The queue was long, the sun was blazing hot. New people coming around didn’t join the queue at the back, they were walking to the top 10 spaces to lobby for absorption into the queue. The less bold ones searched for their friends and got a slot there.
I joined the queue at the back, even though I had ‘friends’ all over the place who would not mind absorbing me. “I believe in a new Nigeria where things will be orderly, and where people will start acting in a more matured way” I told myself.
I was insisting to do things the right way, even though it was pointless – I obviously wasn’t making any impact by stubbornly sticking to the back of the queue and when I got to the top 10 places in the queue some 15 minutes later, people still lobbied me and cut the queue in front of me.
But you see, it was not pointless. It only seemed to be pointless. By sticking to do what is right and not cutting corners, I am ensuring that the right values I’ve spent a long time cultivating does not get eroded.
Every action we take adds up into making us who we are. People who jump queues are training themselves to cut corners and they get into trouble for it in the long run. They are training their mind not to commit into doing the right thing and as such, they are the ones who would lie, cheat or bribe their way out of any circumstance. They are the ones who gets scared by hard work, and if hard work scares you, you cannot become very successful.
People who give up on finding the pen they needed so badly after asking from the closest vendor will also give up on obtaining a visa or submitting an important form because of a little that showed up on the way.
Its all related. It all flows out of the same heart.
So, I keep doing things the right way, the ideal way regardless of whether it appears to be working or not because I love myself and do not want to permit any ‘backsliding’.
We have to keep doing things the right way, it helps us become better people and stay that way in the long run.
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Watching The World
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