Week 2 – There’s good, and there’s bad. Focus on the good.
Originally published on the author’s Facebook page.
If you dey baff and soap enter your eyes, wetin you go do?
Wash it off with water to reduce the sting, use more soap, or keep screaming that soap has entered your eyes whilst waiting on a miracle?
We often talk about how the world has become a global village, and it’s a beautiful thing because now we have so much information at our disposal. Travel, communication, finance, etc have become better and everyone loves that.
However, the thing about the world becoming a global village is that at your fingertips are things that you absolutely love and things that make you feel ‘eweee, I should have come online 30mins later so I don’t have to see this. Why? It might be because you find it disgusting, annoying, to be a lie or triggering.
On the other hand, you can wake up to uplifting and inspirational messages, something new to meditate or pray with, new friends, new artists, new projects on the crypto space, documentaries (I don dey obviously list the things wey me I like) and other things that make you feel good because the world is a GV.
Example:
A couple of months ago, I often found myself going after people who would share absurd, untrue takes on equality, justice, feminism, rape, African politics, and the role of everyone in the community in all of this. I would spend so much energy and time arguing about these things. I don’t mean just arguing passionately, I mean the type of feeling that makes you shake and your eyes go dey red. One day I asked myself ‘Ebelechukwu, every day ituturu phone I jee kirie status ndị a na-akpasu gị iwe. I naghị amụta ife?’ – why do you keep watching stories and statuses of those who upset you so much, don’t you learn?
If something triggers you so much, why have you put that thing in your space? My solution since this moment of clarity has been to mute those l share(d) some love with and block those I don’t even know or like. Cos why you go stress dey me when I no even sabi you? We can still DM each other if it’s something important, but I don’t want to be randomly scrolling and see nuisance in my feed.
I know people say that when you block people who have different views from yourself, you put yourself in an echo chamber. I might be the first to tell you this, but that’s not true. I don’t take people out of my space because I think yam is the king of food and someone thinks it’s potatoes. It’s usually because they have repeatedly said things that are really obnoxious about yahoo boys using their gf’s for jazz, are homophobic or complain every year about how no one celebrates international men’s day (as though they aren’t actual people who can start the celebration), etc. I won’t argue with you, but na abyss get you.
Lesson
One thing that has helped me gain peace as I navigate life is that there’s good and there’s bad, but I choose to find and always focus on the good.
I realized that no one was forcing me to put myself in spaces where these people were. Nobody told me to look at their status or read their tweets. I knew I had to step back from consuming certain kinds of content and embrace content that uplifted me and encouraged growth – things I cared about or things that made me laugh.
In today’s world, we are constantly consuming news from social media. It’s a disservice to yourself to be surrounded by toxicity. A lot of people are interested in businesses, fashion, gaming, football crypto, etc. but they wake up every day and thin themselves out with irrelevant conversations and arguments with people (they don’t even know) online.
Take home (in 20 leaves LMAO)
- Surround yourself with people and things that make you happy and try your best to ignore the things that make you upset. A person always says things to make you feel down? Stop visiting them or make visits shorter. Someone is always posting things you don’t relate with on the TL? Mute or block them. Don’t like a picture someone uploads? Scroll!
- If you dey baff and soap enter your eyes, wetin you go do? Life is like baffing endlessly.
I leave you with the words of 21st-century philosophers Bella Shmurda and Dagbana Republik in their song ‘Rush’, ‘why are you feeling down…50/50 life na dice.’ Focus on the 50% of things that fill you with life, my people.
