On Worry

​Guys, can we have some serious talk? No? You’re allowed to loiter around still. Just hang somewhere within hearing distance, you don’t know when your blessing will come calling. 

Yes? Good, grab a seat. There’s enough for everybody but if you hurry, you’ll get a sofa with some throw pillows. If not, you might end up on a wooden rickety stool. The patient dog usually goes hungry these days. 
Now silence. 

Some humans get sad quite easily, other worry deeply whenever things don’t look good and some other people are just always walking with the disappointment of what they don’t have and where they are still to get to. If you belong to any of these groups, raise two hands, like this 🙌
Don’t give me that look because my hands are up, we are all similar in more ways than one. I’m human too. In fact, I belong[ed] to the three groups. 

This morning started pretty much the same. I don’t have a salary paying job but I render a variety of services to people from which I get my daily meal and monthly subscription fees among other things covered. So if my services are not required, I have a lot of time on my hands with nothing to do. So I spend this time worrying, getting sad and wondering ‘why me?’ 

• Look carefully at the caption above. Stare, ogle. Now take your eyes off it. Let us move on, shall we? 

 A friend walks up to me with his smartphone and shows me the pictures of a beautiful young lady; mid twenties at most. 

‘Do you know her?’

‘Should I?’

‘From back in school’

‘Nah, I don’t think so. Why?’

‘She don mud’
That means she’s dead. 
Based on my friend’s reputation, I was actually expecting to hear something like ‘we’re dating now.’ 
I was tongue-tied. I was nonplussed, and I became thoughtful. 
NB: Worrying and thinking are two slightly different concepts. 

The truth is sometimes [most times] we as humans miss what should be focused on, so much that we forget that our time here is limited. Hey friends, we won’t be here forever. So, live. Eventually, you will die. 

Don’t give me that look, I’ll die too. When I’m alive, I should live, right? That’s the sensible thing to do. Staying alive as worrying robot is never good for your body or mind. 
I got practical with myself to actually assess my situation and what I am worrying about. Three years ago, my dad was in an auto accident [for the fourth time since I can remember] and he was on bed for more than fourteen months. During this period, he contemplated suicide, even bought a revolver for that and almost went through with it. The pain he went through, the troubles of his heart as his business crumbled and his family tore apart before his eyes were otherworldly. He was helpless, unable to make anything work. He had to spend each day just eating, sleeping, resting and recovering. Doing ‘nothing’ can drive several people crazy. I am a member of that club. 
I have had dead friends. There’s no hope for them to aspire to things anymore; things we want to sabotage living for just because we don’t have them yet. 
An accident could have taken me as its victim, death could have swallowed me whole, insanity could have obliterated life before me but here I am still largely whole, and UNGRATEFUL. 
It could have been worse but it isn’t. This is not because I deserve where I am, it is not because of my educational background, it just is. Devout Christians will ascribe it to grace. But even grace is undeserved, right? You don’t work for it, you don’t earn it. The superior being just gives it out as he deems fit. 

However the dice is cast, whatever side of the elephant I grab in my blindness, I know I’m not here, healthy and sound because I deserve it. It just is what it is and I have decided to take up an ‘attitude of gratitude’. 
I have decided not to spread sadness to people around me and people I meet because that shit called sadness is contagious. Worry is a cancer with a cure, when it hasn’t gone downhill, when it hasn’t become deathly addictive. Work yourself out. However you choose to see it, once you’re alive, allow some peace of mind and a copious amount of happiness for yourself. You Deserve It and Nothing Less. 
Now, since you’re still here at the end of that tense talk, tea will be served soon. If you prefer coffee, do specify now. And please, don’t break my saucers, they’re quite expensive.