LOGIC AND HOME TRAINING

All my adult life of boarding public transportation, I have been at war with the two parts of who I am as a simple, rational, Logical human being who believes in the theory of first come, first serve and deserves to get the best seat in the bus or tricycle because he was there first; and the religious, well brought up boy from the trenches who was raised to respect his elders and be nice to people. ‘Religious’ here means, God fearing with good etiquette and home training.

I was at the tricycle park, comfortably seated at the back, two other people joined me. If you are from Kaduna, you know that they have to put someone at the front seat with the driver; there, a nursing mother with her child were to join us. Now, the Logical me was like, “I boarded this keke first and waited 15mins for it to full, I deserve to be comfortable”; the ‘religious me wanted to give her my seat plus I always have sympathy for pregnant and nursing mothers in public transport; My prayer point when I see that is always, “God abeg! make my wife no enter bus”.

This is just one example from the many times I have been caught between logic and ‘religion’ and I am sure you have your own experiences as well.

Before your think I am a bad person, I gave her my seat.

However, would I be wrong to not give her my seat? Do I owe her my seat? Is it a confessional sin to not be that nice?

There is this social media agitation on of self-care, but to be nice to people is almost always at the expense of oneself. Say, I have an opportunity to get ahead of my mates in the office by way of privilege information, do I take that opportunity or should I be nice enough to share that information with them and let the best man win? Will they do that for me? Where is the limit or line drawn to avoid ‘see finish’ or to be taken advantage of, because you are being religiously nice?

After closing, my friends from work and I used to go home together because we live in the same neighborhood. Most of the time I had to wait for them to conclude their work because they are in a different department and their work extends a little after closing time. Sometimes they or I have to branch the market to buy stuff before heading home. That was a good thing because it would enhance our friendship outside the work place and we would be closer and be able to rely on one another; nice right? Over time, I got tired of waiting and not going home straight when I wanted to, so I decided to leave as soon as I close without waiting, I felt guilty for a while but I used logic to justify my actions. That way I could do anything I wanted without inconveniencing them and they can as well without me, grudgingly following them and inconveniencing myself, if it so happened that we close the same time, fine. I don’t know how they felt but nobody complained and I did not have to explain. Maybe it was easy because they felt the same way or because we are all guys, but you see that other gender, e fit be issue, lol.

In my opinion, logical and rational way of doing things is not bad but its not righteous, nobody can hold it against you but your conscience.

I guess all I am saying is, know when to use logic and when to use home training to take a decision towards other people in an attempt to take care of yourself and be nice to them at the same time.

When I am faced with that public transportation dilemma, I always use logic to answer a ‘religious’ question, “will you like someone else to give your mother their seat?” The answer is, “Hell Yeah!”.

Question: Is it ok to choose where, when and to whom, you can be nice/good to? How do we justify that in the sight of God and His teachings?

Let me know what you think!!!

With all the Home training I can muster,

Yours Logically,

Booksz.