Midway through July, been working at the bank for 8 months, feels just like yesterday, its absolutely insane how this year is flying by. Quite rude of me not to welcome a few people who have been added to the list, Dave, Chris, Craig, Graeme, Sanet and Ann. Guys welcome to our weekly mailing community, if at any time you don’t feel as if you are getting any value from this email, please drop me a line and I will remove you from the list, if at any time you have any comments or wish to read some of the older emails (dating to 2002 I think, cos that’s when my mate Charl told me I could get a website) please go to www.mondaymail.blogspot.com

Another week, but what a week I must add, I think I have had 2 of my most embarrassing moments of my whole entire existence this week. Cos you guys are my tjommies (mates) I will share these moments with you, it also protects me from being blackmail, cos all my dirty laundry is out there ;-)

So on Friday nite (the Friday before last) I am in Joburg, its late in the evening/early Saturday morning, I haven’t been to my folks house as yet so I need to wait for my youngest brother to finish what he’s doing before I can head home otherwise I will have to wake the old folks. Anyway so I have a fat chat with my lady friend and she reckons no I must come and visit her, I say to her sister are you crazy, you stay at home, with your folks, your old man has a gun, I haven’t met them properly yet and I must pull in, NEVA! Well I get convinced, pops in hospital getting ready for a shoulder operation, mom is fast asleep with grand ma on the other side of the house, its like 1 am and there is no way in hell that ma will come to my room she has never ever done so. So I am convinced, and after all I have to lurk till 2am anyway till my bro gets home. So I pull in, we are lurking, mind you its been a long day we missioned to the Mount Grace for a strategy session, and I had had a few pots at Newscafe and Sudada, so I was poked. I duly fell asleep, but my peaceful rest was rudely interrupted by the sound of an alarm being deactivated, I wake up Thash, I ask her whats that? She says, you are going crazy I cant hear a thing, I hear footsteps at this time I am just praying that its her brother…unlucky…her door is flung open and this is followed by a shrill screech for a good couple of seconds, mother standing in the doorway in shock, did I feel like a loser…schoolboy stuff I tell u! now all I want to do is high tail out of there, cos the mother is fuming but Thash forgets about me in terms of opening the gate so I’m parking off in my car in the driveway and I cant go inside to say howz about opening the gate? As embarrassing as it was, we got plenty laughs out of it…That’s the kind of things memories are made of…

The second most embarrassing thing happened yesterday. A few months ago I had a dental procedure done. This required the dentist to extract one of my front teeth due to trauma which resulted in the bone being degenerate, during this procedure he found a cyst in my gum which made matters interesting…2 operations interesting. The dentist needed the wound to set before he could insert the implant, so he had just fastened my tooth there with some sort of cement. Well earlier in the day I noticed that my tooth is moving around so I called for the dentist and I get told sorree for me the dentist is out of town for 3 weeks, I couldn’t mission too far cos our big boss Ben Kruger is in town and we are having a workshop and not everyone gets an opportunity to attend and if you do you don’t want to miss it, and to top it all off it was a bi tch and moan session, my favourite. So I think to myself, ag this thing will hold at least till tomorrow. We get into the workshop, I pour a drink,I take a sip, and ooohh noooo, its out, I raced out of that place like a shot, sellotape, prestick anything no joy, so I run to the dentists room, fortunately for me the dental assistant was there and we made a plan with filling material. What a mess…I lived to tell the tale, and that’s the kinda sh it that memories are made of

Anyway this weeks email…what is the one thing that stops us from being all we can be? Yip that’s right FEAR! Fear of failure, fear of rejection, there are other fears as well which translate into phobias, but that’s another level of fear.

Fear, potentially such a powerful emotion, an emotion that could bring out the best in us, yet us as humans tend to get fixated on the negative aspects. Fear should generally spring our as-ses into gear, produce some endorphins etc. get us working at or near our full potential if not beyond it, but what do we do? We start to worry, I can’t fail, I can’t lose, I can’t be seen with that person, what will happen if I fail, lose, what if s/he rejects me, what a loser I will be? What will my parents think, what will my friends think oh dear…enter panic…enter loss of focus…enter paralysis…exit enjoying the journey to the end goal.

I speak from experience. I was always petrified of failing an exam, not being in the top 10 in the class (hey some of us like to be there abouts but not there because once you are the best there is only one way and that’s down, and every one expects you to always be the best, knowing you can is generally good enough…well that’s my story and I am sticking to it;-) I digress…), afraid to lose the tennis match whatever, so what do we end up doing, particularly in sport, we focus so much on winning that we forget to play with reckless abandon, we get overly cautious and what happens we inhibit our talents, perform in an artificial way and we end up screw ing up even worse than we would have had we just let rip, we kind of become prisoners to our fear.

Instead of studying to understand so you can apply it better, all we are thinking about is I cant fail, sheesh what a loser I will be, and my folks will be so disappointed, all I want is that damn 50%. Or, damnit that school cant beat us we have to win at all cost. I remember at varsity I plugged honours, at the time I felt like such a loser, but in the end, I will be honest and say the second time around I felt I had a greater understanding of what I was trying to study (that feeling soon dissipated after I got my results), instead of studying to get the marks to pass, I learnt that perhaps moving to Joburg was a better option for my articles, which it was, I spent an extra year in the fairest Cape which was a ripper, I even managed to get paid to study, saved enough cash to put down half the purchase price of my brand new Polo. Through screw ing up we learn many a lesson. What’s the saying… when you lose don’t lose the lesson.

I have quite a few regrets in my life that ‘haunt’ me till this day, okay maybe haunt is a strong word, but I think about what could have been if only I had, and that’s a horrible place to be. Rejection, you wont be the first nor will you be the last, lunge, what’s the worst that could happen, she says no thanks, or the project doesn’t work out as you had planned, take it on the chin and move on. I cant think of anything worse than what if I, cos the moment is lost, forever most probably

Not everything is for everyone…its always better to have tried and failed than fail to try…

Does death petrify you? Answer me this then…what is the only thing we are certain about in this life…other than that damn tax man, we will all die some day, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but we will, so whats the use in fearing the unknown and forgetting about fully experiencing the known, the present, this life we live? Fear of the unknown shouldn’t hold us back, because we don’t know what is out there, who knows it could be the best experience of our lives, wanna make a move, town, job, country, try something new, go for it, and if it doesn’t work out, oh well…

S/he is different from me, why fear or hate them, get to know them, ur life will be the richer for it, if not you can at least experience first hand the basis of your fears.

I’ve always been scared shaiteless about failing, losing, rejection, just not being good enough, but I guess with age you realize that what really matters is that you give all you could and enjoyed the process, what more can you ask for? The right results will always prevail.

Birthdays
18th Tata Madiba
22nd Mich Watson
“Man must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind him to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and a mystery” – HG Wells

A few quotes…
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear not absence of fear – Mark Twain

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one – Elbert Hubbard

Fear is a question: what are you afraid of, and why? Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, your fears are a treasure hose of self-knowledge if you explore them – Marilyn Ferguson

On that note I end off, have a great week, maximum respect

Y