My Life, My Choice! Other people's burden.

Every person has a choice to do anything that pleases him but not everyone is capable of making good choices. Moreover certain choices are driven by selfish desires. In addition, we also have different levels of intelligence and ways of understanding things in life. It is therefore, in most cases wrong to leave people to make their own choices. Guidance and direction is vital in the development of every human being. We can see it in SA, where most people have nasty attitudes, bad social behavior and poor economic planning due to lack of moral support. This happens because of the absence of a parent or both parents due to death, divorce and children born out of wedlock.

People who seem and feel less capable of making intelligent choices should be helped by those who have good reasoning abilities. These can either be parents, siblings, peers, opinion leaders (people with excellent understanding of specific practice and theories) and media. I would say that the vulnerable people in terms of making poor choices and therefore, losing it in life are mostly in the early teenager stages.

We are what we do

It is not everything we do that portrays who we are. In most cases we do what we do because of situations that we have no control of. For example in the hospitality industry and in particular in the restaurants, most waiters pretend to be approachable and passionate about their jobs. But they do that to get a tip from customers who expect them to be ever smiling beings.

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that personal desires and circumstances make us do things that others will use to judge our personalities. Our actions vary according to the situations we find ourselves in. We are what we do only if our specific actions are repeated and therefore, become part of our daily lives (behavior).

We are afraid of the wrong things

Are we really afraid of the wrong things? If we were afraid of the wrong things, there could be lower rates of all kinds of crime in South Africa. Being fearful of wrong things in my opinion is having a crime free society. The rape cases, robberies, defamation of character especially in political parties, car hijacks, premature motherhood, corruption in private and public sectors you can name it all, is a sign that wrong things are perceived right is SA.

The problem with SA is the attitude that people have towards others. South Africans have a strange idea of “who are you to tell me what to do?” and therefore, they cannot learn from each other. The fact that they cannot learn, makes them think their actions are right, even though they are wrong. A person cannot be afraid of the wrong things if he does not know what the right things are.

Being afraid of wrong things and thus, build a better SA will come with learning from each other’s experiences.

CPUT it students learn to steal

Information Technology(it) students of Cape Peninsula University of Technology(CPUT) are using the little IT knowledge they have acquired to steal Internet credits/bytes from other students at the institution. Students who have had their credits stolen have sought help from the it help desk but in vain. The it help desk is the department that assists students who experience technical faults when logging into the computers, it also helps with Internet, printing and photocopying credit issues but ironically it is not doing anything to protect students' credits from being stolen.

I am one of the victims. On 1 March, 2010 as part of the institution policy, My student account was credited with R100 Internet bytes of which on the same day an unknown person used the credits and even went beyond and therefore, left me in a debt of R258. This means that My account will not be credited for two and half months, while thanks to the "clever" it criminals. If these thieves are to be called scholars-in-making then they should act like them. Apparently, "all they need to have is someone's student number then they have a passport to that student's account", said a first year it student. There's also a speculation that it students are having a password to wireless internet, which is provided by lecturers to allow them access the net on their private laptops. I mean, we are all students, why can't the password be available for every student with a laptop and or private computer.

What is the it help desk department doing to prevent this illegal act from carrying on. After all it is not sinister to say that the CPUT students' it skills are not needed for SA's development if having these skills just adds up to high levels of crime.

Fish falling from the sky

I will relate this topic to the old saying "Manna from heaven." Manna fell from heaven at that time when people walked in the fear of the Lord. Nowadays people have become their own gods. Man has to work or even work harder to have a day's meal. Since people now believe in themselves, the power of the unseen is something of less importance. But a person must never underestimate the power of something they do not know because they have not seen.

Every intelligent man finds out what the unseen is. It's only if you get to know what the power of the unseen is that you appreciate it. Manna will never fall again until we look back to the unseen. Otherwise, we will work restlessly but in vain. The power of God is more than any others. The bible says the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom. Let man be fearful of God and therefore, be wise and the be hopeful of the fish falling from the sky.

What is the colour of the wind?

Does wind have colour? Colourless? Maybe wind has colour, it's the things that we see that creates colour of the wind. People, buildings, plants, oceans, cars, land and the sky all these are among other things that add colour to the wind. Oh! wait I think the colour of the wind is brick-red because the heat-wave which is hot wind is actually as scorchy as fire and destroys nature, be it people, trees, land and so on...

Every human being should be able to tell the colour of the wind depending on what they think and not on what systems or theories have said. Systems and theories are invented by man to control others and therefore, if one man can say that the colour of the sea is blue, then another man can say otherwise, as long as he is able to convince others to believe in his thoughts.

What is the colour of the wind?

Waiting

Many people think working in a restaurant as a waiter or waitress is just something that a person would do to keep busy. Waiting is not taken seriously due to the perception that people have about the profession. To some people it is not a career because people work night shifts and there isn't a specified salary to it.

But one thing people should know is that work is work regardless of the shifts, whether paid a specific wage, commission or getting a tip. At the end of the day it is all about excellent service versus money and what matters is discipline. For some, waiting brings about sustainable and good living, in the sense that a person earns an income. It also promotes education especially to people who pay for there own studies. It is one of the best jobs a person can ever do, the working hours are flexible, the tip is good and moreover as a Waiter, one is exposed to a lot of things in life.

Exposure is power.

Girl Child

I wonder how many young girls (girl child) are out there on the streets, striving to survive. Many became mothers at a tender age not because they want to but because of circumstance they find themselves in. Girls as young as 11 years old with no sense on how to look after another child become mothers and are forced to be grown ups. Most of the time these girls loose interest in school and in any form of education that may be presented to them by well wishers, NGOs and or government.

The problem is not that these girls don't want to go to school but it's because they lack moral support from people who are close to them. This happens because they have either lost both their parents or they are single parented, thus, leaving them with no role model. It is sad to see how the girls languish on the streets with nothing to do but ask for money from strangers, who most of the time refuse and walk away. But then, it becomes dangerous when the stranger that is willing to assist is male and when he offers to help on certain conditions. The condition is most of the time that the girls sleep with them either with or without any kind of protection. This is of huge concern as the rate at which people are getting infected with STDs and HIV/Aids is high in developing countries.

Who will be the future leaders of tomorrow if we let the situation to continue? Government should help communities combat poverty for it is from poverty that we have this problem of girl children. Poverty is the root cause of all this sad ways of living.