The Sunday News
Thandekile Moyo
I HAVE always been “business minded.” After graduating from university I told myself I would never work for anyone. I wanted to run my own show, abide by my own rules, and make my own money. I also wanted to prove I could “make a dollar out of fifteen cents!’ I pursued my ambition with everything I had. There are a few things I did not try. I remember selling boiled eggs to my colleagues during my attachment period. I once ran a mobile kitchen but that proved to be tedious and unprofitable. I had a stint selling baby clothes but that did not go well and I ended up giving the clothes to my own kids.
Somewhere along the line I got a chance to run a restaurant and conference place. It was to me, the realisation of my dreams. It felt like I had finally arrived at the place I had been headed all along. I poured my heart and soul into that business. My life revolved around it. I spent my nights cooking up ways to make it work and all my days implementing those ideas. Unfortunately, things did not go as I had planned.
The first blow was the rejection of my menu by my beautiful customers. The food was great, they claimed, but financially, it was out of their reach. I remember my breakfast special that I was extremely proud of but was only ever ordered by some guys from Vumbachikwe Mine and probably only because I knew them personally. I decided to “downgrade” and offer the cheap one dollar meals that everyone claimed they wanted.
Biggest mistake! Everyone came to buy the cheap meals and at some point I could not meet the demand. I had people supplying me with various inputs on credit and finally managed to meet the demand. Just when I thought I had everything under control, I discovered I was not making any profit, I was barely breaking even.
Things started to fall apart. I couldn’t pay for anything and almost overnight, I found myself owing everyone something. My mother called me and said something to me that I refused to accept at the time. She told me that I needed to reach a strength of mind that would allow me to let go of something that was not working. She said I should be able to recognise the difference between giving up out of laziness and letting go out of wisdom. She tried to make me see that there was nothing wrong with accepting failure/defeat, she said it was actually a positive trait. I did not understand what she was saying.
Why would she expect me to take the easy way out when all my life she had been training me to be a hard worker, a fighter and a “perseverer?” Why would she now want me to be a quitter? I started to avoid her and her “lectures”. I hid from her the reality of the situation. She would ask me how things were going and I would lie that they were improving. I even defrauded her of some money in a bid to save the restaurant. I borrowed, I tried, I fought and with every move I made I sank deeper and deeper into debt and depression. My mother did not give up on me, she kept supporting me but she would always make it clear that she would back me if I decided to let go. She never forced me to close shop. She never gave me ultimatums. She just stood by me and painfully watched me refuse to be saved.
My greatest strength is also my greatest weakness. I am optimistic to a fault. I only see the best, in people, in ventures and also in misfortunes. My mind rarely tells me something is unattainable, someone is unsavable or that I’m unable to survive something. Because of that I just forge through and sometimes I do not know when to stop. Life though, has a funny way of teaching us the hardest lessons. The time came when I had no choice but to let go of the restaurant. I don’t know exactly how it happened but I woke up one day and knew in my heart that I had to let go.
I went to my parents and I told them I was ready to let go. My spirit was broken. My heart was broken. I felt defeated. I was crushed. Consistent to their nature of loving me and supporting me through my successes and failures, they told me they would help me clean up the mess. Not once did they say we told you so. My heart breaks as I write this and I am consumed with guilt and regret at the amount of pain, embarrassment, financial stress and suffering I have caused them by stubbornly holding on.
We are taught never to quit. We are taught that success comes only to those who keep trying. We are told that Thomas Edison made 1 000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. What we are rarely taught is that there is a huge difference between persistence and abstinence, between being tenacious and being pigheaded. That being uncompromising is not the same as standing for what you believe in.
There are some things in this life that we want badly but will never get. This is because unfortunately, the road to our desires does not depend solely on what we do. The success of a business depends not only on your hard work but also on market forces, location of the business, economic climate and sometimes mother nature. It is useful to teach yourself to recognise at an early stage whether the path you have taken will yield positive results or not.
Probabilities in Mathematics are taught to us for moments like this. We need to constantly weigh the probability and potential to succeed and be ready for the day when that probability will be zero. It will be difficult to accept, painful, frightening and even embarrassing. Ignoring it is a worse fate though. Ignoring the probability is unfair to employees, family, creditors and even to yourself. Sometimes it is even criminal.
This is not only limited to business ventures but extends to all aspects of our lives, to all the things which under normal circumstances we want to hold on to. There are times when the career you chose will reject you. The political office you hold can be taken away from you unexpectedly. Friends can show you their true colours forcing you to cut ties with them. Lovers will wake up one day and find you unattractive. When all these things happen, the instinct is to hold on, to fight and to soldier on. But what are you fighting for when your husband falls in love with someone else every other day? Yes, marriage is beautiful but it can turn ugly. Till death do us part doesn’t mean you must stay until she pumps bullets into your brain. Patience pays but at times you pay dearly with your health, your life and your happiness.
Here I am, employed by someone else and happier than I have ever been. I still would love to run my own show. But I now have the maturity to take baby steps. Through it all, I learnt that there are times when we have to “reboot”. There comes a time when we have to sit down and face the reality that we bet on the wrong horse. We all make mistakes but what differentiates us is what we do when we realise we are messing up or have messed up.
Sometimes it is not even our fault. Regardless of who or what is responsible, when something is no longer working, we have to let it go. Just like we assess cars after accidents and declare some as “write-offs”, we must frequently assess our pursuits and write them off when the need arises. Just like one can always buy a new car, one can always chase a new dream. Finally, I understand what my mother was saying: There is wisdom in knowing when to let go.
