Focus Creates Blindness – The Quest for Personal Discovery
When you are focused, you are blinded to distractions. Focus does not mean you won’t face distractions. It means choosing what matters for your mission.
I remember after I joined a youth club my friends from my hood felt I had changed. The braai on Fridays. The dice on Sundays. I stopped showing up. They said I thought I was better than them. What they missed was this: my mission changed my priorities, and my priorities changed my circle. I could not build a theatre group to pull learners from gangsterism while I still sat where the gangs recruited. I needed resources that would fuel the mission, not drain it.
Focus costs you company before it pays you with results.
Being focused does not make you immune to criticism or scrutiny. People will study your moves and misunderstand your silence. I like what King Misuzulu kaZwelithini, the current King of the Zulu Nation, once said: “Hear them, but don’t listen to them.” That attitude lets you direct your energy to what is important. You hear the noise so you’re not naive. But you don’t listen, because listening means obedience. And you can’t obey every voice and still obey your purpose.
As a young person, you face many distractions — from your peers and from what society expects of you. They expect you to be available, agreeable, and everywhere. They call you arrogant for saying no. They call you lost for walking a different road. They call you a sell-out for choosing books over the corner. Focus means accepting that blindness.
You cannot see every invitation, every opinion, every fight. If you try, you lose your mission.
I learned that the day I chose the youth club over the street corner. I became blind to approval and blind to noise. But I could finally see purpose. I could see the face of the learner who left the gang because the stage gave him a different script. I could see the school we were trying to save.
*Focus creates blindness. And sometimes, blindness is how leaders see clearly.*
Sicelo Ngubane is a social entrepreneur, an inspirational speaker and a youth activist with interests in leadership and personal development. Has been with Love Life, Sibikwa Arts Centre and the South African Association of Youth Clubs
