Get your Act Together
I remember using these words as an opening for my grade 10 English speech. I was a 16 years old girl and I had no problems at all, life was a total breeze for me. As a young girl motivational books were fed to me because my family feared that back then I would commit suicide.
However, I was a fan of writers such as Dale Carnegie author of ‘How to win friends and influence people’ or my favourite Sally Eichhorst author of ‘Dare to succeed’ and ‘Get your act together’.
Now it has been 6 years and I am clearing up my room, this book ‘Get your act together’ literally popped out of the shelves in my wardrobe. There was something about the title that just spoke to me. It felt as though, the book itself was brought to me.
Six years ago, I used this book to wow my English teacher with the words that I used as speeches, but I never considered what the words meant. Was it because my state of mind back then was free of anxiety and stress? I did not worry about being jobless or feeling worthless because of a lost relationship or feeling like a burden to my parents. Back then I was a young girl that knew what she wanted, where she was going; and I never worried about the ‘how'.
I attended the university I dreamed of and after my first year I met an amazing man. All at the right time. I never worried about anything I was free, which was great because I saw every day as a new day. But I made a terrible mistake. I only planned for the next day. I never planned a way forward or rather a future.
I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this guy, I mean I remember we had been dating for 5 months and I started talking about babies, houses, marriage the works. I had no doubt in my mind about him. I never thought we would break up, nothing. I enjoyed the feelings I felt in that moment.
But things happen. People break up and, same with friendship I took my old friends for granted and I made new friends everyday and the old friends would feel inadequate or wonder what I am doing and my response would be ‘no one owns me’ I was selfish and wanted everything to revolve around me. With my family it was even worse, they would call me and ask me to come and visit but all I would do was make fake promises about coming and I never felt the need to explain why or apologise. I had changed and became someone else. I wanted my amazing man to live up to my pace, it was either he sees me when I want to or he never sees me at all. When he couldn't see me I would go crazy and accuse him of certain things, friends would try to be there for me but I would want to be left alone, frankly I had just become possessive.
Now it is months later, my amazing man is now my ex I admit he did things but now I feel that I drove him to do those things. My close friends are nowhere to be found they probably hate me and my family is there for me but I can see it in their eyes that they are disappointed. I am alone, lonely and I feel empty. For a couple of months I was whinging, whining and wishful thinking. Going back to that perfect past that I had, sitting in the bathtub thinking of my amazing man and seeing myself apologising to him and my friends, and doing something great for my family. Then when I read this book by Sally Eichhorst she said something that inspired me “change the Whinging and whining to being a winner and change the wishful thinking to action”. Now I wake up every day and I tell myself “wake up! You've got a purpose” I usually don’t know what it is but I made a list of all the things that I want to accomplish.
I have apologised to my ex, fortunately we cannot get back together. I am looking for a job so that I can go back to school next year and complete my degree. I have been cooking great meals for my family and I am always there for them. I called old friends and I am trying to mend the broken friendship by being there for them and keeping up with each other. I have three projects planned for 2012, two of which are already on go and I am going to be in Durban and Bloemfontein visiting good friends of mine that I had been promising to go and see.
Nevertheless, we cannot go through life pretending as though there are no trials, they are there to be faced. When you keep going through life moaning because you cannot get what you want, you shouldn't spend your whole life complaining about how you cannot get it instead you must do something about it. Yes! You shouldn't wait for someone else to do it for you ‘you must do it yourself’. If you want to accomplish something in life no matter how small or big it is, take a chance make a plan to get it and do something about that plan ‘implement it’. I understand that phrases such as ‘if you can dream it you can achieve it’ or ‘when you have dreams you make them happen’ sound so cliche, but the thing about cliche phrases is that they are true. I was a 12 years old girl and I dreamed of being at the University of the Witwatersrand one of the best University institutions in the world, I did not know how I was going to get there but I did what I could which was work hard and believe, 6 years after I dreamed of being there I got there, how? I worked hard and believed and the rest was done by the universe (but in this case the government).
I am sorry but I am tired of feeling inadequate. I know a lot of people out there are struggling and words are so easy and when it comes to action it is difficult. But keep your eye on the ball, know what you want and do not worry too much about how you going to get there, just know that you will.
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