#TwoBits: Hard truths for school leavers

The pleasure of Christmas day is seeing the joy children have in opening their presents.

But, as a father, it is a guilty pleasure. You know that you had absolutely no input in choosing those presents. Your wife did all the choosing, all the buying and all the spending.

As each one is being opened you can only ask yourself “I wonder what she has bought them now?” Then when they turn up their little faces and say “Thank you, Daddy” you can only lie with a straight face: “Of course, we knew you’d like it.” And they do, and one day they’ll be parents themselves and they’ll know the truth.

Though it does make the present extra-special when your father does actually make the effort to choose a present for you. I was keen on coin collecting and my dad went to the length of making a wooden chest with drawers for each country. I still have it, 68 years later.

January. The month of freedom for so many, after 13 years of schooling, from pre-school – or kindergarten as it was called in my days – to matric. Many will be going on to university, but many more will be wondering what they will make of their lives now that they are “free.”

I left school so long ago that personal computers, the internet, email and cellphones hadn’t been invented yet. If I may be so bold, I would like to offer school leavers some advice.

If you have been so fortunate as to have found a formal job, well done. Stick with it and learn how a business works. You will need that knowledge somewhere down the road.

If Lady Luck has not found you, don’t give up. Keep trying, keep applying and above all, keep thinking how you can make money yourself.

You may have heard this tired old piece of advice before: “Follow your passion.” That’s rubbish. The people who say that are millionaires who’ve made their pile and pretend they got there because they were in love with their jobs. Truth is they probably did something boring like making paint or nuts and bolts or guttering. But they were good at it.

They found their strength and built on it. Ask yourself: “What is or are my strength/s?”

What are you good at? Are you a practical person or an office type. Would you be a good builder but a terrible salesman? A terrible teacher but a brilliant game ranger?

How well or badly you did at school is not an absolute predicter of how you will do at life later on. In my matric year, some of the top achievers went on to have very mediocre careers. On the other hand, a couple of the less academically-gifted and the class rebels made money hand over fist by setting up specialist businesses others hadn’t thought of.

I think the clever boys sometimes had it too easy. They skated through school and thought this was the way life would be. The other kids who didn’t collect the prizes but turned up every day with a smile and were prepared to run the races and do the tests, knowing they’d never be top but tried anyway, developed their inner muscles. As a result, when push came to shove in the big, bad world, they were stronger and tried harder. And succeeded.

In the words of of that famous high-achiever after a poor start, Chuck Berry: “C’est la vie,” say the old folks, “it goes to show you never can tell.”

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