On Selfishness and Love

I have been repeatedly called selfish. Lol. I have been called a lot of things (which frankly I don’t give a darn about) but ‘selfish’ hurt my feelings. Haha. It is weird anyone would call me selfish though, because I am a natural worrier. I worry about the world, I worry about a friend’s problem, I worry about my family, I worry about myself. I worry worry worry. Everybody is killing each other, immorality has taken over the world, another child has been kidnapped etc. These things legit give me headaches. I ‘cry’ more than the bereaved. That was who I was. See, this had to stop. The more I studied the word of God, the more I realized all these monstrous and vile happenings are just a part of the world. Now because I am an extreme person, a black or white person, it was either one or the other: either I am overly bothered or I just do.not.care. The older I became, the more drawn to the latter I was. I shut out completely. I paid no mind to the news, because the news is the most depressing phenomenon on earth. I ignored protests and noise generally. I needed my sanity. Perhaps, this persona I took on started to affect even my personal life. Don’t get me wrong, I did not start to discard people’s problems as nothing. No. I just started to see it as “one of those things” and move on.

Yorubas have a saying; if we tell someone we've never heard of their kind of problem, we are only trying to scare them. Nothing is new under the sun. I started to face my life and ignore stuff. I looked out for myself more. But this became rather extreme. I would see the goriest things on social media, and just scroll up to more ‘interesting’ gists. Ah. I would hear the most vile things, and just shrug. I would hear of someone’s death, and just tell myself "na wa o" and that was it. The most recent one was the kidnapping of those three kids in Lagos. Everyone seemed so concerned, but I just wasn’t. In part because I was too consumed with work. I searched and searched within me for an emotion, nothing. Ah, is someone becoming coldhearted? Then I watched the video of their mother in tears, and finally I felt pity. Whew. What is the big deal? You ask. I’ll tell you. Jesus did not die for me to carry on with my life like no one else matters. Kindness is a fruit of the spirit, and in many ways, Christ preached selflessness and sacrifice and love. LOVE; the biggest message of the gospel. How can I say I love God, if I do not love those that I can see physically?

I know deep down I am not a coldhearted, hateful, selfish person. I know it’s a coping mechanism. I also know I have no control over many things. However, I also know I can do better than turn a blind eye. There are few things I practice to help remove my focus from just me. Like praying for others. Actually, that has never really been a problem. I am that person that prays for her friends and family a LOT. The more you pray for them though, the more interested you are in whatever problem they are going through. But praying for family and close friends is really normal, what isn’t normal is taking a minute to pray for the world. For instance, the Chibok girls, you can say a prayer to God to remember them and keep them very safe. You can pray for christians dying every day because of their faith. You can pray for this extremely corrupt and immoral world. It helps. I still do not believe being depressed about the world’s problems makes much sense, but raising awareness and educating people (RESPECTFULLY) on issues does help. Talking to people about love, and LIVING it does help. We cannot and should not conform to the world because we are helpless. We can however, make a little difference in how we live our lives.

“If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels but did not love others, I would only be a noisy gang or a clanging cymbal…If I had such faith that I could move mountains, but did not love others, I would be NOTHING…”

Love,

I

P.S: Happy birthday to my sister. I have wished her a happy birthday on every social media account I own, I just had to round it up here. Haha.