Thursday, September 1

Man in the Mirror

Title of a song by Michael Jackson.
‘I am starting with the man in the mirror. I am asking him to change his ways….if you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make the change!’
Have you noticed that the world is exploding? Are you concerned? Abi its none of your business? Afterall, you go out and come back in everyday, your family is cool, what more?
It seem like there have been one crisis after the other for as long as I can remember, all over the world. I am not even going to dwell on Nigeria and talk about Boko Haram, or the bombing of the UN building, or the kidnapping (oh yes, that persists, howbeit quietly, but it persists!). And Jos! When did Jos become a place where people eat other humans? Jos?!
And America; hurricanes (New Jersey, abi?), flooding, earthquake (in Virginia) and fires (in Texas) are having a field day. Libya is undergoing Something Terrible by the hand of Gadaffi, you cannot imagine how many innocent people have died. And the London riot (London o! Who would ever have thought?). The whole world is under siege.
But the one thing that I want to talk about today is how we sit and imagine that these things are far from us. You may not live in America, you may be far from Libya, in fact, you do not live in Maiduguri or Bauchi! But somehow somewhere, we have a connection to these places..and errr...the UN Building is not in Maiduguri oh. There are such things as ripple effects. If we deceive ourselves that these chaos is relegated to a place, cant we see how they are marching with determination to those places we think are ‘secure?’ Did we all not want to run to America to live? Be truthful, have we not at one time imagined that if we lived abroad our lives would be better?? Who doesnt want to live in the beautiful and quiet city of Abuja?? Who foresaw riot in London?? Who would imagine that hurricanes with different names (I can’t even get over the fact that they have names! Jeez) would take over cities in America…eruption of evil, crises, death all over the world. I would like to know just what it is we have our sights on to make us think we are far removed and immune from alll of this?
So it got me thinking (again! sigh) about my preoccupation. What is my preoccupation?? Me, myself and I?  Food, clothes, shelter. This does not make me a bad person o. But has the quest for them kept me away from The Real Thing? What is the real thing?? That there is more to life than the things I seek?  But what can small me do??  What impact would small me make? I guess I have look into my priorities and ‘re-prioritize’ them!! That’s what I must do! The things that come to terrorize the world today did not start big, they began in small and innocent ways. So should our (positive) response to changing them. It’s incredible how we pass over messages of war, of kidnapping, of death, of sick people without thinking, moving on to other things.
Shall we look inwards and find out just what our part in this global crisis is, please? I doubt things would get better. It is possible that it would get progressively worse. however, the mistake that we shall make is to imagine that we are have nothing to do with it. In fact, we are it. And we must do something. Starting with the Man in the Mirror.
Be free oh…as you stare, pondering, in that mirror...

3 comments:

  1. I love that song by MJ and it is very thought-provoking too. Just like this post. Welcome back.

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  2. welcome back dearie. i hope you had fun. really its so easy to think that all these things don't bother u cos its not close to you. what if it becomes that close one day..God forbid. I just see the world is going into a great turmoil.
    www.secretlilies.blogspot.com

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  3. This post got me thinking...and thinking and thinking and i'm still thinking. Let's not be so foolish to think we can keep on eating and drinking while people drop like flies all around us. God sees us and has an expectation..
    Indeed, creation groans and waits for our manifestation. If we don't do something...anything...we will for sure have regrets, if not here, in the hereafter

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