Guilt Complex 2 (Why Me)

In this time and season when we are threatened by the scourge of Lassa fever in this part of the world, I will like to share with you an experience a friend shared with me not quite long along.  

This story at first made me laugh but afterwards got me thinking while asking myself this question:

‘Assume I was the victim here, how could I have handled the situation?’

I will allow you to be both the umpire and the jury.  My friend’s story goes thus:  “On this particular day, I was on my way home after a long hectic day in the office. Uche, my colleague, was supposed to have picked me up after work but after a very long wait for him, I decided to commute home in a transit bus.

I got to the terminal and after a while I boarded a bus. A very beautiful young lady sat next to me, her beauty was so astounding that I was literally forced to steal a glance intermittently at her.

Within the first few minutes of our journey, I made a mental calculation of the duration of our journey. Since I didn’t know where she will be alighting from the bus, I immediately hatched a plan (A and B) to get her talking, breakdown her wall of defense and ultimately get her to become my friend.

Plan A was to pay her transport fare and then get her talking. However, while I was still fine tuning on the plan, the bus attendant called for our fare. Just as if she read my mind, she made a very smart move to pay the fare before I could do anything.  Then the unexpected happened, as she opened her bag to get her purse, a rat jumped out of her bag! I was caught between her scream and the sight of the struggling rat trying to run down my trousers. I frantically jumped up not realizing that I was in bus and hit my head on the bus roof.

There was this sharp pain on my head, the shock of what just happened, the shouts, laughs and the entire commotion this scene created; got me pissed off”.

My question then is:

a.    If you were my friend, what would you have done?

-      pretend nothing happened and proceed with the plans?

-      will you be able to deal with the attacks this young lady will get from the other commuters in the bus?

-      give her that badly needed support & not take advantage of her?

-      etc

b.   If you were in the young lady’s shoe:

-      will you be objective enough to forgive yourself considering you never asked the rat to get into your bag?

-      will you still hold your head high and be confident?

-      will you be able to deal with this embarrassment?

-      will you still keep that smile on your face?

It is easier to ‘judge others’ because we are not involved. On the other hand, the greater joy comes with the ability to positively deal with the conflicts within us (as individuals). 

This will help in no greater way determine how successful we can become in our relationships.