YOUR DECISIONS WILL ALWAYS DETERMINE YOUR DESTINY

LIFE HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT MAKING CHOICES.

In case you are wondering how I’ve been feeling, press play.

Sometimes in this life thing, you find yourself wondering whether you will ever achieve the things that you have always wanted to achieve. You find yourself sitting alone, reflecting on how far you have come, yet still feeling unfulfilled. There are moments when you look at your life and realise that although you have made progress, you are still not where you thought you would be. A couple of years ago, I had a picture in my mind of what my life would look like by now. I imagined a version of myself that seemed certain, accomplished, and secure. The strange thing is that my younger self would probably be proud of where I am today. He would see growth where I see uncertainty. He would see resilience where I see struggle. Yet the current version of me is not always proud. The current version of me is worried about what comes next. The current version of me spends most days wondering whether everything will eventually work out or not.

I often find myself questioning whether the times we live in contribute to these feelings. Every day comes with its own pressures and uncertainties, and I think about my future constantly. I wonder whether I will find a job after completing my degree, or if I will also be part of the millions of unemployed South African graduates. I wonder whether I will eventually become the person I have always envisioned myself becoming. I wonder whether all the sacrifices, the long nights, and the years of effort will amount to something meaningful. These questions stay with me because there are no guarantees, and that uncertainty can be difficult to carry.

What makes it even heavier is the expectations people place on you. Sometimes it feels as though people have taken their own expectations and placed them on my shoulders. They look at me and assume that I have everything figured out. They believe I know exactly where my life is headed and exactly how things will unfold. The truth is that I do not know, and none of us truly knows. I do not know whether I will wake up tomorrow. I do not know whether I will achieve every goal I have set for myself. I do not know whether life will take me where I want to go or whether it will redirect me somewhere completely different.

I have come to realise that this is one of the hardest truths about life. There is always a possibility that I may never become the person I once dreamed of becoming. I make plans, create timelines, and imagine a prosperous future for myself. Yet life has a way of changing everything.

We plan, but God decides.
We plan, but fate decides.

I have spent years imagining a destination, only to discover that life had a different route prepared for me all along. When I look around, I see evidence of this reality everywhere.

The person living on the street did not choose that life.

The cashier at the supermarket may have once dreamed of becoming something completely different.

The cleaner working long hours may hold qualifications that nobody knows about.

Life happens, circumstances change, opportunities disappear, economies struggle, and dreams get delayed. Then you end up seeing people finding themselves in places they never imagined they would be. It is not always because they made the wrong choices. Sometimes life simply takes a direction nobody could have predicted.

Bophelo bo tlao tsokotsa meii bra.

That realisation has taught me something important: never look down on anyone. Never assume that a person’s current situation tells you their entire story. I never want to think less of someone because of the work they do. I never want to judge a cleaner, a taxi driver, an Uber driver, a cashier, or anyone else trying to earn an honest living. We rarely know what people have been through, or what dreams they once carried, let alone the sacrifices they had to make every single day.

Perhaps I feel this way because I have experienced unexpected turns in my own life.

Growing up, I was the child who seemed to be doing everything right. I always received awards, participated in school activities, loved learning, and was actively involved in almost everything I could. Eventually, I became the head boy. At that stage of my life, it felt as though the world was open before me. I felt like I had endless possibilities. I felt like I had everything going for me.

Then life took a sharp turn.

Life changed after I lost my father.

Loss changes people in ways that are difficult to explain. It changes how you think, how you react, how you see yourself and the world around you. Looking back now, I can clearly see that losing my father affected me deeply. It left a void that I did not know how to fill. Although I do not want to blame everything that happened afterwards on that loss, I cannot deny that it changed me.

As time passed, I started becoming someone I did not recognise. I became addicted to things that I should never have been addicted to. I became a people pleaser. The child who had once focused on school, sports, reading, and personal growth slowly disappeared. In his place was someone who became easily influenced by the people around him. I started experimenting, but not with things that would help me grow. Instead, I experimented with things that distracted me from myself.

I still remember something one of my teachers said when I was in third grade. He told us that our decisions would always determine our destiny. At the time, I did not fully understand the weight of those words. Today, I understand them far better than I did back then. When I started engaging in habits that were not aligned with the person I wanted to become, I slowly lost sight of the vision I had for myself. Each decision moved me further away from the future I had imagined.

Yet even in the middle of that confusion, something unexpected happened. A different part of me began to emerge.

That was when I started writing.

Music became the place where I could express the things I struggled to say out loud. I was never particularly good at opening up to people, but I found freedom in songwriting. Through music, I was able to tell my story without having to explain myself. I could turn emotions into lyrics and experiences into songs. Looking back now, I realise that writing became one of the few healthy ways I knew how to process what I was feeling.

One moment from that period has stayed with me for years. After I released one of my songs, a guy from my neighbourhood came to my house. He spoke to my mother and told her that I was talented and that she needed to invest in my talent. At the time, I appreciated his words, but as I have grown older, I think I understand them differently. I believe he saw a little bit of himself in me. I think he understood what it feels like to have dreams that go unnoticed. I think he understood what it means to carry talent while feeling trapped by circumstances. In many ways, his words reflected not only what he saw in me, but also what he wished someone had seen in him.

Although those years came with mistakes and regrets, they also came with lessons that I could not have learned any other way.

Life introduced me to people from very different backgrounds. I have spent time with people who lived in luxury and people who struggled to meet basic needs. I have met people from wealthy families, middle-class families, and families that had almost nothing. Through all these experiences, I learned something that continues to guide me today.

Always remain humble.

Treat people with dignity regardless of their status. The respect you show a wealthy person should be the same respect you show someone who has very little. Character should never depend on someone’s income, social standing, or job title. Some of the most valuable lessons I have ever learned came from people society often overlooks.

I have always enjoyed listening to people tell their stories. Every story contains wisdom. Every life contains lessons. Sometimes another person’s experiences help you see your own life differently. Sometimes listening to someone else’s journey makes you realise that you have been looking at things from the wrong angle. The more people I met, the more I realised how much there is to learn from others.

At the same time, those conversations often forced me to reflect on my own life. They made me think about the decisions I had made and the paths I had taken. Looking back, I still believe there are things I could have done better. There are choices I wish I could revisit. There are moments I wish I had handled differently.

A few days ago, my mother asked me a question she had seen on the internet. She asked whether I would rather receive ten million today or go back and become my younger self again. Without thinking too much, I immediately said ten million dollars.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that my real answer would be different.

I would go back.

Not because I want to relive the past, but because I would want the opportunity to face it with everything I know now. I would want to make better decisions, approach certain situations differently, and use my pain differently. Maybe after my father died, I should have used that pain to fuel my hunger for success. Instead, I allowed that pain to fuel my hunger for distractions. Instead of confronting what I felt, I tried to escape it.

Of course, life does not give us the opportunity to go back. The past remains where it is, and all we can do is learn from it. That is why I believe the lessons we take from our experiences matter so much. They become the tools we carry into the future.

So, to anyone reading this, I want you to remember something.

Nothing in life is guaranteed except death. You can earn a degree and still struggle to find your place in the world. You can build a successful career and still lose everything. You can come from the most difficult circumstances imaginable and still create an extraordinary life for yourself. The future is unpredictable, and life can change without warning.

What we do have control over are the decisions we make every day.

Every decision moves us either closer to or further away from the person we want to become. Life is all about choices, so make sure that you always make the right one because every choice shapes the direction of your life. We may not control every circumstance that comes our way, but we do control how we respond to those circumstances.

Bophelo o ka se bo confirm.
Bophelo bo boima.
Bophelo bo tla go makatsa ka tsela tse makatsang.

But even in a world full of uncertainty, one truth remains.

Your decisions will always determine your destiny.

Make sure that whatever you decide to do today is the right thing, because it will help determine who you become tomorrow.