“Sometimes the hardest words aren’t ‘I can do it.’ They’re ‘I can’t do this alone.'”
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Aisha: Gogo, can I ask you something?
Gogo Thandi: Of course.
Aisha: Did you always know what you wanted to do with your life?
(Gogo laughs so warmly that the sparrows on the veranda scatter for a moment.)
Gogo Thandi: My child, I wasn’t even sure what I wanted for supper most evenings.
Aisha: Really?
Gogo Thandi: You think old people were born old?
Aisha: Sometimes.
Gogo Thandi: We were young once. We changed our minds. We took wrong turns. We worried about things that never happened.
Aisha: It just feels like everyone else has a plan.
Gogo Thandi: That’s because you’re seeing their photographs, not their journeys.
Aisha: I hadn’t thought about it like that.
Gogo Thandi: Tell me… when was the last time you did something simply because you were curious?
Aisha: I don’t know.
Gogo Thandi: See? That’s a question worth sitting with.
Aisha: Everything feels like it has to lead somewhere these days.
Gogo Thandi: Does it?
Aisha: Doesn’t it?
Gogo Thandi: Yesterday I took the long way home from the market.
Aisha: Why?
Gogo Thandi: Because the jacarandas were flowering.
Aisha: That’s not a reason.
Gogo Thandi: It was for me.
(They both smile.)
Aisha: Did anything happen?
Gogo Thandi: I met Nomsa.
Aisha: The lady who makes the orange marmalade?
Gogo Thandi: The very same.
We hadn’t seen each other in nearly a year.
She insisted I come in for tea.
We laughed until the kettle boiled dry.
Now tell me…
If I had hurried home, would that afternoon have happened?
Aisha: Probably not.
Gogo Thandi: Life has given me many good things.
Very few of them arrived because I planned them perfectly.
Most arrived because I made room for them.
Aisha: I think I’m always trying to get somewhere.
Gogo Thandi: Then perhaps this week…
…go somewhere.
Not because you need to.
Because you can.
Walk a different street.
Visit a library.
Sit in a park.
Order something you’ve never tasted before.
Let the world interrupt your plans every now and then.
It’s surprisingly good at introducing itself.
Aisha: You always make everything sound simple.
Gogo Thandi: Oh, it isn’t simple.
It’s just easier to notice after you’ve lived a while.
(For a few moments they sit quietly.
A hadeda calls from somewhere beyond the garden.
Neither of them feels the need to fill the silence.)
Aisha: Gogo?
Gogo Thandi: Yes?
Aisha: I think I’ll take the long way home today.
Gogo Thandi: I had a feeling you might.
Some of life’s finest destinations are found by people who were willing to wander a little first.
END
Today, resist the urge to rush one ordinary moment.
Let yourself arrive fully before moving on.
```Invite someone for a walk with no agenda.
Leave room for the conversation to find its own direction.
Sometimes companionship grows best when nothing is being forced.
```Pull Up a Chair
This week’s invitation:
“Tell us about an unexpected discovery that happened because you weren’t in a hurry.”
The smallest detours often become the stories we remember.
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Zanele
Gqeberha
