Objectively Thinking, Can It Be Always "Them"

Hello People

How are you doing?

How is everything?

It has really been a moment.

Please don't vilify me.

I'll start with a real joke that is not really funny.

When the lockdown eased a bit, I went to see one of my cousins.

On seeing her son, I wanted to say "Enjoying the Lockdown?", but I guess what came out of my mouth was "Happy Covid". Imagine the look on my cousin and her son's face. My cousin just shouted, "that is not a greeting o. You should just ask how he is enjoying his stay at home instead." You don't want to imagine my own horror when I heard myself too. As a Yoruba girl that must greet for everything, please how do I greet people particularly with this pandemic?

That said, I hope you are keeping very safe, sane and healthy; eating right, exercising, reading, meditating, praying and in fact doing anything that makes you feel well. I'm sincerely praying that this pandemic blows over soon. I pray that God keeps us all alive and very well beyond 2020. Special prayers for everyone experiencing difficult times this season, particularly for lives and possessions lost in the Lebanon explosion.

For sometime now, a past event keeps coming to mind. Weirdly funny story, yeah but I have learnt and I am still learning from it. I had cause to think of it again this week after I remembered something not too nice I did. Oh well, shall we start?

A few years ago, I went to use the ATM (cash) machine in a busy mall. When it was my turn, the machine displayed a message on the screen and returned my bank card. I took my card out then walked away from the machine very upset that I was unable to get the cash I wanted. Someone asked if the machine was paying and I replied boldly "No, the machine displayed an insufficient funds message". I can't remember if the person or other people used the machine afterwards but I just assumed it was the machine that had the issue. As I walked out of the mall, the message hit me again, "Miss Onakz, the reason the machine did not dispense the cash was because you did not have enough money in your account not that the machine was faulty or had not been loaded with cash." Na me get problem, no be the machine. All I needed to do was to transfer money into that account and viola, I would have collected my cash happily. Wow! Wow!! Wow!!! Imagine the assumptions we have about people, circumstances and things. How we sometimes think it's other people that have the problem not us. How we have projected others as in the wrong when we are the ones that have the issues.

She did this!

He did that!

Always them, never you.

Do you objectively analyse situations void of your own emotions?

"Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticise their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbour’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your  neighbour."

Matthew 7: 1-5 (The Message)

As you begin to count down to the end of the week, all I am saying is "Be Objective". Please remember that you too are at fault sometimes. Don't break your head about it, it only makes you, me and us human. It helps us live healthier lives recognising that we aren't always perfect. It should also help us strive for better. 

Have a wonderful weekend.

As I always tell one of my cousins, "don't worry, I won't let it be too long before I get in touch again."

Loads of love, hugs and kisses

Miss Onakz...