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seeing me frozen in time.

They cannot reach where I have gone.

They mourn me, until the day they fall.

The problem is that once a passion becomes tied to survival and income, it changes. The thing that once filled you up starts getting consumed by pressure, expectation, deadlines, audiences, money, performance, and fear. It becomes distorted. Its purity starts disappearing. What made it yours in the first place slowly gets replaced by what the world now needs it to be.

A passion is supposed to fill you up.

Most people wake up every day and give pieces of themselves away. Work takes from you. Responsibilities take from you. By the end of the day, a lot of people are emotionally emptied out. That is why human beings need something that restores them. You need something that makes you feel full again. Something that reminds you who you are outside of productivity and obligation. That is what a real passion is supposed to do.

It is the thing you run to when life is beating you up.

But when you turn that same thing into your primary source of income, now the thing that was restoring you is also extracting from you. You have merged the two. The thing that once gave you peace now must perform. Now it has targets, pressure, criticism, competition, rent attached to it. One part of your life may improve financially, but another part of you slowly starts deteriorating because you no longer have anywhere to emotionally recover.

And eventually, people lose themselves.

You see it all the time with people who once deeply loved what they did. Then the money, industry, pressure, and expectations arrive, and suddenly the passion starts dying. What used to feel alive becomes exhausting. They become disconnected from themselves because the one thing that once made them feel whole no longer feels safe or fulfilling anymore.

I honestly think that explains why some people in high-performance industries spiral into destructive behaviour. Drugs, alcohol, self-destruction, emotional numbness. Sometimes it is not just excess. Sometimes it is a person trying to feel something again after the thing they loved stopped giving them life.

Having a passion is important. Extremely important. But I think we have confused the purpose of passion. Passion should not automatically be treated as a monetisation opportunity. It also should not be the default advice given to someone who hates their job. Telling someone to “find their passion” and make money from it sounds inspiring, but it ignores the possibility that their passion may need to stay protected from the market.

Maybe the healthier advice is this:

Your job is not supposed to complete you.

Some people are lucky enough to enjoy their jobs because they are good at them, but that is entirely different from passion. Competence and passion are not the same thing. A job is still a job. It is supposed to be difficult sometimes. The goal should not always be to turn the thing that restores your spirit into the thing responsible for your survival.

I argued that we would eventually reach this point in the near future, where oil would be fully depleted because of this. My friend did not mock me or try to embarrass me or anything like that. No! He simply said he was not sure that such places exist and asked me to point to examples. He added that, based on his understanding, this has not really happened and is unlikely to happen in the way I described. But he also made it clear that if I could provide evidence, he would be willing to change his view.

Confident that I was right, I went to look it up. And what I found was…well, I was wrong. There were no clear examples of places that had been completely “drilled dry” in the way I have imagined. In cases where drilling stopped, it was not because the oil was gone, but because extracting it had become too difficult or too expensive.

That moment made something very clear.

It is completely normal to hold beliefs that are not rigorously researched or backed by scientific literature. That is just how we operate. Most of what we believe comes from our environment, our upbringing, culture, religion, or the social circles we move in. Forming views this way is not a failure, it is human.

The problem is that properly researching and verifying every belief is exhausting and often unrealistic. It takes time, effort, and in many cases, specialised knowledge that not everyone has access to. So we take shortcuts. We accept what feels right or what aligns with what we already believe, instead of constantly trying to disprove these beliefs. That is not surprising, it is practical.

But there is a responsibility that comes with that.

As you grow and your world expands, you have to learn to recognise when you are in an echo chamber. It is uncomfortable, but necessary. Surrounding yourself only with people and ideas that reinforce what you already believe feels good, but it quietly locks you in a place where you start mistaking repetition for truth.

So even if you are not doing deep research all the time, you should at least expose yourself to opposing views. You need to notice when something is simply confirming your beliefs versus when it is challenging them. That challenge is the signal. That is the moment that you should push to look deeper.

If you have believed something your whole life and suddenly encounter a credible opposing idea, your instinct will be to defend your position. That is natural. But the existence of a counterargument is not just a threat, it is an opportunity. It is a prompt to investigate both sides more carefully.

If a belief has never been challenged, you cannot be blamed for not questioning it. There is nothing triggering that process. But once it is challenged, ignoring that moment is a choice.

It is important to stay aware that you do not have all the information. Everyone carries incomplete or even incorrect beliefs. The goal is not to eliminate that; it is to remain open enough to update your thinking when new information appears.

What does not help is the way people argue today. Mocking, shaming, and “dunking” on others for being wrong and this does not change minds. It does the opposite. It makes people defensive and more attached to their original position.

If the goal is just to win an argument, then fine, humiliation works. But if the goal is to actually change minds or move closer to the truth, that approach fails. Real progress comes from engaging with why someone believes what they believe and offering alternative perspectives, not trying to embarrass them out of their position.

And it is worth remembering that you are not immune to the same problem. Some of your own beliefs are probably wrong. When they are challenged, you will feel that same instinct to defend them.

The point is not to always be right. It is to stay open, recognise when you are being reinforced versus challenged, and treat disagreement as a chance to learn rather than a fight to win.

Men are encouraged to express emotions like sadness, unhappiness, vulnerability, and emotional pain. These are emotions that are traditionally associated with femininity. The idea is that if men accumulate or adopt these traits, they will relate better to women and children and become less harmful.

Here is the concern. Men are particularly good at accepting these emotions when they come from women or children. Not perfectly, but far better than the reverse. That didn’t happen by accident. Society trained men over generations to expect these emotional expressions from women. Men learned how to deal with them, tolerate them, adapt to them, and often step back in response.

This is reflected in the jokes men tell each other: “You won’t win the argument,” “You are always wrong,” “Your woman is always right.” These jokes are not random. They are a form of social conditioning and acceptance. Men learned, over time, how to coexist with emotional expression coming from women.

Women, on the other hand, were not trained in the same way to accept these emotions from men. That creates the paradox. Men are told they should express these emotions, but when some men do, many women respond poorly. These men are often labeled as soft, too emotional, weak, or unattractive. Many women openly state they are not attracted to men who express emotions this way.

One might argue that women need to grow up, but this reaction is also shaped by society. Women were not taught to receive vulnerability from men. Instead, the emotions that are broadly accepted from men are aggression, anger, and fear. Those are the emotional languages society recognizes as “male.”

So, when a man finds himself in emotional distress and tries to express what he is genuinely feeling, he quickly learns that honesty leads to dismissal. He’s told to toughen up. And this message does not only come from other men. It comes from women too.

As a result, men default to what they know works. Aggression. In many cases, aggression is the only way society clearly understands that a man is angry or in pain. Without aggression, his emotions are often invisible or ignored. That is what society has trained everyone to expect from men.

Men themselves agree this needs to change. They know this form of expression is destructive. But the alternatives are not effective for them in practice. While emotional vulnerability works socially for women, it often does not for men.

This creates a dangerous cycle. Aggression becomes the primary emotional outlet. When that aggression goes on for too long and the message still is not heard, it escalates into abuse. That is where real harm happens, and that is the crisis we are dealing with now.

So yes, men should be more emotionally expressive. But this is a two-way street. The people asking for these changes also need to learn how to receive and handle men’s emotions. Asking for vulnerability without knowing how to accept it only pushes men back to the one expression that society still understands from them: aggression.

We only care about intelligence if it promises a great opportunity to make a crazy amount of money. If it does not, then who gives a shit? The realization came about when I thought of all the people who discovered or invented something in the past. Most of those people did not acquire a crazy amount of money, and yet they were still respected, and their lives were written about in books.

Einstein, Bohr, Turing. Poor Tesla was not a millionaire, and their contribution to human life is immense, and it is still being felt to this day.

Our brilliant ideas now must generate an income. One of the reasons, or the reason, AI is being considered is because it promises a greater income for those who figure out how to commercialize it. No invention for the sake of brilliance but inventions for more capital.

We argue that capitalism is the greatest motivator, but I believe it is only to a point, and until we diminish human existence to a null value and equal a figure in a digital world scorecard as a measure of worth. Scientists are shunned away and shitted on for being experts. People with a following because of their income have the ear of nations. It seems like a failing brewing and one that is being intentionally ignored because it might halt our strive for more tokens.

What racism and oppression have stolen from human existence will be the same result with the pursuit of extra commas. A lot of brilliance has been put aside, and only profit has been promoted. Voices are currently muted because of the lack of tools created by being left behind in the time or an age of building. These voices could have shaped our current existence to be more vibrant and diverse, but the ones with the swords won the wars back then and now the ones with more commas are winning the battle and are in sight to win the war. As the struggle of the one with no voice, the same is the struggle of the one with no pockets.

Colourism worldwide.

Think of how many people from well-off families end up depressed, on drugs, or taking their own lives. We act shocked, asking why someone with so much would do that. We do not understand what is actually happening.

I think it is tied to expectations. If I am well-off, I expect my life and experiences to match that. I expect things to go smoothly. I expect happiness because my environment seems designed for it. When life does not deliver that feeling, you start thinking something is wrong with you. Why aren’t you happy in a place that should make you happy? That thought turns inward and starts attacking your sense of self.

Some people eventually realize their expectations and the things they were chasing were false. That is when you hear wealthy people say money is not everything. And those of us with less look at them confused because we assume money should fix all problems. That perspective is something you only understand once you experience the other side. But it also destroys resilience. The very things we work hard to gain often weaken the qualities hardship built. You enter a world where you no longer have the protections you learned from growing up with less.

Then people start creating artificial versions of hardship. You see wealthy people isolating themselves on mountains, joining programs where they sleep on the streets, or taking on extreme hikes. They are trying to recreate the hunger and drive they lost.

It makes you wonder what we are actually searching for. Do we really want a soft life, and will it give us the goodness we are chasing? Or is there something better we should be aiming for, something that makes our experience of the world more meaningful?

True love exists, I believe this wholeheartedly, but it is a very difficult thing to actualize. It demands the ability to fully accept a partner for who they truly are, quirks and all, while also navigating your own ego and instinct for self-preservation. We typically only encounter glimpses of it in maternal love, where unconditional care comes closest. Romantic love, on the other hand, often falls short because humans naturally negotiate affection with control. Love is constrained by our boundaries and the limits of our own self-awareness.

There is a common misconception that love requires total selflessness. But selflessness can be taken to extremes, becoming toxic and destabilising. The true foundation of emotional maturity is self-awareness: understanding your own needs, boundaries, patterns, and contributions to relational success. Self-awareness allows individuals to identify behaviours that diminish compatibility.

Seeking advice can help with this, but advice like “communicate more” or “love harder” misses the point. Most couples are fully aware of their communication shortcomings; the real problem is why those struggles exist. Emotional safety, constructed from patterns learned in past relationships (whether with ex-partners or from childhood), often shapes how we respond to conflict and intimacy. Without addressing these root causes, communication advice is surface-level and ineffective.

Think of giving advice to a basketball player who is struggling with his jump shot. Telling him to make sure he scores the next shot is not helpful. A good coach will identify exactly what the player is doing wrong and then offer tips and tweaks to help him improve. What we lack is that coach, someone to help us identify the issues that make communication difficult to engage in. Relationships are often improvised without mentorship, leading to repeated mistakes and frustration.

We can be the coach to our partners by practicing vulnerability exploration. Vulnerability is the true currency of love. It is not a guarantee of success but a lens through which compatibility can be assessed. Through controlled exposure, by sharing your authentic self, quirks, and fears, you give your partner the opportunity to understand you fully. This is how informed choices about long-term partnership can be made. Skipping vulnerability leads to blind selection, and many relationship failures are rooted in this absence.

The fear of vulnerability stems from the fear of a failed relationship. Society teaches us that relationship endings are failures, and this belief produces unnecessary suffering. But the pain is not forever or inevitable; it’s sustained by the manufactured narrative we tell ourselves after the end of a relationship. If you frame the end of a relationship as feedback, data, and a growth opportunity rather than a moral failure, the reflection becomes productive. Emotional intelligence and narrative construction allow an individual to process grief positively and extract lessons while preserving respect for their former partner, even after romantic involvement ends.

The key is distinguishing between feelings and the stories we tell ourselves. Feelings are automatic and cannot be avoided, but emotional intelligence is the skill set for managing them. The narrative you construct around these feelings determines whether suffering is prolonged or minimized.

The most significant factor in lasting, successful relationships is not just chemistry, it is emotional education. Having the skill to manage feelings, navigate vulnerability, and learn from each relational iteration amplifies compatibility. Couples who improvise without reflection often fail despite inherent compatibility, while partners who apply emotional skill consistently thrive, even in moderately compatible pairings.

Love is a skill to be honed. Relationships are improvisational laboratories: every interaction, conflict, and ending provides feedback. Failures are not indictments of personal worth but essential data for growth. Recognising that we are all improvising lowers the stakes, reduces unnecessary suffering, and transforms breakups into opportunities for reflection and behavioural adjustment.

But I think we’re missing something, a second part that’s rarely talked about. There’s this assumption that the person seeking advice is the one who deserves it or needs it. But what about the person causing the problem? What advice is given to them? We always assume that advice is meant for the victim, the one being mistreated, never for the person doing the mistreating.

If advice is always aimed at helping people rise above negativity, then who are the “negative” ones? Do they also go through the same process of reflecting, seeking guidance, and trying to improve? I’d say most people who do harmful things don’t even realise it. They’re unaware of the ways they might be bullying or hurting others.

We all tell stories about our lives, and in most stories there’s always a villain, but that is never us. If everyone has a story, then that means everyone alive has a villain in their story as well, which means each one of us is a villain in someone else’s life. You are not always the victim. You need advice on how to recognise when you are the negative force in someone else’s life.

Maybe we should start seeking advice not only on how to rise above pain, but also on how to stop causing it. How to notice the things we do unconsciously that make other people’s lives harder. How to confront the fact that, sometimes, we’re the ones creating the problems we complain about.

We need to flip our perspective. Instead of only thinking about how life affects us, we should think about what we contribute to life. What are we giving it? Because it’s not all positive and most of the time, we’re the ones putting negative things into the world. We should start looking for advice that helps us minimize that, that helps us recognise when our actions are the reason life feels so unbalanced.

Sometimes, when things aren’t going the way you want, it’s not just bad luck or someone else’s fault. It could be life responding to your own energy, a kind of push-and-pull between what you give and what you receive. Your situation is a mirror reflecting the negativity you’ve been putting out.

The next time I go online and see someone posting about their worth, I’ll think: your worth is not only in what you overcome, but also in how your influence on the people around you. Because real power isn’t just about attracting the good but being conscious of the good but also the bad that you give to the world.

A stone face that strikes fear in the eye of hardship like thunder

All you wanted was a pillared shelter from the rain

Reciprocity’s paint brushes the canvas of demands with dishonesty and impossibility

You are not the basquiat of yourself.

You dump the hot potato at him and then call him a man.

Your history is told with twisted hate and trauma

The pain passed down from people who walked the same path

Your miseducation of what it means to be alive

To survive in a world where strength means seeing the next day

You are not who you define yourself to be on rectangular scriptures

A cult leader, your only followers being your traumas and frozen dreams

Life stares at you and laughs at your heart

The realisation of failure and what it means to be a man

.

This causes a scaling issue because of the limitations of human beings. A method to solve it exists where you can automate the process and limit manual steps or human intervention. TIBCO offered a product that implemented this automated process. They offered companies this product plus a load of other supplementary products to help solve this use case. Back in the early 2000s, TIBCO’s enterprise suite included BusinessWorks, Rendezvous, Enterprise Messaging Service (EMS), Hawk, BusinessEvents, BPM (Business Process Management), BMA (Business Metrics & Analytics), General Interface (GI), and TIBCO Decision Manager, among others. To the creators of these products, they saw a need for an enterprise to use all of them bundled into their enterprise solution. They would convince companies on how they could integrate all their products by producing a glossy demo that showcased all the abilities their solution could solve. Companies would be very interested in this and end up buying a license for all these products since they saw it as a useful list to have.

But after years of experience with TIBCO, companies realised they actually needed only about two products. All the others were either unnecessary or already offered by another company that did the job better. TIBCO believed all their products would be useful, but users found that only two really were.

I bet when all these products were added, TIBCO’s team thought they had created one of the best things in the world. They did not imagine companies would not need most of what they offered. In reality, they created products they themselves would have needed, assuming that if they saw the usefulness, then the business world would too.

We are seeing the same thing happen with AI products today. OpenAI recently released a major version update with the aim of making the models more “intelligent.” They added a feature that allows the AI to decide which engine to use based on the difficulty of a prompt. They saw this as a game changer. They also bundled other AI products like DALL·E for image processing. The update introduced a wide set of new features, including a real-time model router, speed modes (Auto, Fast, and Thinking), personalities, improved coding and design tools through Canvas, an upgraded voice mode, customisable UI, Agent Mode, the Responses API, the Agent SDK, Deep Research, the o-series models (o3, o4-mini, o3-pro), preference fine-tuning, and GPT-OSS.

The backlash, however, is that people feel OpenAI has stripped away the friendly nature of the model. Many users treated ChatGPT as a friend or confidant. They used it to make life decisions and, in some cases, for emotional support. Just like TIBCO, OpenAI’s new model seems designed more for its engineers than its users. They asked themselves how they would use it, rather than focusing on how the public uses it.

The people who use AI as a friend are often laughed at by the general public. But I see why they do it. In a world that silences people for being honest about their views, dislikes, and pleasures, ChatGPT offers a space to be completely honest and vulnerable without judgment. People feel seen, heard, and helped—just like a friend would do.

Maybe OpenAI is focusing on the wrong use case. Maybe the majority of users are already showing them what makes the product great. And maybe, instead of mocking people who seek companionship from a bot, the public should stop and think about why people prefer a chat AI to feel fully human. Maybe it’s not the users who are wrong. Maybe it’s the world we have built that is forcing people to seek help from a bot instead of a friend.

Everyone goes through some form of suffering, this too is a kind of passage. But how we deal with it determines how we handle the future. Each person’s exit is different, shaped by their experiences and resilience.

There are certain set passages society has created for us. One of the clearest is education. We decided that children need to go to school. In many places, this is mandated, primary and secondary education are often compulsory, while tertiary education is an optional choice, though strongly encouraged. Over time, this path has become normalised. Most people pass through it.

We have also built a system of incentives around these passages. Those who move through them successfully, especially those who pursue tertiary education, are more likely to receive societal rewards: jobs, status, stability. In fact, the greater the passage, the greater the incentive. It is a structured funnel that guides people toward certain definitions of success.

But after that comes something different. The passage ends, and suddenly, you are free. You can do whatever you want.

And that is where it gets difficult.

After years of being guided through structured paths, you enter a stage of life with no clear direction. It is darker here, full of surprises. Some of the assumptions you carried turn out to be wrong. The paths you take might lead nowhere. You stumble. You struggle. Often, you are alone, without help.

Still, this is not the end. Most of us push on, clinging to the hope that there is an exit worth reaching, something meaningful on the other side. And sometimes, it takes years.

Eventually, when we do find some fruit on the other side, we are tasked with guiding the next generation through the same passages. But now, that generation is asking questions.

“Do we really have to do all of this?”

“Is this the only way to live?”

Those of us who exited the traditional paths and found success often respond with certainty: Yes, this is the way.

And so, we begin to drill these ideas into them, sometimes forcefully, repeating the cycle.

And they comply.

And the circle continues.

I think that is because there is no pressure to prove anything. You are not performing for acceptance; you are performing within acceptance. And that changes everything.

When you perform around people who accept you, you do not worry about a subpar performance changing the way they feel about you. You do not feel like your whole identity is riding on that moment. If anything, they will just be more supportive, even give you encouragement, maybe some advice, and tell you how you can improve next time. So naturally, performances in those environments tend to be better.

But when you are performing for people who are not sure about you, or people who, deep down, you know do not accept you or question your abilities, everything just feels different. That performance suddenly holds too much weight. You start trying to earn acceptance through your performance. And that pressure can be crippling, scared to even make a mistake. That fear alone can ruin the entire performance, mess up your rhythm, and lead to a difficult outing.

Another place where this plays out is in dating. The fear of rejection. It is the same principle; we are trying to get validation from someone who has not already given it. You put so much importance on that interaction that you are afraid to even approach it.

Think about asking someone out. That moment carries a risk, because they might not accept you, and that uncertainty is terrifying compared to if you had to ask someone you already know accepts you, No fear, no pressure. But the same question, when directed at someone whose acceptance you are unsure of, suddenly feels life-altering. You could mess up the question. You could still feel rejected even if they respond kindly because you put so much importance into that moment.

That fear we carry so often comes from this same place. So imagine if we could create environments where people feel accepted before the performance, where the performance is not a test of worth. I think you would get consistent, positive results in those environments. Every time.

There is a reason I rephrased my original idea and removed the word good from that statement. I was making a point: failure is a teacher. A good one? I am not so sure.

What I have realised is that most of the time, we learn the most from failure. We learn from bad ideas that did not work out. Failure seems to be one of the most effective ways to gain new knowledge. It shows us what is correct by highlighting what is incorrect. There is something about the nature of failure that forces reflection and curiosity, while success often does not.

Success feels final. It feels like “that’s it.” Maybe that’s because many things we do in life are driven by the pursuit of success. And once we achieve it, we tend to stop. We move on. We feel like there is nothing more to learn from that process. We label ourselves “experts” and move forward.

Say I want to learn how to shoot a three-pointer. I make a few shots in a row. That is it, I move on to the next challenge. But if I miss all my shots? I sit with that. I start wondering what is wrong. I come back. I try again. I analyse my stance, my follow-through, my positioning. I consider where my power is coming from, is it my legs, my arms? There is so much data hidden in failure. And that data is what we learn from.

Failure forces you to reflect. Success does not. In that way, success can be limiting, it does not require us to keep learning. But failure does.

That said, not all lessons from failure are helpful. Sometimes, people draw the wrong conclusions. They fail at something and internalise it: “I am stupid. I am incapable. I am not good enough.” They beat themselves up. They stop trying.

Worse still, some people are forced by parents, coaches, or society to keep trying, without understanding why they failed in the first place. They keep failing, and they keep seeing themselves as failures. That becomes the lesson. And while that is also a form of learning, it is painful and damaging.

It is important to recognise that failure is not always about learning a skill, it can also teach us about ourselves. We go into something clear-minded, open, and curious. Then we fail. Suddenly, we think we are not enough. That tells us something, too. There are entire libraries of work on how to treat that, bounce back from that, and rebuild a sense of self-worth.

That is the other side of failure, it can be a good teacher. If we let it. If we frame it not as final, but as part of a continuous process. It teaches us about our limitations, about the environment, and about what we need to improve. And sometimes, that is enough for us to decide: “Is this even something I want to keep doing?”

Failure gives you the real picture of what is required. You might go into something blindly, thinking it will be easy, only to get humbled by how difficult it is. You keep trying, maybe out of pride, maybe out of stubbornness, and you keep failing. Eventually, that creates a negative self-image. But even that is information.

So yes, failure is a teacher. Whether it is good or bad? That depends, on the person, their state of mind, and the way they frame the experience.

Some people will take the easy route and say, “I’m just not good at this,” and move on.

Others will dig deeper and say, “I am not good at this yet because I do not have the tools. What do I need to improve?” Maybe you need help. Maybe someone else has the tools you lack. That is when being honest about your limitations becomes essential. But how can you know what your limits are if you never try?

The truth is that failure is terrifying, especially in a world that glorifies success. We are wired to succeed, and for good reason: in some situations, failure can be catastrophic. It can mean death or destruction. So of course, we want to avoid it. But there are moments when failure is necessary. And part of wisdom is knowing which moments those are.

Ironically, the very failures we are most afraid of are the ones we need to practice for. Because they will come. And when they do, we need to be prepared.

Everything around us, from cars to airplanes to weapons, was built by people who failed along the way. These things required precision, expertise, and a willingness to risk failure. Without that, none of it would exist.

So again, failure is a teacher. Maybe not always a kind one, maybe not always a good one. But a teacher, nonetheless.

Most, when faced with such trauma, struggle with healing and ways to deal with this. I have also noticed a trend where victimhood as an identity becomes the avenue to deal with the trauma, becoming a core part of the identity. That identity can sometimes come with power or social leverage, hence why it is prevalent in today’s world. This here is when things get complicated, in my strong opinion.

There was an episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored where a panel was discussing whether a white genocide is happening in South Africa. The conversation veered into the topic of race-based legislation, which Ernst Roets, one of the panellists, strongly criticised. He claimed that the South African government had passed over 140 race-based laws, arguing that such laws had no place in a society that calls itself equal.

Dan Corder, another panellist, challenged him directly, asking him to name which of those laws were explicitly race-based. Instead of listing any laws, Ernst pivoted to South Africa’s education system, claiming it was weak and flawed.

That shift confused a lot of people. Many on the panel, and in the audience, felt his point was irrelevant, even evasive. The conversation quickly turned into a critique of his logic. Some saw it as a ramble. Others said it was a smokescreen. And for many, it came across as thinly veiled racism.

But I kept listening.

Beneath the offence, I noticed the thread he was trying to pull. His frustration was not just that the law required him to hire Black people. It was deeper. He argued that because of historical inequality, white students in South Africa still receive a superior education. And because of that, he claimed, Black South Africans are, on average, less equipped when entering the job market. So in his view, the law was not just about equity, it was forcing him to hire people whom he believed the system had failed.

I then asked my friend for his assessment of this exchange. He focused more on the racist remarks, which were all over the place, and missed the point that I picked up. I then related back to him my take. He mentioned that he did not pick that up and acknowledged that he already had a preconceived idea of what Mr Roets would be arguing and did not give me time to understand his point.

This happens all the time when faced with very critical information from someone who does not belong in the group. Shutting that part of our brain that forces us to only pick up information confirm of our bias is hard but knowing this can help. There can be more than one truth, and some things that contradict each other can both be true at the same time. A racist can have some helpful insights about some stuff. This does not mean you do not hold them accountable to their misinformed beliefs, but maybe find a way to understand their

point of view. As painful as that exercise can be, it can truly be helpful to the oppressed. Do not apologise on their behalf but try to use their assessment of you to highlight what are your blind spots that are created by your victimhood identity.

That idea that we were once whole and were split apart, destined to search endlessly for our missing half has been drilled into our heads. It’s been presented as if there’s one specific person out there who exists to complete us and make us feel whole again. It’s tied to the idea of "The One" someone who makes us powerful just by being with us.

And when you really think about it, it kind of makes sense. Many of us walk around feeling like there’s something missing. We long for someone who can complete us. You hear this idea all the time in romantic stories and magical tales. When people talk about someone they’re dating or in love with, they say things like, “They complete me.” That narrative comes directly from this belief that this individual exists who can make us whole.

Now, because of that, we’ve built this idea that there’s someone out there who can fill in all the traits or qualities we think we lack. We start to create categories lists, really of what we want in a partner. When you go on dating sites, you’re presented with these preference forms: what kind of person are you looking for? Even in real life, when you meet strangers, you already have this mental checklist of the traits you think would “complete” you.

We’ve heard this over and over "tall, dark, and handsome" the stereotype of attractiveness. It’s funny how so many people are attracted to the same traits, which makes you question the whole idea of “The One.” If we’re all looking for the same thing, do we even understand what “The One” means? Does this person really exist?

I think in certain situations, the idea makes sense. If you’ve ever been with someone who made you feel courageous, safe, seen, accepted, or joyful you might’ve believed in that moment that this person was “The One.” And that’s understandable. But the real question is: can only that one person make you feel like that? Isn’t it possible that someone else could also make you feel that way?

The argument could be made that yes, it’s possible. There are so many people in the world. Statistically, it seems unlikely that just one person is capable of making you feel whole. So then, what does it mean to believe in “The One”? Is it about a soulmate one person in the entire world who can fit perfectly into the gaps of your soul?

In a sense, under certain circumstances, yes it can feel that way. But not all the time. Because what makes you feel whole today isn’t necessarily going to be what you need tomorrow. As we grow and change, our needs shift. The person who once filled a hole in you may no longer do so, because that part of you has evolved.

And that’s where things get complicated.

Let’s say someone fills a gap in you maybe they make you feel accepted. Over time, you grow, and now what you need isn’t just acceptance. You’ve reached a point where you’re missing something else maybe inspiration or passion. And the person who once made you feel whole now doesn’t seem to fill that new void. So you start looking again. You start seeking another person who fills this new hole.

And that becomes a cycle an endless quest to find someone who can constantly adapt to fill whatever is missing in you. The search for “The One” can become an exhausting and harmful experience. Instead of enjoying life and embracing the complexities of human connection, we end up chasing an illusion.

Why do we want this so badly? Why does the world make us feel like we need “The One”?

There are so many reasons social expectations, media portrayals, childhood stories. Romantic comedies and fairytales, especially from the ‘80s and ‘90s, romanticize the idea. I blame Disney, honestly. Stories like Cinderella built this concept into our subconscious the idea that somewhere out there is the perfect person who will fulfill all your needs.

But it’s not helping. Psychologically and emotionally, this belief is damaging. It distorts our understanding of relationships. We start thinking relationships are about someone else fixing us, filling us, or satisfying us endlessly. But real relationships are about so much more.

They’re about growth. They’re about going through phases. They’re about giving back.

If you’re in a relationship, you have to understand that it’s not just about how the other person makes you feel. It’s also about how you contribute to their life. If you reach a point where you can’t add anything meaningful to their journey, you need to re, examine the relationship. Likewise, if your partner can’t contribute to your growth or peace, that’s a signal too.

Sometimes, what we need can’t come from our partner. It might come from therapy, from friends, from creativity. That’s okay. It doesn’t mean your partner is inadequate. It just means they’re human. Which brings us to a better way of thinking throw out the myth of “The One” and build something better: reciprocal, conscious, adaptive relationships.

You need to recognize that you cannot fix someone, and they cannot fix you. Not completely. A relationship should be a partnership one where both people are constantly learning, adapting, and doing the work. It may not always be pleasant. Sometimes it starts with fights or misunderstandings. But if there’s a solid foundation, if there’s a shared future in mind, you push through.

We need to stop seeing ourselves as the only person in the relationship who deserves satisfaction or healing. Your partner has needs too. Their joy, their peace, their journey matters just as much. And when those moments come when one or both of you are struggling that’s not failure. That’s an opportunity to re, examine, re, shape, and maybe even re, define the relationship.

So what does this mean for “The One”? It means maybe the idea isn't as real as we’ve been told. Maybe no one person will make you feel whole forever. And maybe that’s okay. Wholeness can come from many places. It evolves with time.

The idea of “The One” makes it seem like love should be effortless. Like there’s no work involved. But that’s not love that’s fantasy.

Instead, build something real. Something that can bend without breaking. Something that changes with you, and helps both of you grow.

So I did what many insecure young men might do, I asked her to stop going out.

My reasoning felt solid at the time: if you're in a serious relationship, you shouldn't be spending your weekends in places that could potentially put that relationship at risk. To me, clubbing wasn’t just dancing and drinks, it was a space where things could happen, where temptation lived. But to her, it was just fun with friends. It wasn’t about meeting other men or disrespecting the relationship.

Naturally, this caused conflict. She pushed back. To her, there was nothing wrong with going out to enjoy herself, and she felt I was being controlling or insecure. And honestly, I was. That tension eventually wore us down. We broke up.

Looking back, I wonder: What if I had taken the time to really explore why I felt that way? What if I’d dug deeper into the discomfort, questioned where it came from? Was it fear? Insecurity? A lack of trust? Was I projecting my own fears onto her actions?

And here's the harder question: Was I right to ask her to stop? Or was I just reacting from a place of fear? We often tell ourselves that someone who truly values a relationship won’t do anything to endanger it. But we rarely consider how they see their actions. What we call “selfish” might simply be their way of maintaining their identity, their space, their joy.

If I had put myself in her shoes, maybe I would’ve seen that clubbing wasn’t an act of rebellion or disrespect, it was her way of staying connected to a part of herself that existed before we met. Something that made her feel alive. And when people feel they're losing parts of themselves in a relationship, they push back.

But instead of understanding, we often shame them. We label their behaviour as inconsiderate, never pausing to think: What are they really trying to hold onto?

As I reflect now, I realize the issue wasn’t just about her going out, it was about me feeling inadequate. Deep down, I feared that I lacked something she might find in someone else. More money. Better looks. A better car. More charm. A better lover. And sure, people like that do exist in the world. But assuming that every time she stepped into a club she’d find someone “better” was less about her and more about what I hadn’t come to terms with in myself.

That’s the hard truth about insecurity: it’s ours to manage, not our partner’s to fix. When someone’s actions trigger discomfort in us, our first step shouldn’t be to control them, it should be to examine ourselves.

If the relationship truly matters to you, you owe it to both of you to articulate those insecurities, not as accusations, but as truths. And if you can’t be honest with your partner without fearing judgment or rejection, that’s a red flag too. A healthy relationship should allow for vulnerability, not punish it.

So here's what I've learned: insecurity doesn’t go away on its own. You have to face it, dissect it, and if you’re lucky, let it die, one honest conversation at a time.

As an emotionally aware partner, you understand that people can have bad days without fully knowing why. Instead of trying to fix her mood or force a smile, you choose to be supportive. You carry on with your usual manner, consistent, kind, and loving, despite how frustrating or helpless it might feel for you. You remind yourself: whatever you are feeling, it might be even heavier for her.

You go out of your way to offer extra care. If she usually makes breakfast, you take over for the day, not out of obligation, but because you see she needs it. And she notices. Your gesture does not go unrecognised. Perhaps she offers to make breakfast, anyway, realising that you have picked up on her energy.

Now flip the script. You’re the one who wakes up not feeling okay.

She asks you what’s wrong, and you answer honestly: “I’m okay,” even though you’re clearly not yourself. Instead of leaning in, she pulls back. She begins to worry, maybe even panics a little, interpreting your mood as a sign that something is wrong in the relationship itself.

But instead of talking further, she backs off. She gives you space, too much space. She only checks in occasionally, as if waiting for you to feel better so things can go back to normal. And then something shifts in you: you start to feel like you only get the best of your partner when you are at your best.

When you’re happy and doing well, she’s loving, generous, and fully present. But when you are not, when you are quiet, distant, or off, she fades. It is as if she is waiting for the version of you, she can handle to return. That is when the questions begin:

Is it the way I am when I am going through something?

Or is it that she just does not know how to deal with conflict or discomfort?

And if giving me space isn’t what I need, how will she ever learn to show up for me fully?

You begin to realise that love can’t be conditional on your emotional state. If she’s only present when things are good, what happens when the hard times stretch into days? Do you become unlovable then? Do the conversations stop? Does affection pause?

This led to a deeper epiphany: emotions, true emotions, are unpredictable and raw. You do not chase them or schedule them; they just happen. The most honest emotions we feel, like sadness, anger, pain, are not manufactured. They are spontaneous, and in their own way, they reveal the truest version of ourselves.

When your partner or anyone you love is experiencing those darker emotions, you’re seeing something real. We often excuse or explain behaviour by saying, “I was just emotional,” but that emotional version is still them, perhaps the most authentic version. Being able to sit with someone in their sadness, in their anger, in their pain, that is how you really get to know them. That is how you build something solid.

We spend so much time trying to create moments of happiness, intimacy, joy, and that is good. But sometimes, those emotions can feel forced or performative. Real happiness, like sadness, shows up uninvited. You feel it when it is true. And when someone is happy with you, unprovoked and natural, you see another real version of them.

So back to the earlier point, when your partner distances themselves in your low moments, it might feel like self-preservation, but over time, it creates emotional distance. You begin to hide parts of yourself. You suppress your bad moods or downplay them just to avoid being alone in them. You pretend to be okay so you do not lose their affection.

That builds quiet resentment. Internal conflict. Eventually, it finds its way out, through aggression, or withdrawal, or loss of connection. Meanwhile, the partner who distances themselves may begin to develop negative stories about who you are in those moods. They see your low moments not as part of you, but as something to avoid.

And so a cycle begins: they engage only when you are “okay,” and avoid you when you are not. You, in turn, begin to monitor your own emotions, managing them not for your own healing but to stay lovable. The space between you grows.

Many people say they want to love someone through good and bad. But when the bad stretches out, when emotions get messy and real, they do not know how to hold space for that. They create distance. And in that distance, something is lost. You become someone they no longer understand, simply because they were not willing to walk through the fire with you.

Love, real love, is not only about celebrating joy. It is about sitting in discomfort, holding someone’s hand when they themselves do not understand what is going on inside. It is being able to say, “I’m here,” even when it is hard, especially when it is hard.

Because if you only love the version of someone who is happy, you do not really know them at all

Within this group, a problem arises, how to distribute supplies for the house. Some adults and children from a particular side of the family have their own supply stores. Over the years, they managed to gather and keep these stores, often through means that excluded the others from doing the same. They are not in charge of the house, but they can support themselves independently.

The actual responsibility for managing and distributing the supplies falls on the guardians, those seen as the current leaders. A change happens. New people arrive to assist, and they decide to address the inequality. Their priority becomes feeding those who are disadvantaged, those who cannot support themselves, first, before considering anyone else.

That is the new policy in the house. Now comes the dilemma: how should the supplies be distributed? Should they be shared equally? Or should the distribution prioritise those who have nothing, even if it means excluding those who already have their own store?

It is decided: the supplies will go first to the disadvantaged. Everyone in the house is told this is the new approach, justified by the history of exclusion and injustice. Those who had been left out before are finally included.

Time passes. The group told to fend for themselves starts to worry. They look at their supply stores and begin to realise that, eventually, they will run out. They ask: What will happen then? No one seems to be thinking about that future. They are left to manage on their own, and fear begins to grow.

They raise concerns: “Why are we excluded? We are part of this house too.” But the response is dismissive: “You already have your own store. And the way you got it was through an unfair system. This exclusion is justice.”

That ends the conversation. The system continues for years.

But cracks start to show. The supplies intended for the disadvantaged are not always reaching them. Some of the people responsible for distribution begin keeping supplies for themselves. In some cases, those most in need go without. People begin to suffer. Some die.

When these issues are raised, the ones speaking up, especially those originally excluded, are told to be quiet. “You already benefited,” they are reminded. “Let the leaders handle this.” Even those who are suffering defend the flawed system, clinging to the ideal behind it, even if it no longer works.

As the system persists, the house begins to fall apart. The original idea, support the disadvantaged first, was noble. But its execution failed. No one accounted for change over time. No one asked: What happens when supplies shrink? Or: What if the current method stops working?

The entire strategy was based on a fixed mindset: that the amount of supplies is limited, and the only thing to do is divide them. But there was another path, one that asked: How do we increase the supplies?

If you have ever hosted a party, you will know the difference. When you have just enough food, you worry constantly: Will there be enough? Who should eat first? But if you have an abundance, the worry disappears. You think about storage or leftovers, not scarcity.

The same is true in the house. When supplies are scarce, distribution becomes tense and divisive. But if there is enough for everyone, you do not worry about who gets what. Everyone finds a way to meet their needs.

That leads to the harder question: Why not focus on increasing the total supply? That is the growth mindset. It is not easy, it requires effort, creativity, and cooperation. But it creates a more stable and fair system.

Most people avoid that route. It feels too expensive, too complex. So they focus only on dividing what already exists. They think small.

But thinking small traps you. You create rules and strategies around limitations. You fail to imagine that something better is possible. That is the tragedy of the house.

This is not just about supplies. The same mindset applies to finances, opportunity, justice. When people act from scarcity, they limit themselves and others. But when they act from abundance, they build systems that grow, not just sustain.