The Need To Be Self.

A book called Power and Innocence by Rollo May best explains how I am feeling. How I am feeling is feeling like I am in a cage. A cage within me. It is a feeling of being trapped, yet the key is a stone’s throw from reach. Seeing this key so close, yet so far, creates a great frustration from being powerless to get that key. And from this book, it explains this frustration brilliantly.

To explain how the book gives me an idea of the feeling I am experiencing, it is best that I provide context. Context I am not proud of, but it's necessary for this essay. Honesty and transparency have always been the key pillars of this blog, and I won’t shy away from that now.

When I quit my job in 2024, I believed that I would be able to find a way to make it. More accurately, that in a few months I would find my true success. I had the extraordinary confidence in myself that I would find a way to make it on my own.

I had reached the limit with employment. Employment, to me, felt like I was merely accepting the crumbs that were available. I felt I was way more valuable at the workplace. I also left feeling lost, being only known by an employee number. That in this world, Thando Xaba did not exist.

And after a very scary anxiety attack on campus, I took that as a sign to file my resignation. With that, my employment chapter drew to a close. Little did I know that the decision would be single-handedly the most important, life-turning decision of my life.

The first obvious element in this decision was finance. But little did I know how impactful it would be. The change started slowly. At first, a few months after resigning, things were okay. I was still able to live as I used to, to a degree. But soon, it was evident that I was no longer working. It became clear that I no longer had a monthly salary.

At first, it was the small things. I paid off my credit card and proceeded to close it. I then stopped LiquidMoly; I think the name of the company was. These guys, basically, you paid them monthly, and when it was time for a service for the car, they handled the expenses. But the true moment that I realised that I was no longer employed and no longer getting a steady income was when I had to cancel my car’s insurance.

I love my car, PacMan. So having insurance always relaxed my mind. Even though I know that these insurance guys can sometimes rob you blind, there is a peace of mind that comes with knowing you have insurance. After I stopped paying insurance, I could not drive for about two months. I would order from Mr D or walk to town. I was extremely uncomfortable driving around, knowing that if anything happened, I would find it difficult to repair PacMan. But, fortunately, I overcame that fear and got PacMan back on the road.

Lucky for me (not sure whether to call it luck), I never had, and still do not, have a love for luxury items. Studying Marketing taught me that most things that people consider luxury items (especially us in the Middle Class) are really cheap products labelled by a premium brand. The bags, clothes, scarves, shoes, almost everything that most of us, in the middle class, spend thousands of rands on are mostly cheaply made products that are plastered with a premium house’s brand. So that’s something that never affected me. But strangely, at this point in life, for some reason, I had a longing for them.

It felt somewhat like an anemoia, the nostalgic feeling of being at a place you have never been. Perhaps it was the feeling that I knew I once could afford those items, just that I chose not to buy them. But this feeling quickly subsided as I remembered that those items would have never brought me joy anyway.

About seven months after I resigned, my first breakthrough occurred. I found myself in business. This business, at the time, was paying me twice what I was making while I was employed. I thought that I had found my salvation. But Paulo Coelho in The Alchemist explains that the Universe tends to do that.

The Universe, when you are on the path destined for you, will give you a sign that you are on the right track. But like beginner gains at the gym, what the universe gives you in the beginning is a façade. It is the wool over your face. I believe it is the light before it reaches the end of the tunnel. Those “beginner gains” only materialise at the beginning but do not sustain themselves through the only journey.

About a year later (this is late 2025), the beginner gains ended. Suddenly, the income vanished almost overnight. To where now, every strategic textbook I have ever studied tells me that I should sell the business. There is nothing left for it to survive. It is in ICU, and the doctor is asking whether I should keep the pipes turned on. As much as he does not say it, he knows that I know that each minute that the pipes are on, it costs me money.

It is the first time in my 32 years of living that I experience a situation where I do not know how to make money. It is the first time in my 32 years of living that I find myself not sure where the next paycheck will come from. It is the first time in my 32 years of living that I have to admit, with great shame, I am broke.

Hence, from late 2025 until now, I have come to fully appreciate the words of Fyodor Dostoevsky. He once said in Poor Folk that a poor man cannot see God’s World as it is. If we were to write the opposite meaning of this sentence, we can say that a poor man sees the world as it is.

This part that I am about to write is very uncomfortable. Because it is a manifestation of those powerful words Dostoevsky wrote in 1844 Russia, which I am experiencing in 2026 South Africa. But I will stay to the purpose of this blog: to be honest and transparent, and for whoever is going through this to know they are not alone.

I will begin with the first area where I understood the power of these words. I used to read and watch a lot of cases where wives file for divorce when the husband was no longer able to provide. The husband would be retrenched, the wife would stay for a year or two, and eventually file for divorce. The most extreme case I ever read was of a woman who divorced her husband when he had stage 4 leukaemia. Because of the illness, the man was no longer able to work; therefore, the house and medical bills fell on the woman. She decided it was too much, and so, filed for divorce.

At the time, I would think that these women were merely married for money. That if you love someone, you will understand that forever is a long time. That in that long time, there were Summers and Winters. “Through health and sickness” were sacred vows said in front of a man of God. Those are vows that you take for the person you love. Until I developed the eyes that can no longer see God’s World as it is, I saw the fallacy in that vow.

I developed eyes that see the world as it is. That in this world, psychologists have determined that the average honeymoon phase of any relationship is roughly two years. That in this world, in our country, 65% of women will file for divorce in the first five years of their marriage. That indeed, most women want to be led in our African system of love.

What I realised is that without money, as a man, you have no power. Without power, as a man, you can not lead. And as a man, if you cannot lead, your woman will lose all respect that she ever had for you. This happened to me.

At the time, the relationship I was in had entered its second year. The honeymoon phase was over. The moment I experienced financial difficulties and lost the ability to lead the relationship, I was no longer respected. It happened that at the pinnacle of the loss of respect, I was told that I was “too much.”

Too much because I displayed weakness. Weakness from stressing about how life was taking a turn for the worst. Weakness from worrying about how I’m losing the ability to generate money. Weakness because I needed to be loved; more accurately, I needed to feel love from my woman.

I was treated like a joke. I have written about this experience quite extensively in other essays. And even mentioning it brings up painful memories that I am yet to heal from. It is those remainders in life that, as men, we don’t speak about emotions because we think it makes us strong. No, far from it. We don’t speak about our emotions because no one cares about them. And if the person you love sees you weak for experiencing a Winter in your life, it reinforces this belief.

And trust me, every girl I have dated will say, in the beginning, be open with your emotions. She will say, “Trust me with your heart.” She will say all these sweet words that try to make you feel that she is a safe place.

The moment you take her words to be true and try to make her your safe place, you quickly realise that it isn’t. And this period has brutally reminded me how not a safe place it is to ever leave your emotions with a woman. Those words are the ones that led Eve to eat the apple in Eden. And we know how that turned out.

You might wonder, what about friends or family? Surely then these areas are where a man can find some emotional safety. I thought so too. I thought so when I had money. When that went away, the thought went away with it.

I’ll start with friends. Iceboys, I have learned that they are not found. They are not random men who chose to stick with the rich cadre. Iceboys are created in the toxicity of male friendships. I witnessed this almost happening to me.

When you have money, you share equally among friends. The night out, the braai, those finances are split equally among friends. And with me, I try to cover all the expenses because I have what they call blind loyalty. I had a friend who was going through a rough patch, and I organised and bought what was necessary for a “we are with you” gathering I planned for him. I am that kind of friend. Because I am that kind of friend, I keep my friendship circle very small because I have been taken advantage of before because of my blind loyalty.

This year I have not been able to do that. One day, my friends were organising a braai. One friend of mine decided that he would cover most of the expenses. Under the guise of friendship, they made me feel comfortable for not contributing. But during that braai, I realised how, all of a sudden, they wanted me to do things.

“Thando, get the drinks.”

“Thando, open the fries so we can eat while we braai”

Thando do this, Thando do that. And with each Thando do this, Thando do that, I refused. We’d laugh it off, but a few minutes later, “Thando do this, Thando do that.” That day, I told myself that I would not hang out with these friends anymore. My pride will never allow me to be made someone’s servant, no matter how long the friendship has been.

Lastly, family. I am the lastborn of the family. When I was employed, or had money of my own, as much as I was the lastborn, there was that respect that I am an adult, old enough to make my own decisions. Ever since entering this stage of my life, that respect that I am an adult has totally gone out the window.

And as an adult, you see your family differently. Yes, I see my brother, my sister and my parents, but now with grown eyes, I also see their flaws and faults. I see them more as fellow adults rather than as siblings and as parents. When we are young, the respect we usually have for those older than us is due to age. With our parents, it's because they put a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. But when you are older, this dynamic quickly changes.

As I wrote in the previous essay, I have no relationship with my parents. The only relationship they have with me was and still is a one-sided affair. So I find myself in a position where I am trying to figure my life out; they think they can still impose that one-sided relationship on me. They still think they can talk to me like when I was a child.

And obviously, I am not a child. And so, I will be reminded when I was “a good boy who went to church”. Haven’t been to church in over 12 years now. Do not think I will ever go back. I will be shown a picture of when I was young and be told, “when you were still my son”, which translates to “when I told you what to do, and you did it.”

I am always told what to do. If not directly, I will be told what to do indirectly. I receive random job posts. I am made to feel I made the wrong decision leaving my job, even though I was going clinically insane while employed. Your time is not respected, as you will be told someone or something is coming home, so cancel whatever plans you had. Your being is not respected. You are confined into being treated like a child, and when you are the lastborn, this confinement is strong enough to hold Thanos and Hulk combined.

And herein lies what I learned from Power and Innocence. In the book, Rollo May discusses the need for self-attainment and how those who are restricted from self-attainment end up feeling a great frustration. Like the one I am feeling currently.

He explains it with the Civil Movements of African Americans. The Movements were always centred around African Americans wanting to be respected by the system that be. The system was severely blocking African Americans from achieving self-attainment. This blockage eventually gets so intense that it erupts. Either non-violently, like with Dr Martin Luther King, or violently, like Malcom X and the Black Panthers. And this translates to the individual as well.

In a romantic relationship, you want respect as a man. Without money, you won’t have that respect. With friends, you want respect as equals. Without money, you won’t have that respect. With family, you want respect as your own person. Without money, you won’t have that respect.

That creates the blockage, the cage that keeps you in this confined space. In this confined space, the frustrations build up. I am not a violent person, so my explosion (or rather implosion) will not be physical.

With my friends, I cut them off. I have way too much pride for that nonsense that was happening. Relationships: I pulled a fake account, and I realised that the girl was actively ignoring me. Later I found out things that she continues to deny. I have written about this in another essay. My family, I am getting there; to that limit.

I am trying not to because I know they have nothing but love for me. But growing up has taught me that the agape love that comes from families is like a rose. A rose is beautiful. But a rose has spiders under its petals and thorns around its stem that, if you are not careful, will hurt you.

Indeed, it is the first time in my 32 years of existence that I find myself in this position. It is an extremely foreign position. It is a position I never envisioned, even in my worst-case scenarios, that I’d ever find myself in. Indeed, it is all new to me.

But I walk by faith and not by sight. And I thank the Lord for pulling me away from the church. Because the faith I have is not one covered by the words of charlatans who are using people’s faith to enrich themselves. Nor is it covered by the words of a pastor who takes the Bible literally, missing the key lessons hidden in plain sight.

The faith I have is the one that made me see the beginner gains. It is the one that reminds me that Joseph was thrown in the well before becoming King. It is the faith that reminds me that Santiago had to communicate with the winds and be beaten by bandits before finding his treasure. It is the faith that reminds me that Jesus had to walk alone in the desert before fully understanding He is the Son of God.

Indeed, this is a new world I find myself in. A world where I am fighting for self-attainment. A world that I see as it is; unforgiving and ruthless to the man who has no money. But I serve a Living God. And I don’t write that as motivation. I don’t write that as a pick-me-up. I write that with the eyes of faith I walk in. I write that knowing that I am where I am supposed to be.

Before it can be a mighty pine tree, it first has to fight the hardness of the ground. Before the child is born, the mother has to experience pain. Before it can be a powerful eagle, it first needs to crack its shell. As Edd, from Ed, Edd and Eddy said (quoting the poet Kahlil Gibran), “pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”

This internal pain I am experiencing is breaking the shell that was created when I saw the world when I had money. It created a false image of what life truly is. I am getting to see the world as it truly is.

And so, this pain is a rebirth of myself. It is a relearning of who I am and where in this world I belong. It is the true understanding of who Thando Xaba is

It feels like a good cocktail. The poison from the alcohol is breaking my body, my heart, my soul apart. But from it, it is creating a blissful experience. Indeed, it is not nice. But it is surely beautiful.