Day 24 - The Lazy Student

Anthony was an amazing man to me. He would always treat me like an adult and talk to me as such and point out when I was doing something wrong, but I do not have a single memory that I can find of him being angry at me or of him ever being angry. He was a lot of fun to be around. He was always able to put people into a good mood and make them laugh. He was open, honest and always willing to help me, but at that stage I wasn’t willing to get help from anyone about anything in my life. I was a bratty little child. He never told me that there was something I couldn’t do and was willing to show me anything I wanted to learn that he was able to teach, but I was never a very good student as I thought of myself as unable to do anything without help. Most of the time when I needed something, I went to him as I wasn’t willing to look and learn to do it myself. I used and abused him for his knowledge and was happy with having someone that I could get what I wanted from.

This blog is a continuation to Day 21 - I lost my Friend my Brother and Day 23 - My Mother BETRAYED Me

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge Anthony as amazing, fun and honest
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be envious of Anthony and his character
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself as less than Anthony
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge Anthony as a calm person
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself as a bratty little child
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself as selfish
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself as lazy
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself as incapable of learning
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see myself as a bad student
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see myself as someone that cannot be helped in any way by another
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to go to others for help
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see going to others for help as weakness
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself as weak
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use someone for their knowledge
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to abuse someone for their knowledge
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to manipulate people for their knowledge
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to manipulate people to help me out of laziness
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be happy that my ego is satisfied
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to satisfy my ego by winning through successfully manipulating someone
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to satisfy my ego by exerting my power over them
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to satisfy my ego by seeing myself as more powerful as the person I am influencing
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to follow and try to satisfy my ego to get energy, so I can feel in control, bigger, stronger and smarter than other people
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being seen as inferior
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to desire to be seen as strong
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to be seen as strong, since I do not see myself as strong, I therefore need others to reaffirm the idea that I have created of myself of being strong
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to investigate for myself what actual strength is and redefining it within and as myself and from there developing the redefinition of strength as myself
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to desire to be seen as powerful
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to be seen as powerful, since I do not see myself as powerful, I therefore need others to reaffirm the idea that I have created of myself of being powerful
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to investigate for myself what actual powerfulness is and redefining it within and as myself and from there developing the redefinition of powerful as myself
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to desire to be seen as superior, as I use the character trait of superiority to suppress the fact that I see myself as inferior and also fear being seen as inferior by others, as I fear that they will take advantage of me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to desire to be respected
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to be seen as respected, since I do not respect myself, I therefore need others to reaffirm the idea that I have created of myself of being respected
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to investigate for myself what actual respect is and redefining it within and as myself and from there developing the redefinition of respect as myself
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to desire to be feared, as I fear others and as I want to be the most feared being, since I see that if people fear you, they give to you their energy and submit to your power, which means that you are then in control of their life
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being ignored, because when I am being ignored, I see myself as not being good enough or worthy of the person’s attention
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being left behind, because when I feel like I am being left behind, I feel like I am not good enough to be a part of whatever is happening
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself within my perception of Anthony
and the character traits that I saw he had that I wanted, such as: strength, compassion, motivation, intelligence, skill, efficiency and dedication – instead of standing equal and one with him and learning from his example

To Be Continued...

Related articles

• Day 23 - My Mother BETRAYED Me
• Day 19 - Thats NOT FAIR!
• Day 211 - I always have a frown part 6
• Day 15 - The Game of Recognition
• Day 133: Managing vs. Correcting My Inner Reality
• Day 12 - Beauty and the Nerd
• Day 187 - Spiritualism and Me - The Broken Character Part 5
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• Day 7 - Screaming to be Heard
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Day 23 - My Mother BETRAYED Me

This is a continuation to Day 21 - I lost my Friend, My Brother

I lost someone who is was and always will be more than family, brother, father and friend. He died in October 2011. As far as I know he killed himself. His name was Anthony. The first memory I have of him is from when I was around 10-11 years old. My mother had recently married another man and he was an aggressive, self-absorbed type of man. He had physically hurt me a few times – not as extensively as some who was actually beaten but enough to make me fear and hate men older than me. The memory of Anthony I have is from when he was dating my sister and they had sat me down to talk to me about why I was so scared and aggressive towards him. I told them that I was scared that he was going to hurt me like my step-father did and started crying, so Anthony hugged me and told me that he would never hurt me. Some of the details may be off but this is one of the strongest memories I have of him. I cannot remember how long I had known Anthony before this.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge my step-father as an aggressive, self-absorbed, stubborn, asshole
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear my step-father since he was extremely aggressive towards me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear men that are bigger and more athletic than I am, as I believe them to be stronger than me and as such, able to hurt me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that people bigger than me are going to and are able to hurt me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I need to be bigger than everyone so that they cannot hurt me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to go into fear and ego when I am around my step-father, as I see myself as less than him because he is an extremely athletic person
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see myself as less than my step-father
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself as weak and lazy as I always tried to “weasel” my way out of doing anything athletic when I was younger
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to project the belief and presence of being better than athletics and athletic people, since I actually see and believe myself to be less than athletics and athletic people
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear people seeing that I see myself as too weak to participate in athletics
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe and judge that I am too weak to participate in athletics
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to actually create and manifest the physical weakness that I perceived, believed and judged myself to consist of
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at my step-father for ruining the relationship I had with my mother as I saw who she actually was when she started giving over all of her power to him because she felt safe with such a strong man around
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame my step-father for my mother giving her power away and through that, blame him for ruining my relationship with my mother
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to believe that my mother would give herself and her power over to someone else willingly
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see it as a betrayal that my mother gave up and left me for my step-father
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that my mother betrayed me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at my mother for betraying me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at my mother for leaving me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at my mother for revealing to me that she believes herself to be weak and incapable to live on her own, which in turn causes me to see myself as weak and incapable of living on my own
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see my mother as weak and powerless for giving herself over to a man that she married for no other reason than protection and security in life
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that since my mother is weak, incapable of living on her own and looking for a partner that can provide for her, that in turn means that I must do all these things, as I have to follow in my mother’s footsteps, as she is supposed to be a “life model” that I have to follow
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at my mother for damaging my life as I see her as the cause of me following all these ridiculous paths in life
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that my mother damaged my life
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that I chose to follow in her footsteps, that I chose my own life paths, that I damaged my life and that I am the one responsible for my choices in life and in who I choose to be

To Be Continued...

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• Day 19 - Thats NOT FAIR!
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• Day 172 - giving Courage to myself.
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Day 22 - Neo Apartheid: Steal from the Poor and give to the Rich

Recently in the Gauteng Province in South Africa the government has been pushing for a new road tolling system called “e-tolling”. My main focus in this blog is not going to be about the system of e-tolling, but rather the speed that the government has used in pushing the system. The government says that the money from the new tolling system would be used to implement road upgrades. The cost of these upgrades would be around R20 Billion, but the expected profits from the new tolling system would be around R70 Billion. The article compares how the government is pushing this new system with a lot more due diligence than – for instance – the slow pace of restricting labour brokers.

"When it comes to the capitalist class, the government had speed in its legs. But when it comes to the interests of the poor the government moves very slowly,"
This quote from the article pretty much describes the whole point of Neo Apartheid, steal from the poor to make the rich richer.
“Vavi said money lost through corruption had to be retrieved and put towards building roads."This e-tolling thing is another way to steal from the poor." "Don't be arrogant with power, because we as workers will take that power and then you will be ordinary people," Vavi said.”
There is a planned protest march against this new system, where the main speaker and instigator of this protest has asked the people to drive to the nearest toll gate and park their car in front of it for the whole day in protest to this system.
"Comrades bring along your cars, bicycles, and horses if you have one, to close down the freeways on Thursday."
I wonder though if any of these protests would make any sort of a difference as the upper class will always find a way to secure their own position. The only way to really change the point is to change the system, to change the rules of the game. To help redesign the system for what is best for all come join us at www.equalmoney.org 

Sources:
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Vavi-Govt-moved-fast-on-tolls-20121130
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Cosatu-threatens-to-destroy-toll-booths-20121128
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Toll-vandals-will-be-punished-govt-20121129-2
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Anti-tolling-marches-under-way-20121130

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Day 21 - I lost my Friend, My Brother

I lost someone who is was and always will be more than family, brother, father and friend. He died in October 2011. As far as I know he killed himself. His name was Anthony. The first memory I have of him is from when I was around 10-11 years old. My mother had recently married another man and he was an aggressive, self-absorbed type of man. He had physically hurt me a few times – not as extensively as some who was actually beaten but enough to make me fear and hate men older than me. The memory of Anthony I have is from when he was dating my sister and they had sat me down to talk to me about why I was so scared and aggressive towards him. I told them that I was scared that he was going to hurt me like my step-father did and started crying, so Anthony hugged me and told me that he would never hurt me. Some of the details may be off but this is one of the strongest memories I have of him. I cannot remember how long I had known Anthony before this.

Anthony was an amazing man to me. He would always treat me like an adult and talk to me as such and point out when I was doing something wrong, but I do not have a single memory that I can find of him being angry at me or of him ever being angry. He was a lot of fun to be around. He was always able to put people into a good mood and make them laugh. He was open, honest and always willing to help me, but at that stage I wasn’t willing to get help from anyone about anything in my life. I was a bratty little child. He never told me that there was something I couldn’t do and was willing to show me anything I wanted to learn that he was able to teach, but I was never a very good student as I thought of myself as unable to do anything without help. Most of the time when I needed something, I went to him as I wasn’t willing to look and learn to do it myself. I used and abused him for his knowledge and was happy with having someone that I could get what I wanted from.

At one stage we were going to learn to do game programming together. He was a computer software programmer. He was the guy that knew everything about computers and taught me almost everything that I know – other than what I have needed to learn by myself since his death. He tried to teach me to do programming but I was being a lazy idiot who wouldn’t show up for lessons and wouldn’t learn as much as I could have – in the time that I was actually there. I wanted to learn to do it but I wasn’t committed, as I thought that he would do it and I would just “ride along with him” so to speak. After a while of this we stopped this project as it just wasn’t moving. Learning to program games and software is still something I would like to learn, but I am not sure if there will ever be the same opportunity again. I wasted my chance to learn from his expertise, which means that when I do find the time to do this it will take longer as I will not have someone that is already experienced in the field to assist and guide me.

Anthony taught himself how to write programming code by Bernard taking him out of the computer repair department the one day and taking him to the programmer that was working for us at that stage and telling him to teach Anthony how to write code. The programmer showed Anthony to a computer with the appropriate software and gave him a book and told him, here’s the book now teach yourself how to write software. He taught himself using self-motivation and a book. I envied him for the motivation he had in relation to whatever he wanted to learn or do. I thought that I was unable to do that for myself as I thought that I need someone to push and motivate me instead of me motivating myself – I problem that I still have today.

After that we bought and renovated a new office building that had 4 flats built into the property. Anthony, a few others and I had to stay while we renovated so as to “protect” the property as we didn’t have a security system yet and a lot of the flats were still partly open – in terms of no doors on the verandas and so on. We slept on the floors for about 2 months (if I remember correctly) before we moved into the flats. Anthony and I took one, while a friend of ours that also worked for the company took the other. It was the first experience I had of “living on my own” in my life. Anthony and I learned how to cook since we were eating way, way, way too much take out and junk food, lol. Anthony had recently been in a car crash so he had money that the insurance company had paid out to him. We used that money to buy a fridge and some other basic kitchen stuff so that we could cook and eat. We also used the money to buy a TV and an Xbox 360. This was just after they came out. We would all sit together and play games, talk about the world and talk about our lives. It was an extremely awesome and fun time in my life. After a while of us living there we started getting sick and the one morning where I didn’t sleep which was a normal thing for me at that stage – I would mostly sleep for an hour or two a day and stay awake as much as I could, I would also sleep during the day and stay awake at night – the one night Anthony was sick and coughing badly quite often. I was so scared that he would die that I almost broke into tears. I begged him to not die. I begged him not to leave me. I didn’t do this near him but in my room. I was still upset over Blackie dying – see my earlier blog… - so I was scared that he would die and leave me all alone in the world. Soon after this Bernard came to take me home telling me that I wasn’t ready to live on my own yet. This wasn’t a matter of age but a matter of stability in who I was, as I was using the flat as a way to run away and hide from myself. Bernard brought Anthony home soon afterwards as well.

After this we moved to the farm and Anthony came with at first. He started isolating himself more and more over time. He moved out of the room he was sharing with his partner and moved into a tent outside the house. He was less and less interested in the day to day of the farm. He eventually decided that he was going to leave and move back to his parents and try to get a job and find out who he really was. I didn’t take him seriously so I thought the whole idea was ridiculous. He showed me the things that he was responsible for and I took it over from him. He left and I barely said goodbye as I expected that he would be back soon. He got a job and his own little apartment and was doing ok for a little while. He didn’t like his job as it was a high stress environment and the people treated him badly as he was the new guy. He quit after a month I think. He lost his apartment. He sold his car, computer and whatever else he could for food and cigarettes. He eventually ran out of money and moved back to his parents. He would often fight with his parents and they sent him to a few psychiatrists since he was becoming more and more aggressive and forceful in talking to them about his life.

Anthony came back after staying with his parents for a while. He started working with us again outside and he also was busy making a few websites for us – which was another self-taught skill. He was still quite suppressed and isolated but he was getting better. He was teaching me to make websites. I was again more interested in his attention and approval then learning what he had to teach. I ignored much of what was going on inside of him so that I could try to see him as the same fun loving, outgoing, friendly, supportive stable man he used to be. I ignored his pain by seeing it, knowing it was there but not going to him and assisting him with his points out of fear of scaring him away and destroying the shaky relationship that we had developed. I was unwilling to help him out of fear of losing him. So I left him in his state of instability so I wouldn’t lose him. By doing that I pushed him away and that didn’t help him.

After about 3 months he “borrowed” my sister’s car for a trip to town and didn’t come back. He took the car on Friday and on the following Sunday we had to get the police to activate the car’s tracker to find him. We found the car and him at a shopping mall in a town close to Durban. We took him to his parents and suggested to them to send him to a mental institution since he had gone into a deep depression and we were worried that he might hurt himself. When we got the car back it was full of empty alcohol bottles and other junk.

We didn’t hear from him for a while. We needed his help with some computer stuff. He wouldn’t respond to anyone’s email so my sister asked me to try to contact him for help. He responded and helped me with everything I asked for. He wouldn’t talk about what was going on in his life he would just ignore the question. He told me once that he was busy working on himself and just wanted to do this by himself for himself. He was cold and calculating in his responses as if I was a business client. I backed off on the questions but felt that I could’ve helped him if he let me, but just like me he was stubborn and thought he could do it all himself. After he helped us with our problem he didn’t contact me again. He was on Facebook so I would check on what he was doing. He was going out with friends a lot so I thought that he may have stopped his process, so I figured that he might come back eventually.

A while later we found an article saying that Anthony had died. We tried to confirm it through old friends and his parents. I saw on his Facebook profile that his friends were all saying goodbye and so-on. I sent a message to his Facebook profile. I asked if this was true. I begged him for it not to be true. I didn’t want to believe it. I cried while writing it. I blame myself. I punished myself. I isolated myself. I told myself that he was my friend and I killed him. I told myself that I should’ve tried harder.


To Be Continued...

Day 20 - ANC Squanders Taxpayers Money Under NeoApartheid

I read an interesting news article recently about how the two main international airports in South Africa have not been doing health checks for travellers from the rest of Africa. They specify that they should have been checking for “Yellow Fever” which according to the WHO is a virus that kills on average 30 000 people a year in Africa as there are no specific treatments for the virus. The WHO also said that the virus is usually transmitted by mosquitos.

The reason that they have not been doing the health checks due to – in part – the lack of staff, also the staff has not been willing to work on public holidays and weekends as they do not get paid overtime. The provincial health department and Airports Company SA could not be reached for comment. The Information was brought forward by the Democratic Alliance.

From my perspective one of the points that I saw within this article is that the current government is using state funds for personal reasons rather than putting the money where it should go. For example: The UK annually sends 19 million Pounds of aid to the South African government mainly aimed at reducing HIV. The reason I say this is because of the fact that there has been a recent scandal around President Zuma concerning the upgrades to his personal “palace”. The South African government spent around 17.5 million Pounds on the Presidents family home and about 40 million Pounds on upgrading the roads around and in his Palace, all of this money came from taxpaying citizens. Another point is that President Zuma asked many companies, mainly in the mining sector to “tighten their belts” so that they can pay their workers more. All the while he is doing things like this where he throws taxpayers money around like it is nothing and the government stops allocating the money that should go to things like public transport, public healthcare, job creation, education and food security. What this is saying to South African citizens is that the government has a lot of money but it is used for the betterment of the ruling party and its members rather than the people who the ruling party are supposed to be protecting and empowering.

To read more click here

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Day 19 - Thats NOT FAIR!

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame myself for failing my drivers test
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame the instructor for failing me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at myself for failing my first attempt at the test
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have expected myself to pass and feel disappointed and angry at myself for failing
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to whine and complain about the fact that I did not see it as fair that I was failed as the point that I was failed on was not part of the test
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry about the fact that I was failed unfairly
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not want to admit to myself that I had been whining about the fact that I failed
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that people will tell me that I am acting liking a whining little child
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being seen and perceived as a whining little child
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to manipulate people to be sympathetic to me by telling them how I was unfairly failed
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use the point of me failing the test, as a point to get attention
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that I was angry at myself for whining as much as for failing
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use anger as a way to not see the point of me getting my ego bruised as the point that is perpetuating much of the anger that I am holding onto
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear getting my ego bruised
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold onto the anger as a punishment for failing, bruising my ego and for damaging the perceived idea I have of how people see me
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to let go of the anger I have at myself and the instructor
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to take out my anger on my body
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use muscle pain as a punishment for failing, bruising my ego and for damaging the perceived idea I have of how people see me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use back pain as a constant unforgiving reminder of how I fucked up like an idiot
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself as an idiot for not passing my test
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see myself as less than since I have failed my test
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold onto the physical so as to torture myself
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to let go of the physical pain I have placed within myself out of fear of failing again
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear driving again because I failed my test
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to push people to let me drive so as to keep to the principles of driving necessary to pass my retest
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see people being a lot more resistant to the point of me driving as them saying that since I failed the test I can never drive again
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to take people not letting me drive personally
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at the people I have gone to town with not letting me drive using bad excuses as to why I can’t drive
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not take them on and push them to let me drive so as to practice otherwise I will fail my test
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge them and be angry at them even though I haven’t pushed as hard as I should have
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to assume that the people wouldn’t let me drive because I failed my test and they no longer think that I can drive
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear the people think that I cannot drive because I failed my test
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at people out my perceived believe that they think that I can no longer drive
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to take out my anger on anyone that gave me a reason no matter how small
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to suppress the anger I was feeling for failing
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear failing the second test
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for being angry at the fact that I have to wait another two months and take more lessons before I can drive myself around
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry that I do not have the ability to drive myself and Maite around but instead have to adhere to the limitations set by the people that can drive
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry that it is taking so long to get my drivers license
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for being disappointed at the fact that I postponed my drivers license for so long and now that I had the chance I fucked it up
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use pain as a suppression tool for my anger
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use self-pity as a trigger for releasing my anger onto others

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Day 18 - My Failed Test

Niamh passed her driving test - first time! (Photo credit: Danny McL)

I recently took and failed my first try at the driver’s license test. I don’t do well with failure. I rebooked my test for the soonest available test which is the 16th of January. The reason I failed my test is two-sided. The one side is that I screwed up and got stuck on the road for about two minutes, but the instructor told me I failed because the guy that was behind me hooted, the guy was behind me for about 20 seconds before he overtook me and I didn’t hear him hoot – which is not something that I can technically be failed on, but I didn’t know that at the time. The other side is that I gave the instructor the opportunity to fail me by getting stuck, although I do not understand why he failed me as he told me I was a very good driver, but I have heard that the departments have to fail a certain amount of people (I do not know if that is true) and I gave him the opportunity to fail me, no matter what the reason.

I know that I am blaming the instructor. I have not actually dealt with the anger. I have been writing about anything other than myself so as to avoid looking at this point – not that what I have been writing is pointless – I am just saying that I have used these other points as a distraction.

I have been in a lot more physical pain and stiffness since I failed the test. I looked at why the other day and realised that I was using my muscles and my body to suppress the anger that I am feeling. I was trying to use my body as a hiding place, my pain as a distraction and my self-pity as a trigger to release the anger on anyone who gives me a reason.

To Be Continued…

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