Sihle is a 15 year old boy who grew up in Mount Moriah in Durban with his grandmother and uncle. Sihle is a good boy who had a lot of friends but he always stayed indoors. He believed that he would stay out of trouble if he stayed inside because as a child, he went outside a lot but he was always in trouble.

When his friends would come around and ask him to go out with them, he would always suggest that they come inside the house play PlayStation instead. This always worked because he knew that they wouldn’t say no to playing a PlayStation game. Some people in his neighbourhood started rumours about Sihle assuming he was gay because he stays mostly indoors, but that didn’t affect him at all. He couldn’t care less what people said about him behind his back and he refused to live his life for anyone else. What motivates him every day is knowing that he is living the way he wants to.

If you’re a person like Sihle, I encourage you to not take negative comments from other people and let them rule your life, but to take them as an encouragement. Be yourself, live your own life, and don’t change who you are just so people will love you: let them love you for who you are.

Do you care about what people say about you?