NOT JUST YOU

Hi, I’m Sam,

 

One of the easiest mistakes we make in life as human beings not only as Africans is thinking we are all alone and it always manifests in a negative situation. Whenever something happens we automatically feel like our situation is the worst and that we can never get over it or out of the situation. Whenever anything is about to happen to me or it has already happened, I always say to myself if it is a negative thing, “It’s well” or “It could be worse” and once I say that I get a realization that as bad as I think things are someone else is probably wishing it was like that for them; just like a dead person would rather be in a hospital bed, and someone confined to a hospital bed would rather just be on bed rest and the person on bed rest would rather be healthy and the healthy person would rather have a job to pay bills and the person with a job would rather want to be rich and famous and the rich and famous would rather have a simple life and the person with a simple life would rather want something else. We always wish we had something else going for us and that is not always a bad thing but we need to learn how to be contented or nothing will ever be enough. We all have that one or two things that people think we either over-estimate or underestimate about ourselves and for me, people always seem to think I understate how much access I have to money, and whenever I complain about being low on cash they look at me with this disdain look like I just told the biggest lie on planet earth; I’m not a big spender especially on myself so people don’t know when I have money and when I don’t because I don’t spend in any case and I give out a lot, even if it’s my last; but I hope to become a big spender in the future especially on myself so that after working hard to earn my money, I can spoil myself once in a while. 

 

“Never Let Anyone See You Break” this has always been my guide words as far back as I can remember. I never let anyone see me at my lowest point, no matter who you are; family member or not, so long as you are not me, you can’t know what is going on inside of me; I’m working hard to change that lately. I made this my watchword when there seemed to be a widespread of fake friends everywhere, I didn’t want a situation where I’m trying to share my burden with a so-called friend not necessarily for them to help but to get things off my chest and I end up hearing it from a lot of people as Friday night gist. I’d rather die in silence than speak to anyone; that’s why sometimes I envy those who go to therapy and that binding contract for therapists to keep their mouths shut. The things I go through were not so major compared to what teenagers else go through. Sincerely I’ve learnt that sharing always helps; just a few words someone may say to you can lift your spirit so high that you forget you were having any troubles to begin with. A lot of teenagers die in silence because they think if they talk to someone they may be bullied or made fun of for something they obviously cannot control. I’ve been so low emotionally that I googled “How to make God answer your prayers immediately?” I forgot that in every situation I’m to give thanks to God Almighty because so long as there’s life there’s hope. 

 

Things happen and there is always a chance that you are not the first person something happened to. Just like we were taught in our programming class, there is no error you are going to encounter that has not been encountered in the past, and because someone has encountered such an error means there is a solution to it; all you have to do is look for the solution or ask for help from someone who has more experience. No man is and can ever be an island, which is why surrounding yourself with genuine people can never be overemphasized; build, maintain, and fight for your genuine relationships. Putting someone first only works when you’re in their top 5. In some cases, it is also important to have surface friendships, they may not know the deepest thing about you but sometimes things they say in passing end up being the key thing we need to hear to make a positive or important decision in our lives. 

 

Learn to ask questions and help the right way, just like the keywords we use in our Google searches can narrow the answers we get, the way you ask for help or advice also matters. Our communication styles differ depending on who we are talking to at a particular time. Knowing your people deeply will better help you know how best to ask for advice. In some cases, people say “hypothetically” just to distance themselves in a way from what they want to talk about and that is fine if you do not completely have confidence in who you are discussing with and there are situations where you narrate everything. Whether we choose to admit it or not, we have different levels of trust in different individuals in our lives, we know what, how, and when to share different details of our lives depending on the level of trust we have in that individual. The trust level can equally go up or reduce depending on the situation and actions of the individuals.

 

We are never alone, even when that is all we want to think to further victimize ourselves, there is always someone who genuinely loves us and wants to be there for us through it all. Our lives will always have ups and downs, so the important question should be “Who do you want by your side through the ups and the downs?” think about that!