Proudly South African?

We were talking about not reading the news for a while. Just because being informed may not be good for the soul. I listen to 702, read the news, follow lots of journos on twitter and am usually pretty informed, but lately I think all this information is adding to my stress levels. Compounding what is, granted, a stressful time in my life in general. I don't know if "ignoring" the negative is the right thing to do, or is that just how we are going to survive? I am positive by nature, but hells bells the last few weeks things have really been rough. A large group of my neighbours in my suburb is linked via BBM, thus we have minute by minute community news - usually crime related. I have BBM group messages like "Four robberies in Sixpence street yesterday" or "Suspicious people walking the streets" all the time. I support any community based activities because we need to be communities to beat this, but I found that knowing about what is happening to my neighbours is scary and stressful and worrying beyond what I expected.
I am positive by nature, optimistic and maybe even idealistic. I have often been the odd one out in discussions about this country. I wonder though, if getting older eroded some of this in me or if somehow I missed a trick and "believing" got harder.
The ability to believe?  I want and choose to believe that people cannot be this bad to the core and that things will get better. But recently, I just started worrying. Worrying if the alarm is good enough or if the electric fence is up to scratch or if we should install more gates or maybe we should install cameras? I just don't feel safe, I feel insecure about the future. I don't like this feeling. Are things worse now or are we actually improving things and I am just experiencing a delayed reaction. Reports about corruption: Is that getting worse or are we just reporting more on it because it is newsworthy? How much of my tax money is actually being used to build this country? This country that I love so dearly.
As we sung the anthem on Saturday at Starlight Classics, images of our athletes from the O- and Paralympics were flashed on huge screens and we all commented about what a "feel good moment" it was. How "we needed something like that". After the weeks of Marikana and the miners striking, Julius, Mangaung, Limpopo etcetera etcetera, I wonder if we can somehow bring some pride and some "feel good" back in our lives, be true to our real natures.
 
I have told the story of my Great Wall Marathon run and what it meant to me. And one aspect that really struck home, because it reminds me that South Africans are special, have featured in a business presentation I gave a few months ago. I ran the Marathon in May 2012, one of the greatest adventures of my life. About 2000 athletes/runners/joggers started the various distances (about 1000 did the marathon = 42.2km). And for the rest of my life I will remember the race and how wonderful it was to be there, one of 27 South Africans! Not just another athlete, a South African. I can easily visualise how the athletes felt at the Olympics (as a South African). As I was running I met up with SA runners and we all greeted each other "Hello South Africa" having never met before. Every SA runner wore our flag in some way. From beanies to skirts to shirts to socks. I wore the flag on a specially made running top. What struck me was that more than half of the runners in the race were Americans, and I never spotted a single USA flag. It made me proud to be a South African, and I realised that I am not the only one with a Proudly South African spirit.
Truly, we have gotten something right in this country! Brand SA is in our hearts. Now all we have to do is live it. I am not sure if the negative stuff should be taken in in small doses? Or if we should focus on our own communities only and hope it will make a difference. But maybe it is just living day by day, focussing on the good stuff, like the spirit of our flag-bearing athletes in London. I don't know the answers but I am trying really hard to remind myself of the "good" when the "bad" seems to be everywhere.