It’s good to be back in print today. The past two Mondays have been public holidays, so my thoughts have been marinating like lamb chops in my head, instead of on these pages.
Most of us are back with a shoulders to the grind as of today, kick-starting the familiar cycle that puts food on our tables.
The first stumbling block will of course be when the kids return to school next week. Hopefully you’re not completely broke and there’s enough money left in the bank to deal with uniforms and stationery.
The class of 2022 will be looking at the year ahead with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.
As expected, parents were again singing their kids’ praises on social media at the end of last year. Next week, we can expect the same when the matric results come out.
Many posts will again be of parents boasting about their kids getting bachelor passes or acing many of their exam papers with distinctions.
These are very exciting moments and hopefully is the foundation of awesome futures for these youngsters. I truly hope all their hopes and dreams are fulfilled in the most amazing ways, and that all their hard work pays off with wonderful lives.
But as we know, Facebook can be a misleading place, where we only ever show our best lives. So while there will be hundreds of parents proudly showing off their children’s achievements, there will also be hundreds of parents conspicuous in their silence. The assumption is that their matriculant didn’t do as well as they had hoped.
I want to take a moment to speak to those kids who know or suspect that did not pass matric 2022; those of you putting on a brave face, but are feeling quietly dejected, panicked and even worthless inside.
It’s true that this was the biggest challenges in your young life, and that you may not have done as well as you had hoped. It doesn’t really matter what the reasons are. There is nothing you can do about what happened last year.
But there’s a lot you can do about the years that lie ahead. In fact, the entire foundation of what’s going to happen to you this year and the rest of your life, is in your hands. Remember that every failure is what step closer to success, so don’t give up. You are closer to achieving your goals than you think.
Commit to your own success, because that will inspire you to start. And then work at it every day; consistently, because that will drive you to keep going until you are finish.