Giving up is not an option

Friday ed’s note

We made it to the end of the longest month of the year. Even though it was touch and go sometimes, we made it. So, one month down, 11 to go. 

How are those New Year resolutions going, by the way? Okay, I’m being spicy. We’re all works in progress, so I hope you haven’t given up. And if you’ve fallen off the wagon, you have 11 more months to make up for it. It’s never too late to give yourself another chance. 

The truth, well, at least what I have discovered, is giving up is easier than being consistent and keeping the hope flame alive in you. It’s not something we want to admit because we live in a world where fake “positivity” is de rigueur. In an effort to manage our emotions and learn how to deal with life better, we’ve come up with mechanisms to make us feel more enthusiastic about our sometimes unrelenting lives. 

Self-help books have been making a killing — from how to form habits that stick to being more grateful — sprouting similar podcasts from Joburg to Jamaica. We correct people when they say something is hard: “No, Lerato, what you mean to say is that it’s challenging.” Um, no, some shit is just hard. 

Getting into my spanks is challenging, standing in high heels for an hour is challenging but dealing with loss, grief and disappointment is hard. Finish and klaar. 

And, with all this fake positivity we’re incessantly touting, we’ve started deluding ourselves in not recognising that many of us feel like giving up at different points in our lives. It’s not easy staying positive when you’re taking more Ls than Bafana Bafana at a football tournament. 

Consistent and incessant losses make life feel like we’re climbing Kilimanjaro in a pair of Christian Louboutins. Impossible. 

If you’ve never felt like giving up, then I really need you to hook me up with your sangoma because I’m clearly not doing life the right way. 

I believe feeling like giving up is the most natural thing in life. And the operative word in that last sentence is “feel”. We’re human beings, feelings happen to us, they are our nervous system’s way of digesting life. 

But you shouldn’t always trust your feelings because they are laced with trauma, history and egotistical vantage points. So, to solely act based on how you feel is dangerous because life changes quickly, regardless of how you feel. 

A bad day doesn’t have to mean a bad life. Choosing not to give up, even when you feel like giving up, is one of the most difficult things you can do because it requires you to show up for yourself, even when the odds are stacked against you. 

I read Sean O’Toole’s story on Brett Seiler with fascination and awe. With a difficult life in Zimbabwe, being expelled for sexual acts, his father dying young, and many other tribulations on his way to moving to Cape Town, it would’ve been easy for the artist to look at his life and give up on himself. I mean, after being served many Ls, why would you believe in yourself or your life? 

But life has a funny way of rewarding the persistent. Fast forward to 2023 and he’s showing in Berlin and is one of South Africa’s celebrated young artists for the work he’s done to bring tenderness to the depiction of queer men with his art. 

Society basically labelled him promiscuous, a religious abomination and a disgrace. But he chose to look past the label and decide for himself who he wants to be. That’s real agency. Like one of my favourite writers of all time, Toni Morrison, once said, labels belong to the labeller, not the labelled. 

As we get into the second month of the year — the month of love —we might still find ourselves trying to recover financially because, let’s face it, February is just a continuation of Januworry for most of us. 

But life will start to be turbo-charged as we’re expected to come up with gifts and random acts of romanticism, while still trying to stick to our resolutions, despite our now-waning enthusiasm for exercise. It’s at this crucial point — when juggling cooking and eating healthily with the ever-changing load-shedding schedule becomes increasingly laborious — that feeling like giving up will start to look attractive. 

But I’m pleading with you not to faint when you’re so close to a breakthrough. Yes, life is going to kick you where it hurts most but get up anyway. It’s going to get cold and rain and you won’t want to get into your gym gear — do it anyway. Your bank balance is going to be on minus but take that business meeting — it could be the day your luck comes in. 

Just because you feel like something doesn’t mean that 1. you are that thing and 2. you have to act on it. How many people have we seen enter singing competitions because they feel they can sing? Just because you’re losing at this present moment doesn’t mean you’re a loser. 

Take a page out of Seiler’s book and fight for your life. Box even when you feel like hanging up your gloves. The next fight might be when you get your victory. You’ve got to be in the ring to win, fuck the sidelines. 

Whenever I feel like giving up, and I feel like it more times than I like to admit, I remember these words from Jay-Z: “The genius thing we did, is that we never gave up.” Eleven months to go, so you’ve got to keep going. Giving up is not an option. We can do this.