My Monday Rant: All's well that ends well... The chronicles of the future of my past.

Monday the 7th, October 2024 - All's well that ends well, the rant!

When we were young, in school, we used to be asked what we wanted to be when we were older and we'd pick up some known professions at the time. Our options were very limited I should say; pilot, doctor and lawyer... later engineer, in that very broad sense. I don't think we had anything else beyond those.

I think I started off wanting to be a pilot, it sounded really cool, even though I knew very little of what that entailed. Unfortunately I then came to a realisation that my access to planes, if you could even call that access, was only limited to some occasional helicopters that would land around our area for the anual Roof Of Africa race. With my limited imagination and very limited access to any extra resources to that effect, I was kind of influenced towards another profession in the limited choices I thought I had. So, I went with lawyer. I knew no lawyers back then, but I had a very slight (and very twisted) view of what lawyers do from some court case (civil, I should say) back then that I can't get into details about. But the thing is, I had my opinion about the case; who was in the right and who was in the wrong, and yet both parties had lawyers representing them. In my view, the party I deemed to be in the wrong did not deserve to have lawyers in their corner. That.... let me to a twisted conclusion that lawyers are liars, and I had to move on to another profession as I did not wanna be a liar. A very twisted view, like I said... sorry lawyers, I was young and naive.

Along came doctor. To this date, I admire doctors and their bravery. I mean, some of us deal with numbers at work and yet some days we come home and can't shake them off. But doctors man, doctors... they all just seem to glide through it all. I'm not sure I would even have a moment to have a beer if I encountered even half of the cases doctors encounter on a daily basis. Phew! There, therein lies the reason why I couldn't become a doctor; I like my beer. (Even though I didn't know it back then... Ha!). The questions around what we wanted to be kinda cooled off as the years went by. So really, it wasn't something I actively thought of. Then in Form B (Grade 9), our English teacher then decided it was a good idea to play a practical joke on us and ask us the same question, "What do you wanna be when you grow up?". I jokingly said I wanted to be a public taxi/minibus driver's assistant (I don't know what the term for it is but in Sesotho we call the role, "Kontae"). Jokingly I should say again, I honestly had no idea what I wanted. To this day I remember, rather fondly, my teacher's fury towards this. The only reason she allowed to continue her class was the realisation that expelling me from her class would only be aiding towards that what made her so mad to start with. Jeez, I was just joking; I thought that was better than, "Re tla bona pele! / We'll see as we go!". See? This joking business is not for me!

Later in High School, I came to a realisation that I wasn't too bad at Mathematics, the Physical Sciences (Physics and Chemistry), as well as Biology. Then the idea of going forward in this space sprung in me, so again, a changeover towards a different future profession, Engineer. This one felt like one that was a more thought of choice, it didn't feel like I just dipped my hand blindly into a bag and picked it up. Mechanical Engineering, to be precise, was my first love. I even applied for it at Lerotholi Plytechnic (Fokothi) after my high school... got accepted to that and even Electrical Engineering, which was my second choice. I eventually didn't go that route, I went with the route that has let me here... to this moment!

I don't know if you could call those dreams, they weren't exactly real in any sense to be honest; they weren't based on anything other than the textbooks we read, particularly in Primary School. I had to pick something out of a list, and that's what I did... yes, there was some sense of reasoning behind it all, but very primitive. I'm glad I didn't become any of those; a pilot - I only fly because I have to, I really don't like it! Lawyer - I studied business law to some length before, and I loved it! But I only loved the content, I never really connected with it in the sense that I could go broader with the law, it's a loooooot of reading; too much. Doctor - I don't like blood. Engineer, possibly just a victim of circumstances... in a nutshell, I liked my time at NUL for the few months of Pre-Entry Science Program (PESP) and didn't wanna leave, so I continued there.

You see, my dreams were very much limited to my access then, but I did have the access I had, to information and friends I had later when I made the choice I made. I am happy I did. And what do you know, as they say...all's well that ends well!

Até proxima semana!