Page 43 - Adopt-a-School Foundation 2016-2017 Annual Report

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Kegomoditswe Seleke
Grade 9
Lodirile secondary school

get phAse

The experience of overcoming like, my wardrobe is
fear full of out dated old
fashioned clothes.
Fear. It’s a four letter word that has
the power to change a person life in a My journey of overcoming
tremendous way. It has changed my life in that fear began when I
a way that I have become wiser and more was scrolling through the
vigilant in everything I do. pictures on my phone and I
came across a picture that was
While some people are afraid of spider, captioned, Be you, do you, love you.
snakes, closed spaces and foreigners, I had I literally stopped scrolling and looked
an unusual fear and that was the fear of at that picture for a very long time. That
not fitting in. I was always worried about picture had only six words but it said a lot
fitting in, being like everyone else, being to me. I went to the local internet cafe and
liked and accepted in the modern society. used my pocket money to have that picture
I was constantly comparing myself with printed out. I took the picture and put it in
other people. In my eyes, I was never good my bedside drawer and I would look at it
enough. Every time I told myself that I’m every morning when, I woke up and every
at my best, something or someone in my night before I went to sleep. In that way I
head just told me to try harder. I would would keep reminding myself of how much I
ask my mother for money to buy clothes wanted to overcome this fear.
even though I knew that she didn’t have it
because she was not working at that time. The picture helped me in many ways. It
helped me in terms of how I see life. I
I had become a big pot of insecurity. realised that I have to live for myself and
Nothing I did was ever right, or at least that’s nobody else. I started expressing myself
what I thought. I sometimes came up with through poetry. I write and recite poems
excuses, when my friends wanted to go out whenever I feel uneasy or just when I feel
with me because I felt like I’m not looking the need to express myself.
good enough or what will people say when
they see me wearing unfashionable clothes? Now I live for myself, I’m doing my own
thing and I don’t worry about fitting in. After
The fuel to my undying fire of fear was all, I was born to stand out.
media. There were some shows that I used
to watch where they would show all the
latest trends so in my mind. I was always

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