This is the last day of November 2022 and the start of the last month of 2022.
New beginnings face me every moment and I want to live until I die and I
don’t want to die prematurely. Unfortunately, there are lots of people who just
exist and not live. No, I don’t want to climb Mount Everest. I don’t have
ambitions to out do Pablo Picasso or Henry Matisse or Damien Hirst. I don’t
even want to purchase Montsanto nor do I want to engage with Bill Gates.
I am rather comfortable in my own skin. This reminds of a rather
acrimonious conversation I had with another lady attorney. Yes, we were
actually fighting about something and I was opposing her vehemently. Eventually
she was fed up with me and blurted out: “Neels, who the heck do you think you
are?”
My answer remains the same: “Madam X, I know exactly who I am and I am
comfortable in my own skin. I can and I do live with contradictions in my
life.” Wow! That opened up a sordid can of worms after which she turned around
a stomped away.
This is a wonderful lesson I learnt in law: you may argue something very
strenuously and disagree with the other party drastically, without getting
personal and without fighting. Well, sometime lawyers fight it out. That
happened that day: we were fighting.
My one law clerk came back from the Magistrate’s Court one day and was
highly excited; adrenalin pumping and he blurted out what he witnessed at
court. There were two attorneys disagreeing with one another. And the argument became
very tense. And very personal. And they were in each other’s faces and personal
space. The next moment a fisticuff broke out. They were attacking each other
and it was a commotion. The other lawyers in the court room had to physically
intervene to break up the fight. Yes, it happens; although it is not an
everyday occurrence.
At the same time being comfortable in your own skin, does not mean you
just accept what life throws at you. No, definitely not. It is within your
means and power to change things. Life long learning comes to play. Try to
learn something from everything and everything from something. This is
powerful, isn’t it? Karen Armstrong famously said about nature: “Nature is pregnant with life!” And so, the
life we are facing, is pregnant with life. What a powerful statement. Oscar
Wilde once passed this comment that there are people who are arrested by the
their past. Yes, there are things in my life that surface every now and again –
having said that, those things do not dictate my life.
Christ Jesus, the living Son of God, is the guiding factor. He is
reported to have said: “And why do you not
judge for yourselves what is right?” [Read the
Gospel according to Luke 12: 57] And the apostle Paul is reported to have said
in 2 Corinthians 10:7 “Look at what is before
your eyes.” It seems as if this passage I have just quoted, is all
about St. Paul’s defending his ministry. He effectually said to the people:
“Look at my life and what do you see? And then you should consider that as
well.” When you read these verses, make sure that you read the chapters in its
entirety and consider the background to it.
In everyday life, we should keep these guidelines constantly uppermost
in our minds.
Have a good day and please write me your story: neelscoertse@wirelessza.co.za
