Remarkably simple, thoroughly life changing concepts when understood, embraced, and implemented:

• Blame has no good return for the person choosing it. No matter how poor a job our parents may have done, continuing to blame them, or anyone, and hold resentment against them, or anyone, will be unhelpful and will impact the future for generations to come. Each of us has to make our own lives work and be successful – or not – no matter what hand we have been dealt.
• Resentment is emotional cancer. It eats the host alive and usually has little or no impact on the resented person. He or she is scott-free while the host continues to stew in resentment’s toxic acids. Unforgiveness darkens the outlook and twists perceptions on everything, not only on the target of unforgiveness.
• Health is first an inside job. People do need help often from others but the initial impulse for wellness must come from within. No one ever successfully imposed enduring health on another.
• The parent who is overly-focussed on the child is probably doing neither the child nor himself or herself any favors. Even though they may appear to enjoy it, children are not equipped to handle being worshiped. Benign neglect or divided attention are better options than up-close-super-focussed parenting.

“It’s not what you know but who you know,” runs the cliche. Like you, I have evidence that this often holds to be true. I am grateful that pre-existing relationships have opened many doors for me. I like to think that I have similarly fostered opportunities for others.

What you know is also important. Who you know won’t usually cut it if you are uneducated about some matters or unskilled in some areas. You can be steeply connected to “very important” people – they may even be family – but these relationships will not help when certain skills and qualifications are required for certain roles or privileges.

There is a somewhat related thought that I believe trumps who and what you know. How you relate to others is crucial to your success.

You are the one common factor in all of your relationships. Who you know and what you know can be derailed by how you behave. Kindness, humility, openness to others, willingness to learn, demonstration of mutual respect are sure-fire door openers. Brashness, arrogance, and an attitude of entitlement can have a door shut in your face no matter who you are or what you know.

There is a difference between keeping peace (peacekeeping) and making peace (peacemaking). Peacekeeping takes a lot of work and saps energy. It’s never-ending. Peacemaking lays groundwork for authentic peace to rule. Peacekeepers work hard to keep the tensions from rising. They often pretend nothing is wrong. Peacemakers allow tensions to be aired and might even precipitate necessary conflict. Peacekeepers avoid conflict at all costs. Their reward is the semblance of tranquility, and the slow demise of their integrity.

Peacemakers invite necessary conflict. They know there is no other pathway to greater understanding between warring people. Peacekeepers may endure fake peace for decades – and feel “called” or anointed or special.

Peacekeepers often have high levels of martyrdom. How else would they rationalize the stress of trying to hide the proverbial elephant in the room? Peacekeepers are often portrayed as deeply spiritual because they can endure so much without “saying anything.” They often see their suffering as persecution, rather than the product of being misguided.

Peacemakers value authentic peace. The peace that exists between people with the courage to endure conflict, for the sake of lasting peace, is as gold when compared with its counterfeit cousin.

Assume your legitimate role as a peacemaker, and give up the other as nonsense.

Former Durban resident and Glenwood High School Old Boy and East Coast Radio coach Stephen Light is in KZN this week, visiting from the UK. We go back a few years. He was about 13, delivering a prepared speech in my classroom and alluded to eating polony in Smith’s t-room he visited in Red Hill as a very young boy. Light, always a very bright light, quickly made the connection once it was clear his English teacher knew the same shop and was also a Mr. Smith.

Stephen Light is an executive coach with a remarkable list of international clients.

“I challenge people. I go beyond the obvious, showing them what they don’t see, helping them change themselves,” writes Stephen. Light is also an accomplished actor. He brought Charles Dickens’ Artful Dodger to delightful life in Oliver on the Glenwood stage co-starring with Durban’s Steven Stead who played the perfect Oliver.

“Consider yourself at home,” Stephen, “part of the furniture,” while visiting Durban. Perhaps you could pop in to your former high school, show those boys the sky really is the limit. After all, you’ve proved it. Your life demonstrates there are no limits to what a person may achieve if he or she merges courage, integrity, humor, commitment and daring vision.

May the Five Gs live and grow within each of us and our families.

• Gratitude: the capacity to express thankfulness, not as a trick but as sincere appreciation for life and all of the joys and challenges life offers. 
• Generosity: the ability to give and share more than from excess. Generosity is not giving others what you don’t need, it is giving from what you do need. 
• Grace: offering kindness, acceptance, a welcome to others when and where it is undeserved. Remember, it is not about who others are, grace is about who you are. 
• Goodness: seeking the highest good for self and others. It is not selfish to seek your own highest good. Seeking your own highest good is the starting block that makes it possible to be a presence of goodness for others. 
• Genuineness: living with sincerity and interest in others. Genuineness cannot be faked although many try.   

None of the above will be ours through determination, resolutions or reading some guru or watching another YouTube presentation. It is the byproduct of humility, willingness to listen to others, a desire to learn from our mistakes, and a desire to make good (as far as is possible) on past failings, and then the courage to act on what we know to be good, right, and wholesome.

Listen closely when people talk to you. 

Most people are aching to tell you who they are. 

They will leave trails, sometimes crumbs for you to follow, and the trails and crumbs will lead you into the deepest, most beautiful and sometimes troubled recesses of their lives. 

But, go ahead and follow the leads. 

I assure you that you will end up in a beautiful place. 

You may have to turn a blind eye to some wrecks along the way, hold your nose in some of the crevices. 

If you persist and hold onto the thought that indeed you are no better than any other human and follow without judgment you will end up in a place more beautiful than the finest artwork the world has to offer. Yes, it is more beautiful because the “Art” to whom you are listening is still in creation, in motion, yet unwrapping and discovering his or her beauty. 

While you may grimace at the idea it is nonetheless true – and I have no desire to sound dramatic – I have sat face-to-face with people deemed ultimate trash by society and a handful afforded me momentary glimpses into their immense beauty. 

Appreciating mountains or a single flower cannot be rushed.

It’s the same with people.

Listen intently. Given time, people will lead you to their unique place of enormous beauty.

There is a fundamental wellness truth that is obvious but missed or avoided by many. I will get to why it is avoided by so many in a moment but first, here it is. Take care of yourself, first. First, mind your own business. 

I don’t mean “mind your own business” in the ways our language and culture usually hears it, as in keep your nose out of other people’s affairs, although that is a really good idea.

By “mind your own business” I mean take care of your own behavior, concerns, worries, reactions, unhappiness, anger, dreams and ambitions – work on your own stuff – before you focus on what others are doing or not doing.

Many conflicts are avoided in my home when I take care of my own attitude rather than get derailed by what my sons are doing or not doing. My sons are easy targets if I am unhappy with myself. The minute I focus my frustrations on them and not on my reactions and responses to what’s going on in me, things get derailed in our home.

I think this approach is avoided because it seems selfish – when it is the very opposite of selfishness. I think it is avoided because it is far easier to project and notice the weaknesses of others than to work on facing our own.

Reflections for those in conflict with others

Try to clarify matters for yourself first. This may take a few days. What do you want? Even if you do not get what you want, what will be the best outcome of this conflict as far as you are concerned? Are you aware of what will satisfy or placate your desire for justice or bring you a measure of peace? Will you feel better for being proved right and your opponent (former partner, friend, whomever) for being proved wrong? Is this even about who is right and who is wrong or winning and losing? Are you able to say what it is about?

Are you able to see and articulate the perspective of he or she or they who are on the other side of this conflict with you? The opposing views may seem ridiculous and unreasonable to you but until you are able to see things from your opponent’s point of view you may be blinded to some aspects the opposition find reasonable. We all have blidspots. There are far more than two sides to every story (conflict, breakup, cut-off) and trying to see as many as possible will empower you for greater humility and equip you with kindness you may now not feel you want or need.

Edwin Fillies and Wilson Goeda – in Durban this week – are a formidable team. They have unparalleled face-to-face experience with diverse cultures and have paved the way for many with deep divisions and historic conflicts to find unlikely reconciliation. 

Yes, unparalleled experience. Addressing audiences in excess of 75 countries between them is hard to match. 

Fillies and Goeda have offered seminars and orchestrated encounters with tens of thousands world-wide.

Although hard to prove, I should think their track records and flight patterns place them among the most well-traveled of all South Africans, ever.  

Hailing originally from Brandwag (Western Cape) Humansdorp (Eastern Cape), they are miracles, practiced artists in matters of understanding and reconciliation, approaching opportunities with tranquil humility, embodying courage demanded of their high calling.

One of them, and I don’t say this lightly, is even very funny. 

“Our message is restoration of identity, dignity, destiny of individuals, communities and nations. We work in the area of peace building, reconciliation, mediation,” says Edwin.

If you run anything involving groups of people and you want to expand your knowledge of your nation, its diversity, complexities, its vast potential for grace, let me know. I will put you in touch with Wilson and Edwin.

Part of their appeal is that they have chosen to spread a message of humility and love, a tough sell, often resisted, anywhere and everywhere in the world.

“I am married to the nicest man, loving, caring, generous. However, put him in a car and we have road-rage coupled with racism. We are about to embark on a very long road trip and I’m already wondering how I’m going to cope. Presently, I just look the other way and try and try to ignore it, but I find it so stressful. It is not easy at all. Can you advise me on this?”

So, driving “transforms” your “nicest man,” who is “loving, caring, generous” into a road raging racist. This backdrop – the fact he is capable of being loving and caring – suggests your husband is fully capable of a heart-to-heart conversation with you before you leave the house.

If such a conversation ignites his anger then I’d suggest you are in some understandable denial about how loving and caring and generous he is.

Tell your husband that his raging and racist responses to the environment when he is driving ruins the trip for you. Tell him what you experience when he rages. While you “look the other way” he has no need to try to control his lurking unresolved anger and race issues.

Driving doesn’t cause anger and frustration and racist attitudes, it exposes what is already living within the heart.