Loadshedding

Have you ever heard of the term "loadshedding"? Doesn't it sound vulgar? "Loadshedding"! And it is vulgar, it is offensive and it is enough to make you crawl under your bed, chew your toenails, fry them and pretend that its Cornflakes. It is simply that mind boggling.

What am I talking about? Powercuts. ESKOM, the company in charge of South Africa's electricity supply is busy with maintenance on their generators, have the problem of wet coal and possess a number of generators which are simply "out-of-order". This has led to a nationwide rationing of electricity, where suburbs and towns have to take turns to sit in the dark. Frustrating, believe me, especially after I had to deal with this and write exams yesterday. I climbed in my car and realized that I needed petrol. I peeked into my wallet, to find that I had no money. And so, I had to go from suburb to suburb on petrolfumes, looking for any minuscule sign of electricity so that I could draw money. I eventually managed this, but this particular suburb did not have any petrolstations, and so I had to explore again. Four suburbs later I found a station. The attendant inserted the nozzle, and as my friend Murphy would have it... it was this suburbs turn! AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!

What should have taken me 20 minutes to get to the exam hall, turned out to be one-and-a-half hours!

Loadshedding - this is what happens when there is a great demand and a limited supply. If not managed, there is total breakdown. Although I found the whole thing distasteful, I managed to learn a lesson from it anyway. In my life I have many different individuals, institutions and responsibilities that tug away at me. In the short- to medium term this is ok. The load may be heavy, but dealt with in short spurts, can actually be done. Management of this stress is vitally important. There are so many needs, but only one of me. If I do not manage this well, then I might just have to do a bit of loadshedding myself. Were I not to shut down some functions temporarily, I might just suffer total breakdown myself. What will happen if this were to take place? Well, the honest answer is that these needs will just move along to the next "supplier of energy".

So, I'm reassessing, rearranging, prioritizing.