A great day for failure...

I have fulfilled many roles in my life – I believe that life is essentially about fulfilling roles. And no, when I say this I am definitely not referring to roles in plays. I literally mean I have been son, brother, friend, sales person, student, babysitter, helper, manager and so many more. But this week I added a new one to my repertoire.

A couple of days ago I just had one of the worst days of my life – I felt emotional, moody, teary, angry and frustrated for the entire day. I had to give a performance in one of our classes – one I didn’t feel I was prepared for. It was an extract from the play “Decadence” by Stephen Berkoff and one that I felt was quite a challenge for me to do. A challenge that I wasn’t really ready to face.
It had just so happened that Paul Griffiths (my drama lecturer) had put my name down the previous week to do a performance - and this whole notion of going onto stage again after a very long time was scary.
I had not physically acted on stage again after the whole “Hello & Goodbye” debacle and going back to that “scary” place was like sending me to the stocks.
Anyway, earlier that morning, after I had literally broken down and felt like giving up everything, Natasha, friend extraordinaire, comforted me and told me to “stop fearing failure”. According to her I was “so scared of failing that I was resisting trying”, and I must say that in retrospect one does have to see the merit in her argument.
I had stopped performing for quite a long time because I was scared that it wouldn’t meet certain expectations and that it would be seen as mediocre.
This to me was quite a revelation within myself.

According to another (gypsy) friend of mine, my Indian Medicine Card Animal was the fearful Rabbit. When I read up on it, I found out that the Indians called Rabbit “the fear-caller”. This meant that Rabbit was so scared of what ‘might’ happen that it ended up “calling” that to him.
In a way, I understood what that meant. It meant ‘what you fear most you will become’ or ‘what you fear most will eventually happen’ – because I have given this fear so much power by thinking about it over and over.

But – before we sidetrack – back to the story. So I did the performance and miraculously it was a success. I had some great feedback: some calling it effortless, others saying it was so nice to see me putting my own spin on a piece.
The nicest comment, however, was that of a first year boy at my college, who said: “Germandt I look up to you as a performer and an actor.” And afterwards told me that he “aspires to be like me”.
This was enough to make me teary-eyed in class all over again.

Later that day I went to lunch with Natasha and we chatted about what had happened that day in class. I told her how happy I was that it went well and how touched I was that this first-year boy had said this about me.
Natasha kept quiet for a while and then turned to me and said: “Germ, can I tell you something as a friend.?”
“Sure.” I replied.
“You have got a huge responsibility on your shoulders now.” she said.
“I know…” I interrupted. “I have to make sure that I stay working hard so that I can keep on being a performer to look up to…”
“No.” she stopped me. “You have to make sure that you show this guy that it’s alright to try and fail sometimes. You have to show him that it’s needed as a performer and as a human being – to sometimes fail.”

And I stayed quiet.

Afterwards, I realized how true her words had actually been.
This made me realize that being a rolemodel, someone that others look up to, meant that it was my responsibility to show others that it’s alright to not get it right sometimes…
that it’s alright to sometimes fail.

I started to think about all the people I looked up to in my life and started realizing more and more that I had learnt so much from all these people about life – not by how much they had gotten right, but by how much they had gotten wrong and how they came out on the other side.

And suddenly the responsibility on my shoulders became a lot heavier.

I had to make sure that those who looked up to me saw me as “a human”.
And yes, sometimes it’s hard – sometimes, you want to only show the good, clean side of who you are – but it doesn’t work that way.
“Hou die blink kant bo” – perhaps this saying accounts for a whole lot of the problems Afrikaners face today.
A sermon that I heard once said the following and it really impacted my life: “The thing with going through the valley of the shadow of death is this – it’s a valley – which means you have to go through it at some point. And it’s this that counts – whether you come out a stronger human being than you went in.”

So, my message to you today is this: if there is someone looking up to you, (a little brother or sister, a friend, a child) make sure that you show them that one does not always have to be perfect – that we learn more from the mistakes we make. That it is alright to sometimes make mistakes and learn from them.
We live in a world where our rolemodels are actors, pop stars, musicians and socialites – all of which lead perfect lives – lots of money, successful careers, fame and admiration.
I personally think it’s time for some “real” rolemodels in this world.
“Real” people. People who fail. People who fall and get up again. Humans.

I’d like to dedicate this blog to my rolemodel: Natasha.
You haven’t disappointed me yet.