Tuesday 21 August 2012
IT'S IN MY MOUTH
PROLOGUE
In my mouth lies the power of life and death
In my mouth lies the past and the future
In my mouth lies that which cannot be tamed
In my mouth lies the TONGUE.
That was an attempt at poetry, don't worry i'll get there one day *smiles*
DISCLAIMER: yes, I'm here again. I would like to state here that the story you are about to read is fictitious and is in no way associated with anybody. The names used are only a figment of the writers imagination.
CASE STUDY
You must have met Cynthia at one point or the other in your life. I'm so sure you know her, that lady that always has something bad to say about herself. Everyday she walks into the room telling us the same story "Nobody likes me, I'm ugly, I'm too fat, I just can't understand anything..... gosh; I'm so stupid, i can't do anything right......".blah, blah, blah and more blah.After ranting she calms herself and then asks me "am i fat? am i that ugly?? why is it that i'm so dumb??? why Stella?? Why??!... She looks at me for answers and i give her a blank stare because really what should i say??. To me, its more like an ironic question because she has pretty much answered the question herself, before asking me.
Donald is my classmate in School . He's just so fresh and cool that you can't help but notice him each time he walks by. The major reason why he's always the cynosure of many eyes is because he always has something to say. His level of sarcasm is out of this world. Whenever he makes certain jokes about some things, people who know him laugh and forget about it. Those who are not familiar with him may take offense at such statements. Well Cynthia was having her lunch in the cafeteria one day and Donald decides to join her on her table. They exchange pleasantries and before you know it, Cynthia begins to share her "lamentations". she asks Donald "do you think i'm ugly?".... Donald in his usual sarcastic manner answers "nah....i don't think, i KNOW you are ugly".. and then he laughed. Cynthia gets up and runs out of the cafeteria crying. Next thing we heard, Cynthia was in the hospital. The doctors were trying to save her life after she overdosed herself.
Eugene is your average school girl. She tries her best to read all the time so that when its time for test or exam she doesn’t have to "crash read". In this past week, she had been feeling very lazy to read. Well as fate would have it, there was an impromptu test on Monday. She didn’t know what to write because she had not read her notes in a while. She managed to write a few things down while saying to herself "i can't fail this test, i just can't...my only option is to pass" She kept on saying those words to herself until the results were released. On her way to check the result on the board, she had all sorts of doubt in her head but she said to herself " I've passed already". She got to the board and voila!....she passed.
THE PROBLEM
Cynthia, Donald and Eugene have a common problem. While Cynthia doesn't know what to say, Donald knows what to say but doesn't know when to say it. As for Eugene, she knows what to say and when to say it. Cynthia is already used to saying bad things about herself and she has programmed her lifestyle in such a negative fashion. In Donald’s case, sarcasm might be his own way of making new friends, little did he know that he would meet someone like Cynthia that can’t take a joke. Eugene’s problem???... I don’t think so.
THE SOLUTION
Like they say “A problem shared is a problem half-solved”. There you go, we’ve solved the problem half-way by just talking about it. Let me just add a few words;
FERME LA BOUCHE! ……..yeah, know when to KEEP QUIET!.
Do you know how many lives have been saved by this method? Do you know how many destiny’s have been changed for the better by just knowing how to apply this rule?. Wisdom is key in applying this golden rule. Someone once said “it is better for people to assume that you are stupid than for you to open your mouth and confirm it”….hmmm, how true it is.
If you use your tongue to curse yourself and build boundaries around your success, how do you expect things to work out for you?. Its bad enough things are not going well for you, why would you want to compound issues by saying negative things??.
As a child, I was told that for everything we say (good or bad) there is an angel waiting to say Amen. Even if it’s not true, at least it has helped in building my mind positively.
EPILOGUE
A book I read sometime ago says you are what you eat. Lets scrap that, I say YOU ARE WHAT YOU SAY YOU ARE. Instead of looking at the half glass of water as half-empty (the pessimist) why don’t you look at it as half-full (the optimist).
Even the holy book says it too. Your words are life, you say something and it is done.
SPEAK LIFE!!!
Gracias.
awesome read, brilliant write up!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, but to me, Cynthia has serious self esteem issues and it will be very wrong to blame her attempted suicide on Donald. She has to face her negative self image issues and deal with them and she will never be able to do that as long as she looks for whom to blame for her weakness. The world has become so fake. Nobody can speak their mind anymore because too many people are too weak to take criticism. One critical word and it's off to commit suicide. It's just sad. And it continues become we have become enablers who give people the permission to be weak.
ReplyDeleteNo offence babe but take her advice and shut up. You just called someone weak!! Why? Because you are better? Because you had parents that boosted you up as a child. Now unlike the story above, this ain't fiction. It's a she too, drunk dad and dead mom. Now he beats the crap out of her and drunk people have no filter so he's been trashtalking her for years and she gets into secondary school in JSS1 and can't take a compliment and criticisms are even worse. You grow up with that kind of shit and tell me that the fact that she's studying law is not a miracle. People talk trash to you long enough you start to believe it and if they boost you up long enough, you start to believe it too. Thank your parents and your friends. Low self-esteem is not a choice people make themselves, it's mostly a result of constant unconstructive criticisms and from what you said, i can tell that someone's confidence has suffered a blow at least thrice because you opened your mouth.
ReplyDeleteNow to my comment. I love it. I'm a sarcastic person but that's a defence mechanism. I realise that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit but it's how i got through the years of self esteem issues and darn it if you are not right about the making friends part. That said, i'm also a good judge of people(i like to think that i am) i cannot be sarcastic to someone with low self esteem, or someone i just met either. I try to not be sarcastic though( it's going to be hard because some people just ask for it)
ReplyDeletelol at "some people do ask for it". thanks for reading
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