Sanlam’s National Start Something Day is an initiative to encourage South Africans to stop procrastinating about the things they’ve always wanted to do and actually start something. We spend too much time lamenting the what-ifs and could-haves and this initiative is a great platform to actually do. As part of the campaign, there is a competition – run on the NSSD site and Facebook page – where someone could win R50,000.
Our future will be determined by how many of us picked up the mantle of responsibility and did something, without expectation, simply out of the recognition that we all have a part to play, in one form or another. Cheesekids is an organisation that was started a couple of years ago as a platform for those in slightly more privileged positions, whether through work or background, to contribute to the upliftment of society as a whole. In celebration of Nelson Mandela Day, the organisation, with sponsors like Old Mutual, organised for 6700 young people to go to community projects as their 67 minutes of service.
I was invited to take part in Sanlam’s National Start Something Day campaign. I went into the very long list of ‘want to dos’ and decided to try my hand at photography, in particular learning how to use a D-SLR camera. I enrolled at the College of Digital Photography for a Fundamentals of Digital Photography course. For the first two lessons, we learned about ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture, White Balance and Light.
Life is fascinating in its habits. How often have you had a moment, when it felt like everything was coming together perfectly? Or when you meet – and really connect with - someone and you discover you’ve been in the same spaces for years but never met. It is like the universe is saying … now is your time. Yes, as the cliché goes, ‘everything happens for a reason’ and, often, things happen when they are supposed to happen. Being a chronic ideas person, I have spent a lifetime buckling under the weight of “what-ifs” - things that would be great, if I could only get them going, which I don’t...