Penultimate year, one of my protégés (I hope she still is) fantasised publicly about how her dream husband must be wired exactly like one popular Nigerian politician (strangely, she now works with him). I always knew people have those weird ambitions, but I never thought things had dipped that horrendously. Worse, the craze to be another person or to covet another’s spouse, house, position or car is more rampant in church. If the foundation be destroyed, … !
But, why would any human being crave to be or to have been another? Does that other person have two heads or four eyes? Was (s)he created by a different or better God? Is there one man or woman living or dead who has or had it all?
The foregoing battery of questions rhetorical as they are speak to the emptiness and uselessness of this foolery. For me, this lousy craving is down to five self-explanatory causes, namely: greed, ingratitude, defeatism, ignorance and ungodliness. A person not suffering from any of these five understands that in life things are not always as they seem. A lady may be salivating over a husband whose wife is dying wanting out.
Another man imagines his life would be complete if he took over Mr. B’s wife (not mine) not knowing she has finished her husband. Most aides would give their arm to dethrone their boss and become not knowing the seat is too hot for comfort. Even pastors plot to take over unnaturally faster from the general overseer ditto village heads vis-à-vis clan head or paramount ruler without taking into consideration the weighty, unsavoury appurtenances of that office. Not all that glitters is gold!
Let’s now name names. I bet there were millions of Nigerians who wanted to be MKO Abiola in his billionaire lifetime heyday. And the man died. Pray, do they still want to be the man?
And, Gen. Sani Abacha? And, Dr. Myles Munroe? Come alive: and Col. Sambo Dasuki, retd.? Please add people you envy.
By the way, what do you really desire were yours in a (wo)man that you envy? Would you rather you were them because of their exterior, or their interior, or their total package? Do you know their secret pain(s)/story? Would you still have been desperate to be that person if you had the benefit of viewing the situational and hidden full picture of such a one?
See, getting obsessed with being someone else might be a human pastime but anyone without a complex (inferiority or superiority) will never consider let alone do it. While we may all laugh it off as one of human nature which doesn’t hurt, desperately seeking to be another person can kill our morale, our inner person. If you know anybody who suddenly stopped living, somebody who changed overnight becoming withdrawn or sad, even sadistic and pugnacious, look no further for the why. (S)he must have lost the ‘I want to be that person’ battle!
Really, no one should go through such silliness. Everyone has a baggage, a dustbin. You don’t want to know what that famous idol, that rich neighbour, that loving family, that smiling tycoon or that beautiful couple whose place you seek go through when the cameras go off. Or what road they’ve travelled.
Or indeed, if in future they’d crash to an all-time low. Or would you then still wish to switch places? Be careful what you envy, Dear. Be happy for you.
You are the best of you, always shall be. You have no good second, never shall. You are not a carbon copy, nor can you ever be xeroxed. You are you, the one and only perfect image!
Stay on as the original that you are. Wanting to be someone else is becoming an imitation that you are not and should not be. You may emulate some people and imbibe some qualities here and there, but with all of you remain you. God bless Nigeria!
Have I found a cure for bullying?
Bullying is a ubiquitous, hydra-headed monster that continues to gain traction and momentum because of human nonchalance. Imagine, there’s something called cyber bullying. Even racism (that is about to rubbish sport the only remaining unifier of the human race) and xenophobia (the arrant nonsense that belongs only in the Stone Age) are variants of bullying.
About time we changed our orientation and reaction to this vice. Rather than cry or report like a baby (or walk off the pitch in the case of sports) those bullied must bully back the bully. Bullies are cowards; they are a mirage; they dissolve once approached (read challenged).
Footballers of colour (whatever that means) should stop acting like weak, spoiled children. They must realise that the world now regards humility as timidity. With gentlemanly approaches failing hitherto to break any ice, let them start retorting to chants of ‘monkey’ with ‘banana,’ plus the sign language ‘I will eat you if you come close.’
Let’s meet our tormentors in own territory. Let’s give them own medicine. Those who attack own attackers have no need to defend!
A little wisdom for the week
We all love favour, don’t we? But, how many of us know that favour can kill; that we need to be circumspect when dispensing favour?
This is it: the favourer must not endanger the favouree either by over-exposure or over-pampering. Don’t make others jealous nor cause the favourite to become too dependent or entitled.
Ruminate on that nugget. That’s where the help ministry has missed it hence this generation of entitled receivers and ingrates!
Disability debriefing
I believe that not even the worst disability can disable a determined mind: no, none.
And, that there exists not even one human being who is not disabled in some way: no, not one.
So, stop manufacturing excuses, damn that disability, get up and hit the sky flying: yes you can!