I recently took a trip to Port St. Johns with some friends on a Sunday. I must say that it was an amazing experience. I had never visited the coastal areas of what is formerly known as the Transkei, although my parents and my roots are in the Transkei inland areas.

Upon returning from our trip at 4am, I went straight to bed. Later, I realised that my car was filthy, and that I could not afford to spend the rest of the day with it looking like a TLB.

I decided that during my lunch time I would take it to a nearby car wash.

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This is where things became interesting.

I spoke to a gentleman who worked there as to who I should leave my keys with, to which he didn’t respond and merely stretched his hand out to signal, “with me.”

I paid no mind to our bizarre interaction, however I could not shake the feeling that I knew this guy.

I’ll admit, I am terrible with faces however, if I do actually register a face, I never forget it, or the name. And then it hit me.

This guy was one of the ‘cool guys’ during my high school years.

You know, the guy who bunks school to host parties, the one who started doing drugs at a young age in an effort to amass respect amongst his role models who were mostly high school dropouts and some possibly ex-felons.

Although we went to separate schools, we had mutual friends outside.

I have come to realise that some of my peers who amassed respect through violence, partying and indulging in drug abuse (primarily alcohol) are exactly where some teachers said they would be.

The ones who I grew apart from continued down the path of destruction, and to be honest, a lot of them come from good families who only wanted the best for them.

As a result, they thanked their families by stealing from them.

Not just stealing money out their mother’s purse, but TVs, jewellery and even in one case, a geyser. Yes, a geyser.

So what’s my point?

So often when we see someone losing themselves, we find ourselves saying, “It’s none of my business, they are not my responsibility” or “they are an adult, they are well aware of the decisions they are making”.

But to what end. Do we really not care about one another that much?

I urge you all to reach out to the people you can see spiralling out of control, because often you might find that they are acting out because of personal turmoil that we are unaware of, and in some cases believe no one can help them at all.

We can all change someone’s life by merely asking them how their day was.

Ubuntu – I am, because we are.

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