Lessons from my Grandma’s time of crisis

Post 7 in this series is written by Dr Hestie Byles, FLY@UP Team, University of Pretoria.

In January of this year we celebrated my great-grandmother's 100th birthday. I have always been fascinated by her stories, especially her stories of the wartime and how they survived by eating pap and pumpkin. What amazed me most, however, is how she would always turn the story around to focus on the positives: “We had enough to eat my child,” she would say, or “We had so much love my child.” Today, across the world, we are faced with a different kind of war; a war inside our walls and especially inside our minds. Hundreds of questions and uncertainties flood our thoughts and answers are few.

But you and I are part the UP community and we will deal with this war - the coronavirus war - THE UP WAY. Will you rise up with me and take up the challenge to keep working towards your Finish Line? Will you take up the challenge to continually turn your mind to the positives?

We may not have the choice to go out of our homes or to go and visit our friends and family, but we do have a choice to become an online community who encourage, inspire and strengthen each other. It may not be our choice to be under lockdown but is our choice how we will respond to it. Let us share with each other the brilliant and creative ideas we come up with to make this time a time to remember; a time to gather stories that we will tell our great-grandchildren.

Be creative, be purposeful, be driven! Keep working hard at your academics (Click here to see how) and keep working hard at important relationships. Let us come out of lockdown stronger, more resilient and more prepared academically than we ever thought possible. We as a UP community believe in you, our student, now perhaps more than ever. Write to us or send a voice clip to [email protected] and share your ways of managing your academics and social life during lockdown. Click here to listen to motivational clips that fellow students already shared.

Make the most of every second at home: socially, emotionally and academically and take inspiration from Nelson Mandela’s words: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

Remember, the Finish Line is Yours!  

Warm greetings