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I remember how my friends and I would gossip our lecturers as postgraduate students anytime they delayed our recommendation letters for one application or the other. “What’s in writing a letter for someone?” “How many minutes will that take them?” Those were our lines in those days. Little did we know that five minutes could be scarce resources and difficult moment to spare when one becomes so busy in life.
Generally, being a judge in other people’s affairs is the easiest thing to do, especially when we are not on the same pedestal as they. We are quick to make ourselves the parameter for assessing others whereas there are countless other variables that may not be known to us. Your rich uncle that you think should be able to give you five thousand naira for your textbook needs fifty thousand naira to complete his house rent, and the multi-millionaire you think can help you with five hundred thousand to start a business needs some millions to clear his goods. Everyone is in a battle they do not have to explain to you. Being patient and showing understanding is not only the way to get things from people but also the only way to be at peace with yourself and others. You have to deliberately kill your pettiness and desist from complaints such as “we all grew up together but now he cannot even sit down with us”. If your childhood friend becomes too busy to sit down with you regularly, what they deserve from you is understanding, and not lamentation and condemnation. Or, would you have left your engagements to come sit with them if you were in their shoes?
It is also ridiculous to feel entitled to what people do for themselves. How many times have you said or heard people say “see what he wears; see what his friends wear”? He is not under any obligation to buy for his friends whatever he buys for himself. While everyone is expected to be kind to the best of their ability, they are not under compulsion to give you the preference they give themselves. You would not do same, anyway.
Importantly too, people do not owe you explanations for every conclusion they reach. If for instance I tell you I am busy and you find me online on a social media platform, it does not rule out my being busy. In fact, if a person tells you he is busy and you find him in a pub drinking beer, you may need to understand that the time he needs to drink beer and relax is part of his busy time. After all you will go about your request in other ways if he works himself to death.
Another interesting dimension to this discourse is to hear statements like “s/he got into the office and chose his ‘own people’ to work with him”. Dear one, it will soon be your turn; choose those who are not your people to work with you.
On a final note, everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt as we know not their battles. I remember I was almost hated by a student who felt I was delaying her recommendation letter when I was actually battling with the laptop I needed to attend to her request. It will be a better world if we all will be a little more patient with one another.
Ganiu Bamgbose writes from the Department of English, Lagos State University, Lagos.
