Rants and Reflections...

I don't have a story or hot take today, I just want to talk so I'll title this my "Rant 101".

Sometimes, we do things we’d rather not do(not necessarily bad things) because we are tired of holding up for too long. The problem is when we do those things we turn out to be the bad persons and are only understood by people who care to understand. Another problem is the people who those things are directed to should be more mature let’s say an older person and you’ve been the mature one all along and boom! You decide to be the child that you are and turn out to be the bad person.🥲

 Personally, if I do something that’s not from anger but is out of character for me then something of what I explained above happened. Trust me the Holy Spirit convicts me right after or before that but my mind just keeps saying “Why can’t you speak to the other person? I am but a child”. 

Up to the moment I’m writing this, something similar happened and the funny thing is I did nothing and doing nothing was the problem. The after-effect of my action doesn’t feel good but I’m truly just exhausted.

I don’t like to express my anger. I’d rather just leave it, be angry for a while, and then let my nature do its forgiveness thing. Because if I do anything contrary to this, say express my anger, I’ll be seen as the bad one. And as if that’s not enough, the scenario keeps playing in my mind. Then I blame myself for not keeping my cool. Then I don’t have peace.😔 It’s a whole lot, I know. And that’s why I’ve learnt to deal with my anger better. It doesn’t matter if I wasn’t in the wrong eventually, I will lose my peace. This also applies to the acting out-of-character scenario I explained above. So there’s no winning for me, is there? 😩

 This might look like avoidance but trust me I do it for my peace and sanity. It might not necessarily work for everyone so I’m not telling you to do the same.🌚

You know I said something happened right before I started writing this. Guess what? I apologized.💀Yes, I did. No, I’m not that much of a good or humble person but the Holy Spirit is a really holy Spirit😂 and He wanted me to. 

I’ve just come to accept that it shouldn’t matter to me if the person is mature or not, or if I have been mature for too long. The Holy Spirit will work on me as He deems fit and since this is personal it doesn’t matter how He’s dealing with other people. I am his precious masterpiece and He expects more from me.

If you can relate to any part of what I said above, this is what I will tell you. When you are pushed to do something out of character, and your defence is that the other person didn't do any better, try to consciously remember not to do anything just because of the action or reaction of someone.  That's not who you are, and if that's who you are, then carpe diem! (I'm just kidding😹)

Oh well, this is where my rants end and as usual I hope that regardless of the rants you picked one or two things.❤️

See you at the next read or rant, who knows?🤷🏻‍♀️👀

Unpacking Democracy: Who Decides? You or The Majority?

Maybe a nation can be governed correctly using a democratic system, but you can’t govern your life successfully based on democracy.

If you’re trying to get me to do something and you tell me “Everyone is doing it”, then you just gave me a solid reason not to do it. 🙅‍♀️

I’ve realized severally that the majority is not always right, and if you are a teenager then there is a high chance that the majority is wrong.🌚

I’ve learnt to be okay when I’m the only one or part of the few people standing for something and I'm writing this so you can learn to do the same.🤝

They say experience is the best teacher and that’s not wrong because if you grew up the way I did then you’ll find out that if you want to survive the world you’ll learn to accept that you’re different from everyone else and that does not make you any less of a person. Without this discovery, I probably would have drowned in a river of low self-esteem and self-hate and grown to be a very timid lady.🥲

Believe me, I’m not saying now I’m above any pressure that comes my way but I’ve built a mindset that makes me keep myself from feeling the pressure at all.😌

You might or might not have heard the saying “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for everything”. Well, these are not just mere words! You can’t live your lives based on ‘vibes and inshallah’, you need to have personal life principles that guide your living. Emphasis on “personal” because I know there are some principles that we grew up with and our parents constantly sounded in our ears. Some we followed, some we threw away, and some we were necessarily made to follow. Regardless of this, you need to have your principles. There should be a low that you must not get below, not because “mummy said so” but because you say so.

I would say the younger you are while reading this the better for you. However, I've realised that popular opinion has a strong hold on older people as well. The constant need to feel among, the need to feel like you belong, the need not to be the weirdo or the uncool one. But I promise, once you break the hold, it becomes so liberating because you know that regardless of what people are moving with, this is where you stand and you're comfortable with it.

Now I know this feels like a motivational "aspire to perspire" speech, but in all honesty, I want you to see that you can live any and everywhere without feeling so pressured because of the principles that you hold so dear to yourself.

If you’re a Christian, then this is even more on you because you have to stand out every time and how lucky are you if you have other Christians with you, “shucks!” if you don’t, you will necessarily still have to stand out. This will be easy if you learn to be comfortable standing for what you stand for, not just because you have to but because you want to.

Most of the time, the majority does the dumbest thing and you’ll only realize this from an outsider's perspective, not when you are in the majority. To be fair, democracy does not even seem to work for most nations practicing it, so it’s even contestable that it is the best system of governance.🤷‍♀️

Martin Luther King Jr. mentioned that a man named Reinhold Niebuhr was of the opinion that groups are more immoral than individuals, and that hit me deep because truly if you check it, groups are really more immoral than individuals.

When next you feel pressured into being like other people, remember that life is not a democracy and the majority is mostly wrong, so nothing do you.💅😌

As much as this wasn't meant to be motivational, I hope you feel motivated. See you at the next read.💖 

Childhood Chronicles: Confessing to an Uncommitted Crime

Have you ever admitted to a crime you didn't commit? Well, I have and I'm about to take you down a melodramatic lane, stay with me🙃.

This happened around 2008/2009, I was in Nursery 2 and I remember this because I could picture my primary school right now and see the position of my class.

Nursery School Graduation🙈🙈

There was this boy whose name I can't recall who gave me a five naira note. I tried to give it back but he just wanted me to have it by all means. "Sweet boy", you might think but don't be so fast😂. I could not throw the money away, so I kept the money with me.

Before we go home, we sometimes stay with someone you can refer to as a "big mummy" and wait for our parents to come pick us up. She sold bread and groundnut, and I thought I should spend my five naira on groundnut ( I know, there was really a phase where groundnut was five naira🤧). Anyway, guess what? There was no groundnut and I could not spend my five naira.

 
My mum came to pick us up later that day and saw me with the five naira. She probed and probed and I kept telling her it was a boy in my class that gave it to me, but for some reason, she wasn't buying the story but I truly was not trying to sell her a story😩. 

Before the next morning, we concluded that I "took" the money from my teacher's table. Yes, I admitted to stealing the money🙂 To date I don't know why we came to that conclusion, I know five naira was a lot of money but I don't think I've ever stolen money in my life. Milo? Yes(I have a scar because of that😂) milk? Yes, but money??!   
The next day, my mum accompanied me to school and for reasons unknown to me, the boy denied that he had given me the money. You gave me five naira by force and then denied that you gave it to me?🤦🏻‍♀️ (men😤). If he was like this in nursery school I wonder how he is now😒. 

We went to my teacher and there was an imaginary place I took the money from. I don't think the teacher remembered losing any money, but I apologised for "taking her money" anyway. 

If it makes it any better my mum bought a lollipop for me after for doing the right thing and I took it with glee. I was a young innocent girl so I didn't think much of it, I still don't and I hold no grudge against anyone. I'm always amused anytime I remember the whole ordeal though😂. 

My mama and I🥰

So back to my question, have you ever admitted to committing a crime you knew nothing about? If you have I would like to hear about it! 

I hope you enjoyed reading through because I had a nice time writing this. See you at the next read❤️