(Tell me one thing that no one knows about you.)
I’m actually really scared.
I’m a scaredy cat.
I think sometimes people perceive me as this adventurer...
I’m always riding everywhere and hiking everywhere.
And then I’m climbing this mountain and that mountain.
But I’m actually doing it to get over my fears of things.
Here is this valley we’re surrounded by mountains.
And so the sun actually sets quite early.
And when I go cycling in the afternoon, it’s like chasing the light,
chasing the sun.
Can I get out of the shadows
and get to that sun spot over there?
Maybe that’s almost like a metaphor for my life as well...
always chasing the sun...
or maybe it’s running away from the shadows.
Shadow and light...
there’s always two sides to every aspect of our lives.
But if you’re going to focus only on the one
the other one is going to lose meaning.
If you only have joy in your life
how intensely are you going to experience that joy
if you’ve never experienced sorrow.
There’s been lots of loss in my life.
Lost love, loss of parent,
loss of jobs, loss of friends.
But I think the biggest shadow is probably my own thoughts.
I can be really kind to other people, or I hope so.
I try to be... I try to be a good person.
But I don’t think I’m always kind to myself.
(Why not?)
I think self doubt. I think...
I don’t know why I’m getting all emotional now.
I always have solutions for other people...
I can see them clearly.
But it’s like I can’t turn these glasses on my own life
and put everything in focus always.
I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust my own abilities.
You internalise things that other people do and say.
Thoughts of oh, but people think this of me and that of me.
And I’m not this, I’m not that.
In the end, you’re your own worst enemy.
My brother, I love him to bits,
and he told me the other day,
‘There are three givens in life...’
‘Everything changes.’
‘Life sucks.’
‘And it’s not about you.’
People have certain reactions,
and the reaction is not about you.
It’s about their idea of life.
So why am I fretting so much?
Why am I over analysing things?
There’s an Afrikaans word ‘wroeg’.
Why do I ‘wroeg’ so much?
Even the sound of it... wroeg...
it sounds so guttural, it comes from within.
And that’s how I sit with these emotions sometimes.
Just get over yourself.
Start every day as a new day.
You’ve got a new chance today.
Start again, try again.
And if we don’t get it right, we start again tomorrow.
I think loving oneself is absolutely a process.
It’s probably one of the hardest relationships for me.
And I’m not really known for having a lot of success in that department.
So maybe that’s the reason why
maybe I should just learn loving myself to start off with.
I’m quite a positive person and I love life.
But I’m also quite an avid news reader.
So I’m not naive...
I know that there’s lots of bad things happening in life.
In probably a very bizarre way
it creates gratitude
because I know that I’m so lucky...
what I have, where I live.
There’s so much to be grateful for.
Of course I do get upset about injustice in the world
and I can get really worked up about it.
But then when you start talking to people in the street
you also realise that the news is also not life.
That’s not the only reality... that’s a reality.
And we are only bombarded with the bad news,
the scandals, all of those.
And I think it’s important to always know that
that’s not all there is to life.
In the end, this life is just actually really beautiful.
This world we live in is beautiful.
In amongst all the chaos, and all the pollution,
and everything that man has created that makes it chaotic,
you will always find beauty somewhere.
We just need to look really carefully
and breathe, and maybe look up.
And also within people... look carefully,
and look for the story, look for the truth there.
People are actually much kinder than we give them credit for.
That makes me smile.
Every day I’m a little bit less scared...
a little bit less scared of life.
And more running towards the light
rather than running away from the shadows.