In Conversation with Ratiba Israel Mohale

RATIBA ISRAEL MOHALE

So who is Ratiba? He is a young man passionate about community development and anything that involves impacting the youth, because young people are the future, this is through working on their perspectives and looking at what impact they will have on the country and growing their impact in this world. His work is not limited to gender but expands to every young person, some describe him as an ally for women empowerment and some a feminist. On a day to day he is knowledgeable in the field of Geology and works for Bloom marketing as a digital account executive.

Having shared with me his grand passion for the youth, I was curious to know how he incorporates that into his daily life. This is what he had to say; YOU CAN NEVER PRETEND TO BE SOMETHING YOU ARE NOT. The first thing is living out who you are. Mostly what I do as I have quite a reach on social media platforms, I daily put out a positive message, it is not a job per se, it comes from within and my hope is for it to impact their day. It is important for me to be the same person in real life too. I think it is important to put your life or message in a way that it will inspire and even spark greatness, there are people that ordinarily we cannot reach. Social media has given us an opportunity to impact lives without being where they are.

What he mentioned above is so important as it speaks to the responsibility we have if we have access to a platform to influence change or to inspire, the best we can do is inspire someone to discover who they are.

Speaking of who you are, we speak of purpose. I had to get his view on what purpose is and whether he has discovered his own. This is what he had to say; Purpose is the reason why you were born and what you are here to do on earth. It takes a while to discover but you must be doing something. It is in the process of action that you discover purpose. If you are chilling waiting to discover it, you cannot encounter things that will channel you into finding your purpose.

As for me I have partly discovered my purpose because part of the purpose is impacting lives, I discovered this because of the organizations that I am involved in. It truly gives me joy and fulfillment to hear someone who was in matric come back to me and say they got a bachelor’s admission or they passed these are some of the things that helped me discover this. I’ve discovered that my life is to impact lives of other people. There are things that are part of my purpose that I am yet to fully understand. It is in the process of action that your purpose is discovered.

There are vast individuals who have believed their careers to be one with their purposes.

The careers we choose be it right or wrong, they become a vehicle to our purpose, there is nothing that you do that is in vain. Whatever you are doing now even if you don’t like it you still go there, the fact that you go to work and do your duties, you then discover that you aren’t supposed to be there that’s your journey. The journey is meant to help you introspect and realize what’s not for you. Someone once said that procrastination is sometimes not a waste of time, what you do during your procrastination might be your purpose better yet it might be something that might drive you into your
 purpose. Look out for this as it may lead you to discovering your purpose.  

So careers are merely drivers to discovering your purpose therefore we need to go through those processes. Other careers speak to who you are and what you need to do. I’ll use an example, if I go work at social development sector in the Government that is already feeding into my purpose. There are careers that are interlinked with your purpose and others drive you into discovering who you are. You need the process in order that you are able to question all you do, in order to discover what you are meant to do.

The reality is that there are people or it could be you reading this who has felt like you are not good enough or depression may have had a go at you and your thinking capacity may be different, we then engaged on how one even deals with the inferiority complex or even healing from mental health issues. We cannot ignore the inferiority complex, it is evident in all our spaces, conversations we have or do not have. Ratiba shared this; Every one of us has doubts, every one of us has fears, one would think they cannot do something, they are not the one to do it, or maybe it is for certain people. Out of all that fear you need to start telling yourself that you are also capable. Many people generally don’t want to do something because they are afraid to fail. Simply crippled by fear of failure, thus they say it is so and so’s thing. People want to be in a comfort space, I always say comfort zone is a beautiful space but nothing ever goes there.

We need to realize that we can never go on in this life without failing. There is a quote that says “Failure is the first step towards success”. People must understand that failure is part of the journey, everyone fails at some point in time but that does not make them less capable.

There is a great sensitivity I feel when it comes to mental health issues. How does one use the mind to solve a problem within the mind? Can the blind lead the blind? If you have overcome mental health issues, Ratiba says; the fact that you were able to overcome that problem makes you one step ahead. The battle then becomes can I do this next thing? It won’t be easy you must remember there is nothing that comes on a silver platter. You must challenge yourself and believe you are capable. If we maintain that thinking around us in discovering what must happen, it will help us. The issue is probably in the perspective we have towards what we can become.

Ratiba continued to say; Some may fear running an organization because they believe that they are not a leader, the truth is that each and every-one of us is a leader and you have to lead yourself first. You wake up every morning and lead your life. A friend wrote a book called leading through the mirror, you have to lead yourself to do every task you have given yourself through the day.

I believe you should conquer fear then move ahead. We all fight battles although sometimes we are not strong enough to get through, maybe we don’t always have to be strong we just need to be fearless, we just need to be bold and focus on that we are capable regardless of our incapacitation. He went on to share some of his experiences and how he chattered ahead.

“I remember last year 2019 I had to go stay at home for 6 months. Imagine through that process you are at home you are not doing anything, there are a lot of thoughts going on in your head. You left home looking for a better life and now you are back in Limpopo. In pursuit of a better life you got to varsity, failed and had to repeat. When at home you begin to ask yourself ‘Am I even able to finish this degree?’ It was even worse for me Grace, I am the first one to go to University at home and a first born. I needed to be able to motivate myself, motivate my little sister who was in varsity too at the time and not be negative about education because I failed. Over the years I trained myself to always look for the positive, so that’s how I handled that. I then wrote down things I could do even if I do not have a degree. I wrote them down and told myself Ratiba you are capable and still have a lot to share. I remember telling myself that You are going through this in order to have a story to tell, your real story inspires other people. So if anyone is where I was at this point, you should train yourself to focus on the good, everything that happens for a reason, so find out what the reason is for you”

With the above that Ratiba has shared I remember a number of times I have also had to push myself through thought processes that were not necessarily good and which were around considering settling for a normal life and forgetting about my purpose. The truth is there is nothing normal we are all unique and have something to do on this earth. Whatever we do or wherever we go like Jonah we will end up at Nineveh fulfilling what God intends for our lives, the success and everything is not for our glory but all for the glory of God. These are the words of my great mentor Lele Modise.

It’s great to discover and know that you are on the right path but being consistent with the energy you put in, with the vision you have is a whole other ball-game. Ratiba shared with me how he stays consistent, “ what makes me consistent is answering the question “ does this thing you do make you happy?” It is not a job, it becomes an extension of who you are. Is it really an extension of who I am? or do I try too hard to be that person?

Consistency comes from loving what you do. You aren’t trying to prove a point or doing it for show. When you discover your purpose and what you are to do, consistency comes from doing what is an extension of who you are. It will be a case of you just being yourself.

Most people fail because they haven’t fallen in love with what they do. Whatever you then do you do at ease. Every-day I wake up, pray and find what am are supposed to do that day. It feeds onto the bigger picture of what I want to do or be. This state I am in now is because I have gone through much. Someone said ‘If you want to be successful in this life you need to start doing things you don’t like to do to get to do what you love doing’ “.

Finally, we got to that part where he pours out his heart, this is what he had to say; It is high time young people have conversations that are building, life changing and challenge the status quo, that help us reflect. You must know that you have to do all it takes to get to where you want to be, what that means is you will do things you do not like doing, work a job you do not like, choose a career you discover is not for you but all those things lead you to where you are supposed to be. All those things need to be done so that they help you discover your purpose. There is no timeline to say by the age of 25 or 30 you will discover your purpose it does not work that way. The journey will not be easy but make sure you enjoy it. Failure is part of the journey. It does not make you any less capable, you are still capable. Lastly we must stop relegating things to certain people and say this is for who and who. Even if your journey is different from someone else out of that start doing. It is in the doing, in the action, in this process that’s when you discover your purpose. My hope is that everyone discovers their purpose and live a purposeful life and become young people who make an impact in this country and even the continent”.