More money more problems...

Greetings to you all, hope you guys are having a more eventful day than a bit of Michael Buble playing in the background, email pings going off and gloomy weather out yonder…but I say this yet I sit here with a we bit of excitement/anxiety ☺. I am off to Ghana tomorrow for a few days, don’t get me wrong there are some pretty rock star Ghanaians, but there is nothing like going back to the roots to get a bit of grounding and perspective…well here is to hoping and opportunities! ☺ yep you see…always looking to the next thing…hence this weeks email!!

So early yesterday morning I was fortunate enough to head out to a good friend’s house and have a few sets of tennis before my normal day began. My tennis has gone to the dogs, but that’s a function of my fitness, but halfway through the match I said to him boss, this is the life man. Two, three years ago that was not the case, it was all about hustling, growing the business, dealing with peoples admin dealing with admin, stressing, money money money. Don’t get me wrong things haven’t changed much, other than I sleep less, always looking for opportunities, I deal with a whole lot more peoples admin because I guess I require their assistance, I still stress possibly even more now and I am definitely chasing tin, which seems to be a problem because it seems to be running faster than I can so I am not catching it, but we will persevere.

This blog has been floating around for a while but last night when I was watching BBC, I saw a little insert where they were talking about Britons who have embarked on a campaign to generate happiness. The reason for this is because they have noticed that even though a large number of Britons have gained much in respect of material wealth and the level of sophistication society has suffered in terms of moral fibre etc. check out their website: http://www.actionforhappiness.org/

I spend a lot of time observing and pondering the world around me and myself. My observation over the last few years being in large corporate and my previous job/business, is that the world around me/us is becoming a whole lot more depressed and self absorbed. Everyone is earning more now than 15 years ago, yet 15 years ago we were happier. Yes fair enough we were at university, school or just fresh out of uni, but mind you we still had some responsibilities, such as rent, expenses and passing our exams etc. Similar to the responsibilities now, except for the fact that the responsibilities have grown exponentially.

What this means is we are constantly out to chase what we don’t have as opposed to really appreciating what we have been blessed with. Simple example we chase tin (money right) and we get it, we become wealthy, yet we spend our lives infront of a laptop till silly hours, spend many a night in a hotel room or airplane cabin. Say you have a young family, wife/husband, boy/girlfriend…what does that do to your relationship at home. Lets forget that. Say you are spending 2 out of every 4 weeks a month in Brazil trying to close this insane deal. You are mr/s Bigshot, you meet Seniorita Angelica/ Senior Ramon on your first trip and almost regularly every trip there after because she frequents the same restaurant…you grow a fondness….moral fibre gone…I am sure some people are reading this and thinking hmm is it really so bad? That’s where we are right now. Go to Hush/Taboo, blow plenty deniros on Verve have some champagne ho’s (with respect ofcourse) floating around…sneak off with one or 4 of them…Moral decay is rife and ofcourse that will lead to unhappiness. Whilst doing it you might think you are the business and you most probably are, I am not judging here, just calling it…

We still interact with our friends and the community around us but at a much more superficial level when compared to before. There lack of real meaningful human interaction. Yeah we meet with our colleagues daily, friends from time to time, but do we engage properly? Hardly! Go out tonight and see. A person will be with their friends or family but instead of focusing on the one they are with their heads are bowed looking at their cell phones, even if they are not, they are thinking about what someone could have sent them or what Pdiddy has tweeted.

But what do you do? Most of us I guess are unaware that we are unhappy because we are just carrying on…just living. The thing though is its easy to get the love back in the world. Like in the old days a look in the eye and a handshake meant a truck load, but today we have to sign mammoth legal agreements. Trust for your fellow man is gone. In the past it was the unwritten law that another girl/boyfriend was just off limits to their mates… no such luck, now its like it’s a sport. Saying what you mean and meaning what you say was nothing special, it was just how it was. We don’t exercise much, just get in the car and drive everywhere. Sit the whole day, get home jump on the couch and sit some more, eat at 10pm and go to sleep same thing the next day… Get out exercise interact. Most importantly and very simply, just being generally nice to each other, greet a stranger. The look on a guy/gal at a traffic light when you give them something, out of the blue…priceless…simple things. One example cited by the BBC insert was instead of making coffee or tea for one when you get, make for everyone around you, by now you should know what they drink and how seeing as you spend all day and night with them…

The site lists 10 keys to happiness namely:
Giving, Relating, Exercising, Appreciating, Trying out…Direction, Resilience, Emotion, Acceptance, Meaning

Birthdays
3rd Shan
4th Otto
5th Kirst Nethers
9th Gontse
10th Tania, Langa
13th Debbie/Jonty
14th Justin, Dominique
15th Zuko, Oren
16th Uncle Mike, Samantha

Stop…breathe…respect…appreciate!

Mucho smiles! !

Even if you think Helen Zille dances like a monkey, there are some real things about her you should know

Politics is nasty business I tell you. I spend a fair bit of time watching Al Jazeera, BBC, e-News and CNN reading the Times online etc. and I can’t help but shake my head at the manner in which politicians conduct themselves. In one instance we have a politician who believes that the country belongs to him and his family and they are the only ones capable of running a country then we have instances where the people who voted you into power have voted you out of power and you refuse to go and the only way you will go is if the city is bombed and people are killed. I don’t know bru?!! I shake my head still as I write this.

So this week I log on to get my daily news highlights and boom front page there is an allegation of an insinuation that Julius made mention that Helen Zille dances like a monkey. If that was said or not and if it was in reference to Mrs Zille, I know not because I was not there nor did I say it. But it got me thinking again. Is it necessary this mud slinging? Is it because I have nothing else to base my attacks on that I have to attack something as trivial as the way a leader of the opposition party dances? Anyway so I know that Helen Zille has some struggle credentials, so I decided to take some time out and google her and came across her biography on Wikipedia.

She was born in Jozi, schooled in St Mary’s then varsity at Wits. She joined the Rand Daily mail a newspaper in that time. She was very politically active in her early days, a strong anti-apartheid campaigner. In Sept 1977 after the NP government put out a statement that Steve Biko had died of an extended hunger strike, her and her editor Alistair Sparks smelt a rat and so they went digging. They managed to find 2 doctors who confirmed their suspicion. They broke the story that Steve Biko had in fact died from head injuries. Anglo American took over the newspaper a few years later and asked the editor to tone it down a little she then left and moved to CT I think. She became a member of the Black Sash an organization founded by Jean Sinclair in 1955, This organization was a non-violent, white women’s movement against the apartheid system which included the ‘Pass laws”. The Black Sash disbanded or metamorphosised into some other non-racial women’s movement after 1994 after the period where political parties were unbanned and Mr Mandela was released from prison. Mrs Zille also campaigned to end conscription in the Western Cape. Add to that the fact that in 2008 she was awarded the WORLD Mayor award out of 820 other mayors for the work she did in the Western Cape, regarding crime, drug abuse etc.

So I then googled Julius Malema and to be honest there is nothing by way of achievement listed on there other than being the leader of the ANC Youth League. Maybe it hasn’t been recorded as yet but there is no mention of any positive contribution or input that he has made that has benefitted even a section of the country. And please, I am not buying into this big media machine, I live in Joburg and I am in Cape Town often, yes fair enough I don’t go to Khayelitsha and Gugs often but to be honest I don’t spend much time in Alex or Soweto when I am in Jozi and the places I do go to in CPT work, I’d like to say the same thing about Jozi, I live in the burbs and the roads here are poked, traffic lights are constantly on the blink. BUUUUUTTTT that’s not the aim of this email, all I wanted to do was give people some insight into this face of the opposition who in my mind has done more for the people of this country than some of her detractors. She walks or at least has walked the talk.

Birthdays
27th March Thuli Z, Fedile
28th Nigel K
29th Philip R, Marc W
30th Randall
1st Gorata, Grace
3rd Shannon
4th Otto
5th Kirsty v/d B

Take care

Y