A couple of months ago, I got to drive with my friend between Pretoria and Delmas for several times. On the way there, it's mostly farms all the way on either side of the road. You can imagine the smell at times, especially when they are fertilizing the place. They plant different crops, from potatoes to cabbage, maize to beans, etc. Along the way, there’s poultry and other animal farms as well as animal feeds and manure manufacturing companies, sort of

My friend would complain at times, “it smells very bad here”, remember that place we passed on last time? I’d ask, that’s where we are now. He would claim, “but Madala, it feels like it's worse today”. But having traveled through that route for too long, in some days I couldn't tell whether it was worse or not. Maybe my nose was starting to get used to the situation as a result, I couldn’t feel the smell like I did the first time passing there. That happens a lot in our lives, you notice when it starts, but with time you turn to accept it and learn to live with it. That’s not wrong if the situation is beyond your control, but you have to try to beat it when you can, rise above it.

But visiting one of my favorite grocery stores one afternoon, I admired a fresh, neatly washed and reasonable priced bag of potatoes, packed on the shelves. They looked completely different from what you’d imagine they’ll look like, considering the smell of them when passing where they’re planted, the place where my friend and I usually complain about the smell whenever we pass there.

Coming to think of it, if they can turn out that beautiful, which means the worst is not always that bad because potatoes turned out wonderfully even though they grew in the worst environments. I’m certain if those potatoes were humans, they’d go on strike on daily basis complaining about their living conditions, because the place smells so bad that no one could tolerate living there on full time basis. Unfortunately, they are not humans, instead of complaining they turn out beautifully. They grow to become what we admire when nicely served on a plate.

You always complain when you drive down to the farms and places like that, saying it smells bad, it's dirty, it's unhealthy and everything else you say about those places, but have you ever wonder where your potatoes come from, why your maize and other vegetables grow so fast. If you never thought of it, you have a major contribution to that in so many ways, but they all turn out beautifully.

We always try to be professional and everything in our lives, that doesn't seem to always work if you ask me, maybe it works for other people, but so far, for me, it doesn't. You draft those professional CV’s but still not get an invite for an interview, when you do, you dress up trying to impress and still not get the job. You behave very well in the community, respect everyone and still get labeled and called by unacceptable names. You look after your body, do all sorts of things to stay healthy, come winter you suffer the same consequences suffered by those who don’t care.

I think it's time we approach this life like potatoes, they don’t live professional lives, nor reckless either, but they probably accept where they are while trying to reach bigger heights. So why can’t we approach it in whatever way it poses to us? If it wants you to be professional, you let it be, if it wants you to be reckless, be it, but in a good way, we don’t want any more killers and rapists. If it wants you to dig for water on the rocks, you get it done, if you have to grow through waste material, you let it be that way.

Potatoes grow in worst conditions, but they turn out great. They become what we praise, “Chomie what are you cooking, it smells great”, but a few weeks back we were complaining, “these potatoes smell like dead rats”. They don’t complain that “we grow on waste material, we live in muddy areas” but they just turn out beautifully instead through those conditions.

You too, through the worst situation you find yourself in, grow from it. Turn to be a bag of beautiful potatoes, shoppers will admire on the shelves, your neighbors and friends would claim you look good and smell nice forgetting what they said about you a while back. Whatever it is that you’re going through right now, it can't be that bad, grow from it, turn out beautifully, make the best of that worst situation.

“It’s all about one day at a time, one day at a time”