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.

RESIDENT EVIL...

Driving to work this morning, I had a lot going on inside. My mind kept wandering, pondering over different issues, like a child nibbling on an assortment of cookies. I kept wondering why there were so much evil in this world. Why so much inhumanity? Why are there so much maltreatment from fellow human to human? Men (Not men as in male species. But Men as standing for all living beings) have become beasts; and as beasts, we devour and destroy one another.

Like always, when I had these thoughts, tears would fill my eyes. Tears I refused to let fall, not because I don't want or feel like bawling but because it would embarrass me if someone were to ask what was wrong. They were my private thoughts, so let my tears and pain remain private too.

But I weep with anguish within at the thought of the innocent victims lying in their pools of blood, the mutted voice of the poor because the wealthy ones have deprived them of speaking, the helpless orphan and children being abused over and over again, victims of rape, assassination, kidnap, human sacrifice, robbery attack, suicide bombing, dehumanization to name a few. Even the mere sight of an old man labouring under weights just to make a livelihood brings me to tears these days. A mere sight of them reminds me of my Dad. God forbid I allow my father or Mother pass through such kind of life.

Sadly, many people have come to accept living with evil as a normal part of life. This is why we feel no emotion when we hear of mishaps. Even when we see such things happening, we either turn away or pretend it's none of our business because if it wasn't happening to us, it was none of our business. But does that mean the victims of such mishaps deserve it because it happened to them?

Lets look around us. People are carrying emotional weights that are threatening to submerge them. People smile but beyond that facade you'll sense the emptiness that resounds within. We present a front that looks so garnished like a gourmet meal but within our inner room of quietness, there exist a sore so raw and putrid.

My heart goes heavy with varying emotions each time I relive the sufferings I see or hear people go through. It's like living ten kinds of evil and then going through it over again. 

The scenery of the beautiful morning did me no good. I feel so nostalgic, longing for those times of old when the land was green and innocent. When children could play "kpa-kpa-nglo" or hide and seek games without looking over their shoulders, or parents living with the fear of losing their children to kidnappers and ritualists. Those days of bare feets and playing in the rain and swimming in the rivers. The days when our grand parents and elders would tell us tales of the past under the moonlight. They were beautiful times.

But the story are all so different now. People are scared to step out of their shelter beyond 7pm. Once the sun begins to set, people would start hurrying to their homes. Sometimes, you get to see the fear on people faces as night approaches, hurrying and scurrying as if demons from hades were at their heels.
The peace and quietness of the night have long been taken away from us by the evil resident among us. Even the mornings and the days are no longer safe. We look over our shoulders now and then, no longer walking confidently because in a blink of an eye, anything could happen.

This morning wasn't so different either. For two days now, I have had this angst about our environment.  I often feel that way when something unusual was about to happen. I call it my sixth sense.

I drove, half listening to the music playing like always from my car sterio, humming along to the lyrics now and then. Getting to the office, I subconsciously noted a silver Camry parked a little way down behind the Office Big Truck, and faintly asked myself which of the clients could be calling this early for a job. I parked at my usual spot by the fence in front of the Truck.

It wasn't a client, neither was it someone I know as I later discovered.  The car belonged to a young man murdered in cold blood by gunmen. I just couldn't believe it.  I just stood speechless, goose bumps charting a course from my hairline right down to my toes. According to eyewitness accounts, the murder took place around 8pm yesterday. Just a couple of hours from our dismissal time at the office. If I had worked a little late as sometime was the case, I would have witnessed such evil too. The most painful thing was that it wasn't even a robbery attack. It was purely an assassination move.

The man had multiple holes from Gunshot. It was told that the unknown gunmen shot at him continuously till some part of his brain and kidney poured out. I felt cold all over. All I kept thinking was that it happened so close to me. I have, few times, parked right at that spot when my own parking space was taken by another. Tears filled my eyes. I thought about the man's family, his loved ones... God! How can a fellow man be filled with so much hate and evil to shoot at another being without mercy till blood and other hidden human tissues and cells poured out. Shattered glass particles, blood and even the gruesome tissue and cells were still there as testament to what happened. With the tears came also the fear of the unknown. This could happen to anyone. That young man left his home without the knowledge that in the next few hours, his life would become news and stories to others.


Unknown to me, in far away Abuja Nigeria, Nyanya Park also burned with an Inferno of ferocious explosion. The news came right at the same time I heard the incident of the murder. I became colder. My mind began to count friends, love ones and relations I have resident in Abuja. How has a day that dawned with hope and promises of good things turned into a memorial of tears, anguish and death? Not just one death, but tens of deaths. What a horrible way to die, burning and roasting like 'Suya.'  Images of screaming dying persons burning, their skulls exploding along with the bomb that claimed their lives began to flash through my subconsciouness. My vibrant imaginative mind is truly a curse in such instances. 

With the images came a terror that shook my slender frame. If anyone had told these ones that the dawn of the day would witness their deaths, they would have wished for the night to continue, never to turn into day. It could have been anyone still. The people in the East are no more safer than those in the North, neither are those in South safer than those in the West. Like the Bible, the Holy Book said "Times and chance happens to them all." With this realization, I began to pray quietly in my heart. 'Father Almighty, please heal Nigeria. Heal my country. Save the innocent; Vindicate the just. Please, keep my love ones safe. Help my fellow country men who love peace, unity and love. Help our leaders. Give them the wisdom and guidance to make worthwhile decision that will steer Nigeria in the right direction and promote peace... Take away this resident evil from among us. Judge us in your mercy. Oh God, Oh God! Father have mercy upon this land. Have mercy upon Nigeria.' At this point, I broke down and wept silently in my office.

I weep for motherland Nigeria. A land that has consumed its inhabitants. A land that has drank so much blood. If a chick cannot be protected under the covering wings of the mother hen, where then is safety for it. Nigeria Arise. Like our National Anthem, please arise O compatriots. Fight. Let's fight against this Resident Evil that dwells amongst us. It is resident in our schools, in our offices, in our neighborhood, in our communities, in our government and even in us. Let us rise together and fight this. For in unity we will stand and have victory; but in division is our destruction.

REMINISCENCE: A Friend that Stays Closer than a Brother

Dawn awakes again. The whistling birds, cockerel's crows, the faint glimmer of the rising sun, the pee-pee of car horns, the noise of the city awakening...The fresh breath of the morning air - ahhh! It was just like every other mornings.
She stretches, unwinding her body from the tangles of the bedsheets and slowly opened her eyes against the shaft of light that have charted a course through the window blind by itself.
Another morning, another day. Would today be a little different from the other day... Wait! But it's got to be. It's a new day, isn't it?

Except that she still got the same thought as of yesterday weighing heavily on her mind. Love, betrayal, hurt and pain. They've become like tormenting plagues to her... Her worst nightmare. They are not just in her thoughts alone now; when she walk, when she talk, when she breath... She's become like the hunted except that what haunts her can't be physically addressed. Doesn't make sense to her in the least. Suddenly, these putrefying corpses are rising out of the the tombs to taunt her.

Deep within, she longed for something special, longed to unburden her mind- to share part of the weight with someone who truly cares. Not like the empty words of people who pretend to care but doesn't give a hoot about what really happens to you. People say they care for each other but when it came to actual action, alas, you'll be left alone faster than a shooting star; like a wounded soldier in front of a battle line. That discourages her. Who's she gonna talk to and her dignity and confidence would be preserved? People don't just wake up one morning to trust another with their secret thoughts, otherwise you'd wake up another day to discover you have been taken to the world's grape vine and gossip mill for a press and a grind. Nah! One needs to be real careful.

"A friend that stays closer than a brother" Where did she hear that from? Does anything like that exist? If it does, well, hahaha - glory to God!, that's what she earnestly needed and that's what she meant to get.

Friendship is an oil that lubricates some frictions of life. However, true friends are rare. If you've got one, then you must be one of those lucky ones God smiled specially on at creation. Life is much more easier and comforting when you have someone who can be your second eye and watch your back. Someone you can count on and turn to in your hour of need. Need doesn't have to be about finances or about desires or about material things. It could be just about sharing your thoughts, your pains, your frustrations, your challenges, your difficulties or your weaknesses. It is about letting your guard down without the fear that you''ll be betrayed, abused or exploited. She really envy those who's got that already. She'd give an an arm and a leg to have that.

This globe house we all live in is an entire system of inter-connectivity  and inter-dependence. No man is an island unto himself, neither can a tree make a forest. She's got a problem and if God has kept the solution in the hand of another, then she'd need to saddle up and ride to discovery. After all it's been said 'a problem shared is half solved,' Who knows, the solution she's searching for could just be lying in someone's hand. God help her. She really need to discover "that friend that stays closer than a brother."

MY SILVER LINING

My birth was unremarkable. I mean there was no fire-works display, no pop corn or wild celebration. It was probably like one of the numerous other birth of low class men. I was an added responsibility.
Growing up was almost the same. I was always almost over-looked, ignored and snubbed. Maybe because my wears were always fairly used and second class to many. I was just unremarkable.
But deep within, my thoughts were my companion. My imaginations my best friends. My dreams and goals my inspiration. In my thoughts, I can be free. Free to taste the rich delicacies that grace a king's table. In my imagination, I can touch the heavens, visit the high and mighty, sit in authority and decide over the state of many. In my dreams, I was the pillar that sustains many.
Heh! But I can't end as just a thought. Can't Live in my imagination only. I've got the same form as everyone. The rich doesn't have two heads and super heart. Mine is as good as theirs if not better. So, what's stopping me?

I had that light in my eyes that says "There's a diamond in your hands, whatcha gonna do about it." I started to work on my mind set. Had to do away with the inferior complex I had developed from being over-looked and snubbed. But thanks to rejection; it made me found inner strength. I turn to myself for comfort, and in comforting MYSELF, I discovered a knowledge and a path well known to me alone. That was the silver lining that set my feet on the path to greatness.

I've got a gift for you, wrapped with millions of marbles and sealed with silver lining. If you want to know what's in it, then COME ON. Lets go on that path to discovery... It's INSIGHT MATTERS, Inspiration Daily with Amy.