Happy Ending

Believe it or not, I try not to use this blog to complain too much about my life here in South Africa. But every good story requires conflict, and I am trying to keep you ‘turning the pages,’ so to speak. That being said, you probably hear a bit more of the negative than is really accurate. So I think it’s only fair to tell you, for the most part, life is good.

Monday after work Roger and I met up with some friends at a neighborhood café. We find a big table outside and order cocktails. Raspberry mojitos. Gin and tonics. Martinis.

“Man, Robyn what’s going on in that country of yours?" someone says. "Thanks to you guys, the JSE (Johannesburg Stock Exchange) is down 30%!”

“It’s scary, huh?” I reply, knowing better than to launch a debate regarding the sensitive subject of what’s happening and why.

“Yeah, times are tough,” someone else chimes in as the waitress delivers our drinks. We wait for her to leave before Roger starts to snicker. The rest of us join in, laughing at the irony.

“Yeah, here we are on a Monday, having cocktails on the patio and ‘times are tough’,” Roger says, pointing out the obvious.

We all continue to laugh, but it feels a bit ominous, like the opening scenes of Cinderella Man, where you see how comfortable everyone was before things got bad.

I’m quite content here in this opening sequence. In fact, I think I’d like to spend a little more time in Act One. But as I mentioned earlier, every story requires conflict, and the first act closes with an event to begin the protagonist’s battle. Then, in Act Two, the hero experiences a crisis followed by an indefinite series of ‘struggles.’

So…what struggles lie ahead? That’s the question of the day, right? How much worse can it get? And how quickly can we get through it? I don’t know about you, but I think I’d like to skip most of Act Two and jump directly to the protagonist’s epiphany, when the hero realizes the need for change, changes, and proceeds to live happily ever after.

Of course, real life doesn’t follow a plot template. Then again, each of us plays the hero in our own life story, and it’s comforting to think that no matter what lies ahead, our story will end with a Happily Ever After. So - in the spirit of the story - as protagonists, I think we have to ask ourselves, what change are we fighting? What can we learn from our struggle? When will we realize the need for change?

Now I’ve promised not to talk politics, and that’s not what I’m doing here. I’m not talking about “Change” in the campaign slogan sense of the word. I’m talking about personal change. Because, just like the characters in our storybooks, each of us has a Flaw and we’re all resisting Change, even when it’s for the better.

Personally, I think I’m still struggling with the “take-my-blessings-for-granted” flaw. I certainly hope it doesn’t take losing everything to learn my lesson, but if this were a real story, that’s probably how I’d write it. So I suppose I should be thankful that my life isn’t a novel, and hopefully, I won’t have to experience the drama of Act Two in order to become a better, more appreciative person in Act Three.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, while I’m scared of what lies ahead, I’m intrigued too. Whatever it is, I feel confident that we will get through it, but I’m on the edge of my seat to see exactly how it plays out…