Peaks And Valleys : Not Always Getting It Right

Lion's Head Hike

Without a doubt, this semester has been the most exciting in my UCT career so far. I am in a very good space personally. I am doing five courses, highest I've ever done in a semester, and I am managing just fine. I fell in love with Accounting once again( after going through what a blogger would call blogger's block), enjoying the Taxation language, getting my highest mark ever in UCT in the Business Law test and eventually passing a Macroeconomics essay. As academics is the only thing I am good in, it is the greatest source of my happiness. Even my self-esteem depends on how well I am doing at school. My graph has been upward sloping lately( never the Algebra/Geometry there, whatever it is). For once I just felt that I'm in control. The positivity around is just awesome, what a time to be alive as they say.

Enough about school(at least for now). I went for a Lion's Head hiking during the short vacation. Despite having been in Cape Town for over year and a half, I had not done hiking. I also went for the Open Stellenbosch march in the same vac to offer my support to Matties students standing up against the language policy in their university( Told you I'm an activist at heart, it's hard not to be one lately) Completing the 10km Cape Town Marathon Peace Run is the highlight of my semester so far. I've also entered for the KFM 10km Gun Run in October. It feels so good to do something outside of school. It's like standing up to a bully. To have that courage to say that there's more to life than books and being able to experience life outside one's comfort zones, it's amazing(#ChallengeYourself). I realised that it's not like I couldn't do a lot of things, it's merely that I didn't give myself a chance to do a lot of things. Now I'm paying for that, I have a lot of catching up to do. I just have to make sure that my schoolwork doesn't suffer as I'm in the process of making up for lost time and ensuring that I grow wholistically going forward.

As it always happens to economies that grow rapidly around the world, the bubble has to burst. The graphs always have a turning point and for me it was dismally failing the Taxation test. After doing so well in the first test, I couldn't understand why people would say Tax is difficult. I was enjoying the ride, I was the main man, I never saw it coming and it hit me so hard. I got just over a half of what I got in the first test. This revealed one thing about my character once again, which is getting ahead of myself. I let early success get into my head and it convinces me that I've achieved, whereas in reality there's still a long way to go. I use the analogy of early ejaculation to explain it(Oops!, that's unlike you Khangwelo). Contrary to popular belief, I still have a long way when it comes to teaching myself humility, especially when it comes to how to respond to success. My peers believe that I'm fairly good academically(in UCT standards even), just that I fail to make my success sustainable. 'I have my days', as I put it.

I don't understand how it works but whenever something unpleasant happens, I forget about all the good things happening in my life. It destroys me and makes me question everything. I don't know when I became this unrealistic, expecting everything to go my way. I don't know why it becomes so hard to convince myself that it happens to the best of us. There are times when even the motivational quotes become meaningless and I just 'why me?'. Tax humbled me but I am glad it happened before the exams, so it gives me enough time to change my approach to it when I still can(tell me about taking positives from negatives).

I wish I could go back to my high school years, and tell my classmates that I looked down upon that I understand what they were going through. It's not that they were lazy or dumb, they did their best but their best wasn't good enough. I didn't understand them at the time. Why would a person who comes to school everyday, makes on noise, stay behind for study time, not do well?. It's just one of those things I could never understand until I have gone through them myself. In all the tests I have failed in UCT, I never thought I was going to fail them even after writing them. I prepare for them, I even enjoyed writing some of them(I even finished the Tax test, what an achievement!) but surprise surprise, I failed them. Remember the Bible text about a way that seems right but leads to death?. I think I know that way, it's self-exaltation and anything 'self'. After a long time of self-deception, one cannot be ready when reality kicks in.

I hope the Tax test will the lowest valley this semester and the good Lord will help me to move on and have a lot more peaks. It's of no use having a past experience if it's not gonna help me fight my future battles. I hope to be wiser as I prepare for the upcoming final exams, as I now know that no one is immune from failure. As I don't wanna limit my life to just school, I hope to apply lessons learnt in life in general. As I paraphrase  Romans 8:18, what I face today is nothing compared to what God has in store for me. I don't always get it right, but I will always try one more time