BY: ZINTLE GROEPE
Teenagers face a lot of challenges; teenage pregnancy, challenges brought by reaching the puberty stage, peer pressure etc. It is around this life stage that low self-esteem issues and they start comparing themselves to others.
We suffer from low self-esteem throughout our lives, but we are hardly ever aware of the impact it has on our lives. Go to any school, you will always find the top achievers, the cheese girls and boys, the cool kids who are trend setters with the latest hairstyles, latest gadgets, and latest fashion. We spend most of our school years trying to be like these individuals or fit in their crews.
I recall when I came to Gauteng to do my grade 8 from Eastern Cape; I could hardly communicate in English let alone construct any English sentences. To make things worse, my mom threw me into a multi-racial school with learners from some of the best primary schools in Ekurhuleni. I would listen to the learners twanging and twisting their tongues in class and I remember sitting and wishing I could be like them, have their confidence and of course have the same pocket money they took for lunch time.
I wanted to arrive in the same cars that drove them to work instead of walking to school, but this was not the case for me.
For a short while my self-esteem dropped; I was one of those who walked alone during school breaks or in between classes. It was my mother’s words that got my head out of the gutter. She would say “ Zintle, remember you are in school for yourself and not anyone else, not even me. You are there to shape your own future, not mine, not your peer’s either. You will find kids from better backgrounds than yours with different circumstances. Don’t mind them, DO YOU. You will not have what the next child has but you certainly have something to offer, find that and be good at it”.
With those words I found myself making it to the school’s top 10 academic lists, I became one of the best netball players and one of the best athletes in the school. I was a sportswoman of the year in three consecutive years. I started performing much better than those who seemed to have it all. On a number of occasions, I visited my former high school and still find my name engraved in gold on their achiever’s board. You see, I did not just leave a legacy there, i lived it too. Until this day, I remember my mom’s words as they a Pillar of strength in my life. They made me realise that my only competitor is the person I see when I look in the mirror.
When you try to be someone else or compare yourself to someone else’s pace and use their racing rules, you rob yourself of the opportunity to realising your own potential in your own terms. We are all unique and truly there is no way that we can exactly as another person. Why spend so much time being a copy when you can be an original? Be inspired and motivated, but do not use someone else as a yardstick to measure yourself. You have no idea what Nhlanhla,Sibusiso or Mzwakhe go through to have what they have or how they got to where they are. Set your own goals, determine the kind of effort it will take to achieve them and then take action.
MIND YOUR OWN JOURNEY!!
“The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday” by Matty Mullins
July - September 2017
Tag My School//the after school//1st issue
Who’s race is it anyway?
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