LET'S PLAY THE BLAME GAME...

Hello,


There's this thing common with us humans; and that is the need to blame someone else for our pain, woes, hurt, anguish, disappointments, disasters, mistakes, foolishness, cowardice, stupidity (Oh Boy! Couldn't help grinning when I mentioned that last one...Who ever accepts to have been stupid?). We look for escape goats who'll be left with the burden of our guilt and failures. The list is endless, so I'll spare us the boredom of having to count how many words there were.

So, let's get right to the blame game...

Adam... He ate the 'apple' like most of us would love to claim. In anyways, he ate the fruit but when it got to assuming responsibility for an act committed, he started on the blame game...

"Oh No God! It was the woman you gave me. She practically shoved the fruit right down my throat. Even when I bared my teeth it did me no good..."(Oh Mine! Of course I wasn't there. I added those last bit for emphasis)
But what just happened here? That guy Adam was just telling God he was weak to say no to his wife. In his better mind, he didn't realise he was saying, "God, look at me. I am not wise enough to hold on to the information you gave me first hand. I mean - my wife is wiser than me. She best me to my shame." He didn't want to accept his own gullibility - so what did he do? He started the first half of a game called "Blame Eve." I guess Adam's easy way out was to discover that age long game.

Hmmm, are we left out? No. Now let's leave the past and bring it down to us.

Check out that thieving Banker... When discovered reply's,

"It is the devil's handwork."

Hah! Which devil? I mean, he knew the rules from the beginning. Transactions are recorded for proper documentation and accounting; but he kept taking little by little, maybe going extra mile to falsify records, hoping against hope never to be discovered. What was he thinking? Let's see. "I have dunces as Bosses. They can't read and understand; and even if they did, they'll just smile and admire the figures and I'll be home free." Really? Who was he deceiving? And now he has the courage to mention the devil? Was the devil present when he was informed about the terms and conditions of employment? Did the devil share in the dividends of his thievery? I mean, if he were to stand face to face with the devil, would he be so bold to accuse him? Nah! I don't think so. That goes for not just the banker, but for the corrupt politician, lecturer, rapist, playboy, marketer, investor, delinquents etcetera.

What about me? I'll share an experience I once had...an experience where someone I respect so much hurt me when he blamed me for someone else personal choice and decision.

 A friend of mine one day decided to wear a short gown she wasn't used to wearing afore. When I saw her wearing it, I commented on it's shortness which wasn't headed. Later on, that same friend told me someone I held in high regard scolded her and finally hinted that I was the one who taught her how to wear the short gown. Huh! Unbelievable! I laughed and laughed and laughed at her. So easy to blame me for someone else choice and decision. You want to know what I told her? First I asked her if the person in question knew I complained when I saw her wearing the dress? Then I finally said, "If that's what you were told, then the person that said that to you is simply saying you are brainless, a puppet that doesn't know what she wants and is incapable of knowing what is right for you."

The truth is, we all play this blame game everyday. A child breaks something, acts negatively or turns out worse than expected, the parents gets the blame. An employee falls below expectation, the management gets the blame, A girl falls pregnant, the boy gets the blame or the boy impregnates a girl, the girl gets the blame (Put it in any order you love, it's all the same), The society is in chaos, the leaders get the blame, the politicians breaks the law, the opposition parties gets the blame. Should I continue? Nope. You'll get bored.

The blame game is a game we all willingly play. But the stark truth is when we refuse to assume responsibility for our actions, we are actually irresponsible. When we play this game, we inadvertently show how unwise we are. The fact is mistakes are bound to happen because none of us are hundred percent (100%) perfect. But we should not celebrate our mistakes, faults and weaknesses. We should rather work on them and let them become source of strengths for us. But they can't be when we play the blame game and don't assume responsibility. Owning up to responsibility isn't weakness contrary to some opinions. It is even an act of cowardice to blame another for one's mistakes. Only cowards play the blame game. Courageous men and women don't!

So man up! Dare your responsibilities if you can.


(C) Stephanie Ejike
April 27, 2015.

A LETTER TO MY DEARS...

Dear Gent,

She broke up with you, left you battered and blue. She thought you would be miserable without her, actually thought you were. She gloated over it with friends, prided her hold over you with acquaintances and gave you the cold treatment when you were around. She scorned your explanations, relished your tears and hauled back hurtful words against your soft spoken ones. You were taken for granted, spurned and discarded by the angel you thought you love. She gloried in your misery.

…And now you are living with the pain and hurt. Each day reminds you of her betrayal. Same old story huh? Now you can't let go or find a reason to go on. You feel like trash, on the verge of suicide. Heh! Get off your pity-party and prove her wrong. Who says she can decide how your life should turn out? Snap out of it. You've got to let her know the pain made you better, not worse. Maybe she left for the best to come. She probably left because she doesn't fit into the bigger picture God has for you.

Dear Lady,

Oh dear! I can just see you crying your eyes out at night because he told you you can't find anyone better than him; that you would be miserable without him in your life. Maybe he just up and left you without a word. Ugh! And you are definitely proving him right by being miserable. Sorry but no sorry. Wake up girl! If he left, it is probably because there is someone best for you than him. Better a diamond than a bauble. Why leave your fulfilment and joy in the hands of a man who obviously is so callous to care a hoot how you feel. Pinch yourself and wake up. Focus on the larger picture in God's hands for you. There's the best out there for you if you but can let go the dreary past.

“What do I know of pain and betrayal?” I can feel that question in your heart now. Do I even know what you had to go through? Can I even begin to imagine the years of labour of love?

No. Of course I don’t. And I won’t create another pity-party here telling you of my own woes and pain. It may have happened to me. But I fought back and I came out of it better. I dare not imagine how horrible it was for you too. But I know one truth that can help… No one has the power to keep your life at a standstill while there’s go better. Man up! Look the pain in the eye and walk by it. Who knows…there’s a jewel waiting at the end of the tunnel.

Let the past be past dear! There’s a golden present and future waiting to be discovered. And be sure of this, you can’t see it if you keep looking back.

(c) Stephanie Ejike.
24/4/2015.

XENOPHOBIA; THE RAPE OF HUMANITY!

They called it Xenophobia, I call it another one of English vocabularies.
They called it irrational fear of foreigners, I call it a flimsy excuse for a heinous crime committed.
They make it sound so common like entering a mall and window shopping or licking melted ice-cream off one's finger, talking about it in news, discussing it in talk shows but I say it is loss of humanity - the  basis of all life, the essence of our distinctness from other living things; animals and plants, the root of our quality as the choicest primate. Oh no! It is not xenophobia. it is dehumanisation! It is blood lust. It is pure murder! It is a robbery of Life and human rights!

Why beautify the atrocious act by giving it such a special name...Xenophobia? It is one thing to have irrational fear of something. For the love of God, people get claustrophobia, agoraphobia, zoo-phobia, homophobia, acrophobia, haemophobia and all the phobia they can acquire; (to be sure feel real free to check up the Wikipedias and encyclopaedias of the world) but should it be a grand justification for calculated acts of murder and blood lust. Where is our humanity for God sake? And what will the so called developed nations call it now? Shove it under the mat of technological advancement and twenty-something century breakthroughs? Oh God! What is this world becoming?

The nations of this whole globe is a jungle. There is no difference between us and the wild beast. It is now a scramble for the survival of the fittest. We prey on each other like the lions, falling cruelly on the weakest of us and devouring one another without a minute mercy. We justify acts of Genocide, Rape, Abduction, Suicide-bombing, Slavery, Cannibalism, Torture, Religious persecution, Racial discriminations, Apartheid etc by giving it nice terms, splashing them boldly across news channels like the icing on a chocolate cake, and serving it to us as desert after a full course meal of bloodshed.

And here I was thinking the Roman Empire that roasted Christians as torches for Nero's gladiatorial games, fed disobedient slaves and anyone thought a threat to the then Roman empire to wild dogs and  starved lions in the Circus Maximus as the cruellest. Was the apartheid movement in the former South Africa more horrible than what is now happening? We teach the present generation the world's history, warning them of crimes committed by former leaders. We mention Moammar Qaddafi, Fidel Castro, Vladimir Putin, Idi Amin Dada, Osama Bin-Laden and lots others but we fail to see the irony in us for we are the worst enemy of life and humanity with our polished treachery and suave idiocy (no insult intended please). We can coat the truth all we like, like those sweet coated medicine we swallow and later discover how bitter they thirst, but we make those horrible past leaders jubilate in their graves. We make them saints in the face of our putrefying humanity. Oh, how pathetic! How really pathetic!

Today, I question my humanity. If I can stand calmly and watch while others butcher another like animals without mercy and a simple shed tear, what makes me any different from them? If one can stand boldly and film acts of murder, spread it on the net without a twig of mercy and emotion, what makes that any different from the acts itself. Why should we pay heavily to create make-believe films on thriller and horror when movies of such horrific magnitude occur daily around us? Where is the censor? Of what good is it to us to erect fine buildings and splash 'International Court of Justice' or 'Human Rights Organisation' across it's face when we deface the essence of our humanity daily.

Oh please, don't come here trying to justify this. If you have one good suggestion or objection to make, please just take a yawn, sleep over it and ask yourself if you were the one at the receiving end of all this, how would it feel? There is no need for tear gland in our system, no need for a heart. Where is the love? Where is the humanity?

We are the living dead. Why all these polished demeanour while we decay and ooze sores within. The maggots are getting to us and we still believe we live? Oh how splendidly pathetic! Help us oh God.

(c) Stephanie Ejike,
April 20, 2015.