'The Restart Effect'

When you get to your 1^st year at varsity- no matter who you were in high school- you realize you’re in a whole other world. You can become anything you want to become. Your past, what you did, who you were, it falls away and by a series of incidents, a new man is forged! You’re going to be changing in some way or the other.

Through each phase of your life: high school, college, your 1^st job – onto your second job… eventually settling down on your actual career, you’ll realize that you’re really just going through the ‘school of life’, graduating through each step along the way. ‘

Its The Restart Effect,

Just when you got it nailed down, you gotta hit the restart button and conquer a different sphere of life, which has been primed by your previous experiences.

The lessons you learn in college (mostly out of the classroom) will carry you through the next few years of your life. People skills, conflict resolution, time management (fitting in that social life between exam papers), the confidence you attain… all coupled together, prepare you for the unknowing Goliath that you’re about to face – The WORKING WORLD!

So you graduate. You get a nice handshake from dad, a hug from mom & you’re on your way… You have dreams, aspirations, you’re filled with ambition.

You get out there and realize… you’re starting at the bottom all over again.

You enter your job space and you realize that you’re working with people that are smarter & more experienced than you. You may have an impressive qualification, but they know how to play the game, and they can play it well!

One thing that I’ve learned during my change of organizations is that, no matter who you were before, no matter what you’ve come through in your life and no matter who you are or what you’ve achieved… it all means nothing to them and you have to prove yourself all over again. You have to build yourself and your reputation, up… from scratch. You could have been an athlete of note, a social phenomenon or the brightest crayon from the class of ‘whenever’. It matters none.

When I look at some of the most successful adults I know, I realize that they aren’t all necessarily doing the same jobs that they studied for, or even started out doing in their 20’s. Seriously! Think about it!

So what ever it is you’re doing, even if you’re frustrated, realize that THINGS CHANGE and situations are temporary.

Remember that you’re getting awesome career experience so that one day you’ll be able to school the ‘new college graduate’ on how the real world works. Just like how I’m schooling you hahaha.

You learn how to deal with people that you don’t like. You realize that these people are just here for a moment and mean little in the bigger scheme of your life.

You will get judged as soon as you step through those doors. You will be put down and you will be tested. Colleagues will make generalizations about you and expect you to be what they conceive you to be. When you become bigger than that, when you rise above that and be who you are, they won’t like it initially. Men especially are threatened by the confidence of a man they don’t know.

Always remember to be who you are. Always remember what you’ve been through and the life that you’ve come through.

When things were going a south for me I got this little pearl of wisdom from my room mate Siyo, “When they’re hating then you know you’re doing well!”. He probably got it from some rapper. This boy is like a jukebox. The amount of songs that come out of his mouth in a day is astonishing. I need to phone his mother and ask her where the ‘stop’ button is.

Never let other people dictate who you are. If you do, that is a sure-fire way to kill every bit of confidence that you have. It will make you doubt who you are. It’s a harsh lesson that you will learn and grow from- and to never allow again

Throughout your 20’s its all about making mistakes, learning from them and figuring yourself out so you can set yourself up for an awesome future….

A real gentleman can say whatever he wants without making someone mad. A real gentleman is a cunning linguist- without the deception.

Let the Good Times Roll...

In Retrospect…

We seldom look at how things have changed. We’re too busy with our conveniences to remember how hard things REALLY used to be. I mean, what would we do without cell phones! Like seriously. How is the human race still alive.

Anyway, every now and again, this conversation about the ‘good ol days’ pops up. It almost always starts of by someone making a ‘Super Mario Brothers’ reference!

Without further ado, here are some of things I experienced as a kid.

Carte Blanche signified the death of your very being because it meant  - school the next day.

I remember recording songs off the radio on cassettes. It was annoying cos you always had to time the recording between the dj’s voice!

We had no mp3 players with a million songs. We bought tapes. We couldn’t even select the tracks! Forward, stop, play… Forward, stop, play- Ahhh! There it is!

The only phone we had, the ENTIRE family shared.

Social networking was called PLAYING OUTSIDE.

Sometimes tv stations would show this picture when nothing was scheduled- T.V shows would only start in the afternoon.

Our T.V’s had no remote controls! You had to get up off your butt to adjust the volume and change the channel.

T.V shows were in Afrikaans and we had to tune our radios in to a specific frequency to get the program in English- Simulcast

When we went to the drive in we had to hang that speaker thing through the window to listen to the audio.

We never had internet! We photocopied black and white pictures for our projects, out of books that we got from an ACTUAL library.

You had a Tamagotchi didn’t you.

It was actually worth getting up early on a Saturday to watch cartoons.

Get Over Here!!!! Means something to you.

When you got an allowance of R2 on a Friday and you could buy chips from the tuck shop OR chips, sweets and something to drink from the lady outside school.

You always wanted to be on K-tv Reggies Rush… and you hated the kids on their for picking the dumbest toys.

Money issues were handled by whoever was banker in 'Monopoly.'

Being old referred to anyone over 20.

You ACTUALLY thought Brain would take over the world

We paid for every picture that we took on our cameras with film. Which we had to wait for days before seeing. Then separate them into the good pictures and the ones of peoples hands covering the lens. Everybody would hoard around the photos in suspense.

Now?

It's not quite as thrilling to look back and reminisce on an image that happened two seconds earlier.

Feel free to post your experiences of ‘growing up in the 90’s’ in the comment box below! Or message me on facebook and I’ll add it to the list!

Below are some pictures and videos of the past! Check them out and enjoy the good times!