We are South Africans, we live in a dream world

My 28-year-old son, who is fanatical about running, phoned me one evening after a road race: “It went well.

I’m not in perfect condition because I don’t train enough, but I was second.”

After discussing his race, I decided to drop the bomb. “Your sister had her first athletics meeting at her new school,” I told him.

“How did she do?” he asked.

“She was seventh,” I said.

“Seventh out of the entire Grade R group?” he asked. “That’s not half bad!”

“No,” I admitted. “Seventh in her heat.”

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The phone was quiet for a few seconds. “How many girls ran in that heat?”

“Seven,” I replied. “Wait, I took a video. I’ll send it to you.”

He phoned back much later.

“She ran the 60m in 18.3 seconds. Her start needs work. And her arm action is completely wrong.”

I don’t think he will recover from the shock soon, but the five-year old Egg is comfortable with her performance. She may not be the best sprinter in “big school”, but nobody can match her when it comes to self-belief. She told everyone at school she’s a great golfer “because daddy and I play sometimes”.

Which is not entirely true – we played putt-putt once and she was even worse than me, the proud holder of two awards for the worst player at two golf days.

Of course, she’s not the only South African with slightly more than a healthy dose of confidence.

The lovely Snapdragon is convinced she’s a compassionate, friendly person. I, at times, think I’m still young and the rather large belly I see in the mirror is merely an optical illusion.

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But it extends to organisations too. Take our ruling party, for instance. They firmly believe that they are doing a great job at running our wonderful country. They believe corruption is a minor problem and cadre deployment is a
wonderful idea.

Like Egg, their confidence is misplaced and is totally unrelated to the real world. Our official opposition believes
it is a strong voice against the ruling party. It isn’t. But I don’t think we should overdo criticism. We’re South Africans.

We tend to live in a dream world as far as our own perceived greatness goes. Why spoil things with reality?