motto "Never, ever, ever, give up".  I have realised that this is maybe the one thing that distinguishes me from many other people.

I want to tell you about this card that you see in the picture.  I have carried this little card in my wallet for years, to keep reminding myself that (1) you have to have a vision and a goal, and (2) you must be able to focus on achieving it even if no one else sees the same glory and triumph that you do.

I am not the smartest, definitely not the prettiest, not the most well-built and for most every skill I have been born with or have acquired, I can find a video of someone on YouTube in less than 5 minutes who can do it way better than me.  Take for instance playing guitar.  I can entertain my friends and family and impress a few people with my guitar skills, but compared to millions of other guitarists I am a nobody.  I am nothing.  I am mediocre.

But there is that one thing I have really made my own that I do better than a lot of people I have met.  To many people this might be an afterthought, something that motivates them for thirty seconds when they read it, or something that they just shrug off.  But I have turnt this into a life philosophy - NEVER, EVER, GIVE UP.  And I mean it, if you want something bad enough, the only way to get it, is to never give up until you have it.  From a different angle you can say: "If you fail at first, try again, and again, until you succeed".  And this is where I kick dust in many other people's faces.  The easy way out is to give up, to me this is not an option.  If I cannot beat you with skill or ability, I will take you on with perseverance.  But I have not developed this attitude and way of thinking to compete with others, I have done it in order to keep improving myself and to better myself for the benefit of those around me.  And many times I have succeeded, simply because I never give up.  Not for any other reason.

Three things that are key to such a philosophy, that are not always obvious, are the following:

1. In order to "Never give up", you actually have to have a goal, or a vision, or a "prize to be won".  You need a target.  If you are not driven and focused, you have already given up.  That was the first lesson I learnt.  
2. In order to set a vision, you need to want to be in a better position that you currently are.  And many times that means that you have to work hard and you might fail multiple times and you might get stuck in a position where you do not want to be.  Such is life, life does not owe you anything.  You have to lift yourself up, and sometimes you are forced back to the drawing board.  
3. You need to look beyond the now and the immediate.  I developed the ability to construct in my mind the situation that I would like to be in, despite where I am now.  And it is always better than where I am.  That does not mean that I live an unfulfilled life.  On the contrary.  I am happy and positive and motivated every day of my life, but I am always on the move, there must be progress.  If you do not move, you are staying behind.

Until today this attitude has become a way of living to me.  My golf buddies sometimes remark that they have not seen anyone so motivated to play the sport, despite having to overcome a total lack of natural talent on my side.  But I have decided not to give up, and I have set goals for myself.  And sometimes I had to scale down on those goals, but I have never ever gone onto a golf course without wanting to be better than the last time.  And this I have integrated into my personality in everything I do.

It is unbelievable how many discoveries will await you if you change your attitude - when you keep on trying, keep on going, never giving up.  The great thing is that you will constantly experience small successes, small victories.  That will motivate and energise you even further and life will unlock its magic moments to you and lead you on a path of constant fulfilment.