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A good neighbour of mine died about 3km from home, after driving more than 500km.
A friend got involved in a near-fatal accident less than 700m away from his destination.
I’ve heard that more than a third of accidents happen less than a kilometre away from home. When you are close to the end, often you can’t see the dangers in the journey. You are probably too exhausted and your anxiety is heightened.
It is year-end. It’s been a long walk to the exams, business is tough, elections are around the corner, politicians are breathing a fire of convenience to attract attention to themselves.
At times like these, it is important to focus on the things over which you have control. Concentrate on your books rather than try to buy exam papers.
Years ago, while I was at junior high school, one of my classmates spent the last days before the exams looking to buy what we called a “scandal”, our vernacular for a leaked exam paper.
About midday the day before the exam, he came to me to help him with the answers. He had paid a hefty sum of R25 for the scandal.
I looked at the questions and noticed that they were about a potato. Is a potato a starch or a protein? Why is a potato called the king of foods? Explain the process of converting potatoes to sweet potatoes.
I told him that paper just didn’t look right and that there was no point in wasting time going through it.
I suggested rather that he should spend the few hours left going through past exam papers.
But he was certain my approach was wrong and so he left.
The next day in the exam room, as I realised how different the paper was to the scandal, I tried hard to conceal my laughter. But when I heard him cry, “Eish”, I burst out laughing.
The dying minutes of a game are exactly that; it’s when people get easily distracted because they cannot deal with the immediate pressures and their dreams die.
Preparation without discipline is a waste of energy – like leaving the outside lamp on while the sun is shining.
Discipline is the wheel that takes you from desire to destination.
The leader must create an opportunity for success.
Our late school principal, Theo Debese, was great at that. He knew many pupils lived in families where there was no opportunity to study for exams.
So he made the school available from 6am until 9pm every day, including weekends. On the first few days this was new-found freedom for most of us. But he had left us with the school watchman, uBab’ Mbatha, who enforced order with the fierceness of a bulldog.
Bab’ Mbatha had never seen the inside of a classroom and he instilled discipline with his traditional weapon.
One evening while he walked past our classroom he heard a noise. He tried to open the door, which was locked. He tried to open it by force but couldn’t, so one of my classmates opened.
“Whose head must I smash first?” he asked the class, “his or yours?”
We begged for forgiveness. He left us with a strict instruction to be so quiet that we should be able to hear a mouse farting.
The world has changed and discipline must no longer be enforced through violence. The responsibility to enforce discipline no longer belongs to the seniors.
As the year nears the end, take a moment and remember the goals that you have set for yourself and focus on them like a dog gripping a bone.
Kuzwayo is the founder of Ignitive, an advertising agency
