Zimpapers Logo

I sit here still numb, made worse by gloating hyenas that infest social media.

The Warriors have once again confirmed what will all knew would happen in the first place. That we would be beaten. I often wonder where all that hope of winning Afcon 2017 came from.

Zimbabweans are purveyors in the art of hope. A friend of mine put it so well when he said that we have become so good at seeing the tunnel at the end of the light.

Call it what you may, it doesn’t look right. Last week I had that funny, frustrated feeling that one gets after being pickpocketed. I can describe it in detail having had the experience of being frisked at Park Station in Johannesburg in broad daylight. That is a story for another day.

Particularly when I suspect that my assailant was most probably my countryman.

We cannot as a nation find solace in those screaming headlines usually associated with competitive sport: We wuz robbed! I am one who would not want to rub it in. It’s bad enough as it is, yet something or someone challenged me to write a column entitled, Whatever happens, choose to be positive …?

In fact, the working title was; Whatever happens, make a plan and move on? Well that would have been too long for the sub-editors, whose primary job is to make sense out of nonsense.

Now that resonates better with the state of mind many of us are in right now. Stoic heroism or abject dejection? What is your choice?

I started by jotting the following down: “We cannot afford the luxury of negative thoughts. That does not mean being realistic because REALISTIC SUCKS! Being realistic is not a way to live your life. There is no value being realistic.

Our miserable lives are a sum total of our negative thoughts. So the best way out is to deliberately choose to be positive, no matter what the situation around you is. It is so easy to be moved by the crowd. Yet the question remains, will they be there with you when the dung hits the fan?

This is the time to be selfish when it comes to what direction you wish to take your life. It’s about YOU and no one else. Do you choose to dig yourself into a ditch or are you aiming high, lifting your loved ones with you?

Are you going to be the perennial victim of this or that circumstance, complaining to anybody who can hear or read? Or are you going to pick yourself up, when you have hit a hump in life?

How does this happen when the environment around is not conducive? First, get rid of the tendency of thinking in flowery language. That is fodder for high school debates. Be simple.

The default setting is the same for everyone including those you hate. The difference between you and those that are successful is that they CHOOSE not to be dictated to by those circumstances.

The toxic situation in this country is the sum total of our collective negative thoughts as Zimbabweans. To take it to a local level, as abantu bakoBulawayo.

We have become excellent political and economic analysts but very short on solutions.

The world out there is not drawn in straight lines and utopia has always remained an illusion. Words such as integrity ring hollow in the world of today. We are all human beings, dishonest, cruel and unreliable at best. But we still have good intentions.

It’s a matter of choice to move away from this construct, a spiritual effort in a way because here on earth realism rules. Among the deliberate choices you have to make is to maintain your credibility. People should be able to trust you.

Martin Kuskus, former MEC for Finance in the Northwest provincial government in South Africa said that God only blesses those where his reputation as the creator of man is safe.

Be truthful to your origins, develop credibility through character. It should be a reflection of who you are when no one is looking. If you have lost that credibility then trace it, face it, replace it and erase it.

Move to the next level and be the change you want to see in others. Let the political drama around you play itself out. You just keep your head screwed on straight, firmly focused in the direction of where you want to go as an individual.

You shape your own destiny by the choices you make. Are these going to be the things that build or those that destroy? Pause, take a deep breath and be honest to yourself. Focus on your WHY.

Why am I here, is the question you need to find an answer to.

Finally, a message to the leaders of this world from John Maxwell, leadership guru — there are three things that a follower asks of a leader; does he or she care for me — that is compassion; can I trust him — that’s character; and can he/she help me — that’s competence. Great leaders never win a race, Maxwell goes on to say, and when they cross the finish line they never cross alone.