You Are What You Think

Very often you’ll find people complain that things aren’t going their way or everything is wrong in their lives. But as much as you complain, you’re the architect of your life, for either good or bad things that happen to you.

Let’s take a very simple scenario: you’re supposed to be at the office by 8:00am and you get to the office by 9:30am due to major traffic by the main road leading to your work place, now your boss is mad at you because you didn’t make that pitch with the new big client that she trusted you with and your company has lost the client. First problem you slept late, secondly you woke up late in the morning feeling like shit but you just had to go to work because you’re owing mam’ Mavis R800 that you took to impress that new girl at work, buying her lunch on Fridays. Your first morning thought was “shit I’m late, will this day end already, I’m dead!” it hasn’t even started but you want it to end, c’mon. Your reaction to any event will determine the outcome.

If your reaction was “shit I’m late, let me call Suzy to do the first half of the presentation and I’ll pop in to do the other half and we’ll share the commission” if your company gets the client on board both of you and Suzy will benefit hugely from it. Both of you win and your boss is happy, you both get your salaries bumped up a few thousands and finally you can afford that blue VW Scirocco GT 2.0, yes the one you’ve been eyeing every morning at the dealership. You see, a calm calculated reaction to an event will yield positive results, don’t confuse it with impetuosity. For everything that has happened in your life it is all because of you! You applied for that R1000 loan at FNB and they told you that you qualify for an R8000 loan and you took it anyways and now you can’t afford to make repayments, you decided to stay in that miserable job that makes you cry every morning when you wake up and it gives you a headache when you knock off! You took your kid to a cheap day care centre and now you complain when they feed her beans and soup all day!

Same principle that applies to science applies to life, Newton’s third law states that for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. For whatever that you do there’ll be repercautions either good or bad. Being impulsive most of the time yields bad results, for an example; you go out grocery shopping and you end up buying the whole grocery store because, you didn’t have a proper plan to follow, that’s why there’s a grocery list that you need to put down every month before even going to the grocery store. When I do our monthly grocery, I start calculating, adding everything up before I get a surprise at the counter. It is well for me kind of embarrassing to return half the trolley with food because you can’t afford it (at times I’m guilty of paying with my card and I end up not seeing the value of the food I bought because plastic money is not tangible and the food costs too much when you review your banking statements).

My point is, you are what you think, if your life is in shambles and you’ve given up on attaining success then it is of your own doing. If you think that you won’t make it past matric or your salary is too little to main your basic needs then you’ve have subconsciously chosen the path that your life will lead, because you have shut down other idea avenues that you could’ve had. If it seems as if you won’t make it past matric then prepare early, get afternoon classes that will make you improve on your grades or you’re getting too little salary that is below your living expenses then make a plan, either get a good paying job or man up to your boss and ask for a better salary that would see you breaking the norm of living off pay cheque to pay cheque (it seems difficult to get a raise these days, but it’s not).

The choice is ultimately yours, it is never too late for change. An example to support my statement is sir Sipho 'Hotstix' Mabuse, he passed his matric at the age of 60 years in 2012. Remember your reaction to any given event will determine the outcome and your thoughts ultimately become your future.

Phumi Newjack