NORMAN CLOETE

MY HERITAGE is more than where I have been or where I come from.

It is where I am now and where I am going. It is the people I have met throughout my life, it is the lessons learnt, the mistakes made, the struggles endured, the victories won and the hope that remains for the future.

It is not just everything that we’ve inherited. It is the contemporary activities, meanings, and behaviours we’ve adopted now. I would much rather my heritage be determined by the person I am now, instead of who I once was.

Too often, I think, we are stuck in the past and what we perceive our heritage to be.

Heritage, for me, can be made now. It’s in the way I conduct myself and how I treat people. If I am to reclaim my heritage one day, it would be based on my actions now. It is not that the past is not important; I just choose not to be defined by it.

The past is my constant companion. A reminder of what not to do and, at times, what to repeat. But it is not the light that shines on the road I travel now.

Cloete is news editor and senior writer