I have always prided myself on being a flexible person mentally. As an inquiring and analytical mind, I have always sought justification for behaviours and opinions. As a scientist, I sought cause for reaction. I believed this made me tolerant (and I still do) of other’s perceptions and angles of thought.

I am a great devotee of the Sherlock Holmes school of thought: observation and deduction. Though I am very much an extrovert at first sight, I love to sit central or at the fringes of a conversation and map out personalities and mindsets. I observe and then I put on my deerstalker thinking cap and deduce the motivations behind what was said or implied.

Two years ago I made a very conscious decision to “broaden my horizons”, as the clichéd adage encourages. I chose to veer of the road more travelled. I chose to find the strangest and most foreign conversations and platforms I could to assimilate from. I went on a quest to understand, not only myself but people.

An abstract and ambitious journey, one would think.

I do believe I’m very much the product of nurture, not nature (I do however subscribe to the wonderful world of epigenetics). I was raised in a wonderful, loving home where I was encouraged and supported to better myself through education and experience. As I entered high school, I realised that the people surrounding me were not representative of our country alone. I felt like I needed new influences in my life; I wanted to learn more about mindsets and cultures and individuals.

My education at the University of the Western Cape did a lot to make me fall in love with my quest for expanding my reference base. I met new people; people whom I normally would not have crossed paths with. I got to work with them, learn from them, laugh with them and appreciate how what they taught me unknowingly shaped my views.

I applied to SAWIP because I fell in love with my fellow South Africans. I wanted to be equipped to empower my community and the society. It was in this incredible time in my life that I met my colleagues and friends, the SAWIP team of 2012, and was privileged enough to journey through four months of the SAWIP experience by their sides.

I quickly learnt I was not as flexible as I thought. I would sit at a table, while fourteen different people reached fourteen different conclusions on a matter with fourteen different trains of thought. I reached my own, following my own process of thought. I could argue from a moral point of view, but legal and economical implications never jumped into my mind. Also, I would not always consider every culture or individual’s objection to the matter based on beliefs, purely because I did not know.

One of the team members gave me one the greatest compliments I have ever received after our three months together: he told me he could no longer push my buttons, though I still have one or two left.

Because in the three months of the SAWIP journey, I have been exposed and educated on so many subjects and methods of thought that I no longer believe my views are supreme. I no longer stubbornly defend my beliefs, without considering the opposition’s motivation. I am a feminist and believe every woman should be the equal of a man, but I now understand the cultural implications of trying to impose this view on others. I still stand by my beliefs, if I find them truthful; I just understand the opposition and can make allowances in my actions for this difference of motivation or mindset. And this openness of mind has also led me to challenge every belief I had, and change a great deal of them.

SAWIP has been mental yoga to me. I have stretched my mind to consider all implications in an argument: legal, economical, moral, historical, social and political. Having a team of bright minds in each sector to peer-educate me and to guide our problem solving minds has truly allowed me to become flexible mentally. The rich diversity of the team and their friendship and support has also guided me to understand that tolerance should not be the objective, but acceptance; Acceptance based on an informed understanding of what justifies behaviour and opinions.

I hope to continue the legacy of my SAWIP journey, by always valuing curiosity to overcome ignorance, exposure to diversity to shape opinions and acceptance, encompassing tolerance, to guide my choices and behaviour. If I honour this, I may one day truly have no more buttons to push.