More often than not family members, friends, workmates, spend so much of their productive time pondering on and on about, "how dare he say that…who does he/she think he/she is…is he/she mad?”. So much for being the most intelligent creatures of God! How come we spend most of our time disagreeing on almost everything, be it religion, power, ideas, views, opinions, name it?

For starters, we may have all been created in God’s own image, but more importantly, we are as different as the millions of names our parents chose to give us suggest. That gift of differentiating between right and wrong, our variable genetic mix resulting from a gelling of what makes a mother and father ensure that essentially we cannot agree upon anything, especially if we are left to our own devices. Unless of course, when the influence of charismatic persons manages to coalesce throngs of different people around one thinking or belief – note that in these cases, the union of views is not necessarily the logic of the charismatic light, but rather the charisma itself, which explains why Hitler and Mother Theresa both can command such a huge following at least at one point in time.

But the main reason why men are prone to squabbling even on the direction of the sunrise and sunset is our inability to separate the meaning of other people’s words. Case in point in the current Arab spring or is it now a summer. Muammar Gadhafi and Hosni Mubarak always spoke with so much conviction behind their words just like Nicholas Sarkzoy or David Cameron. Both sides of the story had a strong following and at the end the two sides do not agree by compromise but instead by which side wins, be it in a war or a revolution.

Ultimately, the end justifies the means; the victor even if wrong prevails of the vanquished even if right. And so is human nature.

Yet, the meaning of any statement is really not in the words, but in the people or person for that matter. When someone calls you stupid, don’t rush to lynch that person because they have insulted you. Usually, that is a warning sign of something wrong with that person. Instead, try to put yourself in that person’s shoes, their sense of decorum, they life experiences, their environment or their motives. First, humans like to pull others down to their own level. So an insanely jealous stupid person will try to make you feel stupid so that they can be in good company. We know that nobody is really stupid to the core because we are all good at one thing usually and bad at many things. The same goes for women or girls who call others ugly, because it shows how they think. There is no standard for beauty or ugliness, and in fact one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

When someone calls you a mturage in a derogatory manner, usually they are secretly the real waturage or are just insensitive to others’ feelings which means their negative statements are usually a reflection of their inner self. Good people radiate good tidings while bad people do otherwise. For example, if you see a fiend’s trouser zip open you call him aside and pit to him quietly making light of it, but if you say it in the open, your intention is to embarrass and it has nothing to do with an innocent fashion misdemeanor.

So when you come across the kind of people who have a lot of vitriol, gossip and hurtful things to say about others, beware not to be sucked into their circle because usually such kinds talk to cover their own inferiority complex. On the other hand, people who are confident of themselves and are constantly encouraging others are only able to this because they do not see any threat in those around them bettering themselves.

I wish you understanding Sunday!
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