It's hard to be an optimist in the dark

A few weeks ago, during the intense loadshedding that we experienced, I was talking to a friend who is a successful business person and community leader, about the challenges we face both in South Africa and globally and how to keep a positive mindset during these unprecedented times. His response to me was yes there are challenges like inflation, rising interest rates, high petrol costs and corruption but "it's hard to be an optimist in the dark"!

We are now at stage 6 and in response to my question "How are things going"?  another friend, also a successful businessman stated: "Herschy, nothing gets me down more than loadshedding." I totally agree and I think that many of our fellow South Africans who have access to electricity would agree to! Even those fortunate to have a generator breathe a sigh of relief when the power comes back on.

What is it about loadshedding that gets us down so much and how do we navigate our mindset in the dark?

Simon Sinek talks about optimism as the belief that things will get better. It's not blind positivity or naivety and maybe that's the starting point. Each time the lights go out, our optimism and belief in this country dims (excuse the pun). Simply put: Our hopes are dashed. We know that rising interest rates, fuel costs and inflation exert pain on all of us but economic cycles come and go and so will this cycle! In the meantime, whether it be in our businesses or in our homes, we have some degree of ability to make a plan, manage our costs and hopefully wait it out until the cycle changes.

Loadshedding is different. We are far less sure that the loadshedding will come to an end. On top of 'dashed hopes' is a sense of helplessness in our ability to making a contribution to fixing the problem even if for ourselves. At best we can reduce the impact of loadshedding temporarily.

As a business owner with strategies and plans to grow our company, part of the plan is to employ more people and so in some small but significant way, make a contribution to chipping away at our country's devastating unemployment rate. With loadshedding, I'm simply an order taker.

So how do we navigate through the dimming optimism and dashed hopes of load shedding?

Face up to the reality of the situation! The optimist within me says be pragmatic and take a practical approach but it's hard to do that when its difficult to even visualise the problem never mind a solution. When we hear that a power station has tripped, at best I can picture the little 'green' switch on my mains board going down and then pushing it up with a broomstick so I don't get shocked. The harsh reality is that the problem is here for a while. That doesn't mean we should lose our optimism that the power problem can be fixed but facing up to the reality helps to prevent our hopes from being dashed each time the lights go out.

Fill your emotional bank account! Whether it be surrounding yourself with positive people, living your purpose, big or small, waking up with a positive affirmation each day, making a difference when you pull up at a traffic light or getting involved in a community initiative, fill your emotional bank account. That way when loadshedding makes a withdrawal, you've got reserves!

Put yourself in control of the things you can control! We can't control loadshedding so don't let it become the 'main thing'. At best we can minimise its impact for short periods of time for those who are privileged to have an additional power source. Putting yourself in control of the parts of your life that you can influence, whether it be work or personal, creates self-belief and builds resilience. Self-belief and resilience will go a long way to defending yourself against the helplessness of loadshedding.

I may be putting my head above the parapet here but I do want put forward a view that is mine (and may be shared by others). I have purposefully not mentioned ESKOM as the problem but rather loadshedding that is the chronic symptom of our country's political and economic leadership, of corruption, of poor or no decision making because loadshedding is a problem that can be fixed. I know how frustrating it can be to do my work with an old and slowing laptop or no Wi-Fi. Spare a thought for the many people at ESKOM, current leadership included who are doing their best!