life is hard

I was hanging out in the township with my friend Jippli the other day and an interesting/ awkward topic of conversation came up: money. A friend of his had recently asked me if he could borrow R100 and I was explaining to Jippli that it made me feel uncomfortable lending money to people (especially people I don’t really know). Jippli said that he understood, but then he said something that really got me thinking.

“Life is hard,” he said.

He continued to say that sometimes people don’t have a choice – they need money and they ask for it, hoping that one day they will be able to repay it or return the favor.

But those three words – “life is hard” – made me realize something… that for me, life has never actually been hard.

I have never had to worry about where my next meal was coming from. I have never had to worry about helping to support my household. I have never had to worry about not having a job. I have never had to worry that my family and friends wouldn’t be able to support me.

It really puts things into perspective. Up to now, my biggest worries have been about school/ grades, about messing up in a soccer match, about finding a job (which I wasn’t too worried about in all honesty because I knew I wanted to work for GRS for a year), about designing a t-shirt that my sorority wouldn’t deem ugly, or about disappointing someone else or myself. I have never actually had a real/ basic-living worry.

For me life hasn’t been hard. I grew up in a safe home environment. I grew up with both of my parents. I grew up with numerous opportunities. And I grew up surrounded by family and friends who provided me with everything from physical needs to emotional support.

I still believe that a bit of my own blood, sweat and tears have helped me get where I am today, but where would I be if I had not been raised in the safe, opportunistic environment that I was? Where would I be if my back-story were that of any of the coaches that work for Grassroot Soccer in Kimberley? Where would I be if life had been hard for me?

Where people come from – their environmental circumstance (which they have almost no control over) – matters and I hope to be more mindful of that moving forward.