Staring down adversity

When I was in primary school, maybe in grade three or four I ran away from what was my responsibility and I have always wondered if that contributed to shaping me into what I have become: I hold back. I do not have the killer instinct and that is a demon I am grappling with and I seem to be winning and I am destined for greatness. I take many of the opportunities that are presented to me to stare down adversity and come out tops. But I ran away once and it haunts me.

It was the athletics season and we ran in our respective houses and I won the right to represent our house in the inter-house athletics competitions. But I did not believe I was a good athlete: My legs pointed inwards when I walked, I was sickly and besides being very good academically, I thought I was useless; I will not go into why I thought I was useless. The blame game is not a very productive game. But I firmly believed a mistake had been made and I could not represent my house in the inter-house athletics competition.

On the day of the competition I ran away and I will never know how I would have fared. My six year old daughter on the other hand, is made of sterner stuff than me. She takes after me physically; her feet point inwards as she walks and she is a bit knocker-kneed and she has already represented her school in an athletics competition. When she came home and told us that she was always winning the school races, we concluded that she was being made to race against younger pupils; after all she did not have the build of an athlete and her pre-school reports said she was clumsy when it came to physical activities! We did not take into account the power of belief. My daughter is a believer and she has already jumped over a lot of obstacles using that. I now believe that anyone can become anything they want to be if they believe enough and apply themselves enough.

Just a year ago I considered myself just a writer and I had done well as a writer and I was using that success to run away: The thought of being a performer totally petrified me. That was until the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) invited me to perform my poetry during the festival. That was a huge platform and I had to live up to expectations and I did well and I haven’t looked back ever since. I now believe I can become one of the best performance Poets in the world. Whilst I thought performing from memory without reading was a near impossibility, I am now having so much fun doing it and it is now a walk in the park.

We owe it to ourselves, to our kids, to the country and the world to take the best shot at being great no matter how heavily the odds are stacked against us. And we will prevail. Anyone can become anything they want to be. Anything.