Perspective
It’s fair to say that we sometimes see ourselves differently from how others perceive us. Occasionally, others’ views might be flawed, or they might only see a version of us, leading them to form an incomplete picture. Needless to say, there are perspectives of ourselves we will never truly know. While I open this piece with these thoughts, the main focus here is the importance of paying attention to what we say to ourselves and others.
Recently, I had a conversation with a childhood friend. We’ve known each other since we were little kids, experiencing all sorts of moments together. Our relationship has evolved; he’s essentially a whole new person now, shaped by various experiences. Surprisingly, one of those experiences was something I had said to him.
A bit of background: after I left for university, I barely interacted with my friends from the neighborhood. I hardly returned to the township, made new friends, and created an entirely new identity. My township friends, having made their choices or gone through life’s struggles, stayed in the hood. Unfortunately, most of them ended up living lives filled with booze and narcotics.
I was hurt by this, but there wasn’t much I could do. I had my own vision for the future. Around 2018/19, when I was preparing to leave for China, I had a conversation with one of these friends, Bones. We were sitting on the side of the road near his house, and he was a little high. I never really paid attention to what I said to him that day, but here’s what he told me in a recent conversation.
Coincidentally, we were sitting in the same spot as during that old conversation. I’ll start somewhere in the middle. I asked him how he even started his business.
Bones: “… this Spaza here is my pride and joy. I started this shop with only R800. After the day we talked, I realized I needed to change my life.”
Me: “The day we talked?”
Bones: “Yeah, we were sitting here, and I had just come back from olova. We had just finished smoking and were chatting. You talked about how life in the hood doesn’t seem to change; it remains the same. You pointed at a rock in the street, said you put a plastic bottle under it, testing if you’ll find it the year you came back, and you found it there still.”
I laughed because I know I did that.
Bones: “You told me living in the hood is like being animals in a kraal. That we live a life of routine. Animals get released from the kraal to eat grass, and later on, come back home, sleep, and the cycle repeats. You said, ‘I am living that life of an animal. I wake up, sometimes without even bathing, hang around all day with the gents smoking weed and dreaming about winning the lotto, about what I will do when I win it, come home, and repeat the same thing.'”
Me: “I did say that. I mean, I don’t think I was cruel, but the moment he mentioned it, I remembered saying it because I saw how he looked, and it hurt me.”
Bones: “I thought about that for many days, and I realized how true it was the more I did it. I knew I had to change.”
He then told me a long story about how he struggled to even start the shop. He mentioned how crucial his family, mainly his partner, was in that journey.
It’s really important to be aware of the things we say. It was in the same place where I told my young friends that someday I would leave the country.
I think that place might have some magical abilities to make people have revelations. The moral of this writing is in the title: we need to be aware of how we see others and try to get an idea of how they see us.
We never know how certain words we say could alter a person’s behavior.