Keeping up with the Joneses

“Peer Pressure doesn’t just end after your teens, it morphs into keeping up with the Joneses” Karl Nova

I remember growing up wearing Cortina sandals to school (it’s the school sandals made by Bata the shoe maker) If you know anything about this brand it’s that it lasts forever…. literally. When I asked my mum to get me a new pair at the beginning of a new school term, she asked me to show her my old shoe. I showed her all the scratch marks from kicking stones and the pavement hoping to get her to buy me a new pair. She asked me to put the shoe on, of course the flipping thing fitted perfectly so she asked my dad to help me renew the polish and get it ready for the new term and as you would expect I was not a happy bunny.

Everyone will be wearing new shoes and
I am stuck with these old banger???!!!!!

Day one of new school term, I came up with the loveliest of ideas when I discovered that my friend’s mum, like my mum did not buy her a new pair of school shoes. I swapped mine with hers, which was cool since we wore the same shoe size, the only thing was hers was black and mine was brown; my bright idea was that my parents would surely not watch their precious daughter wear two different colored sandals to school; or would they?

I told my dad my well thought out story when he picked me from school later that afternoon; something along the lines of….
‘… Well, I put my sandals in my locker when we went for PE and when we returned someone had stolen one of mine and left theirs”
“Hmmm…” he responded.
When we got home, he sat me down and stooped to my level (eyeball to eyeball) and gently explained to me that since I was careless enough to loose one leg of my sandals and clever enough to find another size that fits perfectly, there was no need to get me any new sandals! Huh? ***** Blank stare****
When I returned to school the next day, my friend had on a new pair of sandals while I had on my black and brown pair. I wore those shoes for the rest of the term too!

I think I learnt a vital lesson from walking around the school in my brown and black pair of Cortina sandals, my parents’ spending pattern will not and cannot be influenced by my peer pressure to conform. I also leant that you can be your own person in the midst of a crowd because three months of wearing my crazy pair of sandals and sticking out like a sore thumb did not kill me… thanks dad!

It’s ok to be different……..
It’s alright to move at your own pace……..

Footie 101

I am not a big football fan so I am glad the World cup is done and dusted and we can now get back to reality. Having said that, the couple of times that I sat down to watch the tournament, I did learn a lesson or two.

The referee’s say is final…You may disagree with his whistle blowing and dishing out of the dreaded yellow or red card, but whatever the referee says is it. I could not help but think about the times when I worry about what is, what isn’t and what could have been. It’s the times when I force myself to relax and trust that God is the final whistle blower and until He says it’s over, it’s not over, then things become clearer. I often end up wondering why I was stressing in the first place.

If you don’t play by the rules, you will be penalised..
There are rules that govern the universe we live in and those rules and principles will work to your advantage if you live by them. Sometimes as people of faith we tend to think God is there at our beck and call to override the rules and principles that he’s but in place! Don’t go shopping till you drop dead on your credit card and think God will cancel your debt just because you got your wallet anointed with oil last Sunday. The bailiffs will come calling if you don’t pay up, that’s for sure. I have learnt that there’s no alternative to hard work, when you see an artist at his best form, it’s because he’s spent hours practicing so much that when he comes out to perform his art, he makes it look so easy…. More like second nature. You can’t buy that and you can’t pray it down either.

No man is an island.. there’s no I in team..
There is a reason why I am not the only one inhabiting this space at this time. The answers to my prayers are spotted all around me, in the people God has blessed me with. Colleagues, friends, family, the bus driver, my neighbour and the list in endless. As much as it’s good to take time out and be by yourself, don’t pitch a tent in there, come up for air, it will only make you a better person.
‘One will put a thousand to flight and two, ten thousand’


You will not win based on past glory..
Winning is not mine by default. I have to continue to apply myself. Write as if it’s the first and only line I will ever write. Play like there’s no tomorrow and this is the only chance I have to play. Stop living on stale wine, keep it fresh!

Your few seconds of irrational behaviour can cost your team that win..
Sometimes you just need to take a breather, count to ten if you have to, those few seconds of re-think can make a whole lot of difference. Everything is all about perception and if you take time to think before you actually react or respond, you will see with a different eye.

There ends my few weeks of part-participation in the World cup madness, I guess those few minutes in front of the box didn’t go to waste.