Its almost the end of another year. One that has flashed past in one amazing blur. No one can believe that just one week from now we will have hit the first day of December 2016.
Personally I have been waiting for our year-end break with keen anticipation. I'm tired.
Although I had a holiday early in the year when I celebrated my 50th birthday in April in Thailand, life did not seem to slow down-even while I was lying next to a sparkling blue swimming pool with the deceptively sparkling blue ocean just metres away. Everywhere you went people were calling out: "Madamme, madamme! Massage, madamme madamme!"
I must have looked very stressed.
And the waiters are overly keen to ply you with overpriced and 'under-totted' cocktails that cost a bronzed arm and a leg. I would have been much better off on a beach right here in South Africa where, if you want to drink it, you can get plonk for R21. The cheapest wine I could find in Thailand was a real South African cheapie that retails for R400.
And they say Thailand is still affordable!?
Going to Thailand you also don't get away from the problems in South Africa - apart from the poverty that you see, they have wiFi everywhere - and who can resist the temptation to check what Zumpies and Julias are up to back home?
At least inside SA there are still many spots - like our house in George - where the signal is so weak, that by the time a web page opens, you've lost interest.
It was in this exhausted state of mind that I did a quick telephonic interview on Tuesday with a guy from George who had just won himself a brand new 4x4 in a two day strength, skill and fitness challenge.
I wondered where he got the energy at this time of the year to perform this mean feat.
What Danie Leonard, the deputy head of Glenwood House Preparatory School told me, made me think. He said that for him taking part in adventure events counteracts the general boredom of our fast paced lives.
A fast paced life boring?
Yes, he is 100% right. You can be very busy and still be bored to tears.
These days everyone is ALWAYS expected to answer their cell phone and to IMMEDIATELY respond to a WhatsApp, SMS or e-mail. Everyone has access to everyone these days and all our jobs are becoming increasingly communication driven and filled with people we only know via our electronic devices. In the olden days we would have called them pen pals, but the content of the mail would have been far more intimate and meaningful!
The immediate demands made on all of us to respond ASAP and make snap decisions also make for many wrong decisions.
Our attention span is becoming shorter and shorter and instant gratification is at the order of the day - killing all creative thoughts.
That's why Danie gets out of the rat race from time to time to compete in a race of a completely different kind.
Here is a man who regularly puts himself outside his comfort zone, both physically and mentally, to challenge himself and to LIVE.
One thought... how many of our grandfathers and grandmothers who lived more physical, but slower lives with far less communication demands, suffered from depression - the scourge of the 21st century?
Rushing along from e-mail to e-mail isn't glamorous or hip - it's a sure recipe for boredom and mental illness.
Maybe we should heed Danie's advice and counteract the 'headless chicken' monotony of everyday life, by waking up from time to time to smell the fynbos.
BY ILSE SCHOONRAAD, GEORGE HERALD EDITOR
