Hello Steemians, or should I say howzit! For those of you unfamiliar howzit is slang in South Africa for hello or how's it going. Anyway, enough about that, my name is William Scott and I am a digital marketer in South Africa Johannesburg. I finished my bachelor's degree in economics and statistics 7 months ago and haven't thought about it since. This my little story of life.
Let us start at the beginning; my first 17 years of life were spent growing up in Johannesburg while I attended an all boys private school (sounds great huh?). Although not the ideal situation for a hormone fuelled 16-year-old boy I had my mates and they had me that is all we needed.
My friends and I were naughty guys, we drank, smoked and took drugs all at the fragile age of 17 but we didn't care about the future we were living in the present and loving life! I am still friends with the same guys from high school; one of them is even my business partner and my best friend.
If there was one big moment I could pull from my high school days was in my final year of school, we had random drug tests every Monday but my friends and I thought we were too smart so we used to get someone who was clean to pee in a small squeeze bottle in case we ever got called for the test. Well, this particular Monday morning I was called up, my whole world turned upside down when I heard my name, any way you can guess the rest (hint: I got expelled). I was quite hurt by this as I had spent 12 years of my life at that school and dedicated so much time and effort.
So obviously my parents were pissed, but what could they do? We just had to move on; it was challenging to find a school that would take me mid-year especially after being expelled but we found a nice semi-private school for kids with problems or who were sportsman and couldn't put as much focus on school work as a normal institution would like (did I mention I played tennis competitively until I started drinking and partying?). There were only about 25 people in my class. I ended up finishing my high school adventure here, met some great people and got my first real girlfriend although she didn't last long, major mental issues! All this time I remained friends with the guys from my previous school, we used to meet every day for gym. I hated gym and lifting weights but it was great to spend time with my mates.
So now I was finished school, what was I going to do with my life? I had absolutely no idea, I am fortunate enough that my father had enough money to let me take a year off to find out what I wanted to do. I dabbled a little bit in DJing and music in high school, had a few events and whatnot so I figured let me do a DJ course. My friend and I enrolled in the course for 2 months and every week we would go for a lecture and lessons, it was great but nothing ever came of it, I ended up losing my passion for music. I also briefly worked as a waiter for about 2 months but that was not my cup of tea.
Pretty much my whole year off was me partying 3 days a week and hanging out with my mate, every day we would go over to my friend house (we can call him Wally), play pool and smoke weed all day. Life was great. After 6 months of doing nothing else than this Wally eventually went to university and everyone else started to get on with their lives except for me and my business partner.
Now, my grades were not good enough during school so I didn't automatically qualify to get into university but luckily the same school Wally was going to offer a foundation course which was a yearlong and prepared you for the first year of university. My best friend ( we can call him Mark) and I were both 1 point shy of getting into first year so we both enrolled in the course. The university was Monash
Now Monash was roughly an hour and a half drive from where I lived so it was time to move into the university dorms. My dorm room was a house with a kitchen and 2 bathrooms shared by 4 students, it was small but it was cosy. I met a lovely Australian guy from Wollongong, a real hippie you could call him but what an amazing person, we became really close over the 6 month period we stayed together and he taught me how to be a more relaxed and confident person. Another rough patch hit me during my first six months whereby I got caught with weed and alcohol in my room and was summoned for a disciplinary hearing. I left the university dorms shortly after.
My girlfriend, Mark and myself all decided to move in together and get a tiny 3 bedroom apartment, it was better than staying on campus where I couldn't even have a beer after class. I met my girlfriend in the first few weeks of university and it was like we were drawn to each other from the start, we quickly developed feelings for each other and are still together to this day.
We lived together for about a year but Mark and mine friendship took some strain as there were certain disagreements in the house in terms of money as well as myself being noisy during fun times. So halfway through first year we went our separate ways, my girlfriend and I moved into a wonderful apartment down the road from university. Mark ended up finding an apartment in the road next to mine so we remained tight but we didn't have the strain of living together on our relationship. Mark and I have probably not had a single fight or major disagreement since then.
Coming into my 2nd year of university, I was now turning 22, some of my friend were already graduating and going into honours courses while I had just finished 2nd year but I was determined I was going to do well and be successful despite my late start. I really calmed down in terms of partying and going out and started to mature a lot more. From that point onwards I started looking for opportunities wherever I could to make some money and be more productive, also the financial weight upon my parent's shoulders was always on my mind.
Jump forward to the holidays before third year, this was roughly January 2016 I was looking to make some extra money and started working at my father's friends scaffolding business. This was the hardest job I ever had in my whole life, for a measly R150 per day ($11.6 for those unfamiliar with the rand) I had to move, erect, assemble, disassemble and pack away scaffolding for 9 hours a day but it was a good experience and I learnt the value of hard work. It also made me realise how hard it is out there for some people, this was their permanent job, earning only $232 per month. This was not my destiny however.
This introduction has gone on longer than I expected and I do not want to bore people some more so I will just summarise what happened in the next year and half. I started a digital marketing agency with Mark in our 3rd year, we were only making $150 dollars per month but I wasn't complaining. Graduated university without a hitch or hiccup but Mark and I decided to pursue the dream of running our own business (I use the term "the dream" very loosely). I say "the dream" because it is a path we chose, we didn't want to work for a boss or some large corporation we wanted to do it all on our own.
I proposed to my girlfriend with the aid of my friends and I am happy to say she said yes! We have been engaged now for 3 months. The business is going well and I am happy. I am only 24 years old with so much more ahead of me.
If you managed to make it through the whole thing, thanks for reading, I could have written so much more but it would have been too long. Maybe I will write some individual stories of all my adventures. I hope to contribute a lot more to Steemit and hopefully make some good friends along the way.
Kind Regards
William Scott
