I tell you many times the hardest thing to do is say “No!” Many times you find yourself in a situation where you are, as they, say between a rock and a hard place. It might be because the prevailing situation goes against your principles in life; those very principles you’ve been building and strengthening all your life. I mean principles don’t come easy. They are not as easy as reading a couple of self-help books and articles and setting your principles overnight. After all, it would be naïve of me to try to tell you having clear cut principles in life which you cling to whatever come may isn’t easy. But breaking them, or going against some of your principles just to keep some waters from being disturbed doesn’t seem to be the brightest thing to do when you come to living by your books and not anyone else’s. It might be about that dilemma between saying “No!” and losing a friend or two while keeping our life intact. Now on the surface the question as to which one is …it’s obvious that holding tight to their principles might be a gold medal move. But then looking at things from various directions and saying, “After all, we’re not living in a perfect world and for me to seek perfection is either stupidity inbound or an outright mental case. But I’m not going to lose a friend just because of ‘perfection’ which is just another term in the dictionary and that’s all.
When it comes to interacting with others say one of your principles is respect. You know, respect everyone equally without any ifs and buts and treating king and subject equally. What was that? That was treating king and subject equally; anything wrong with that? There would be many who would say a big “Yes, there is!” In fact, they could take this not as an accidental slip of the tongue but even blasphemy! “How in the world could you treat king and subject equally! This crazy!” It is like saying “How can you treat the CEO and the low level clerk equally? Somehow over the ages we seem to have developed different kinds of respect for different sections of the society. “That’s the right of doing it! You can’t address the boss and the low clerk with the same level of respect!”
“So what is the right way to do this?”
“The right way to do is give the moss the highest respect and treat t how clerk like the low clerk they are.”
It seems that when we are talking about respect we’re talking about human beings in spite of their status in the society. Yes, the educated and the uneducated, the brass and the foot soldiers, the filthy rich and the horrifically poor, those in holding the sprawling offices on the upper floors and those tending for vehicles in the underground car park are all first human beings. At the places of work, they might be what they are: boss, low level staff and the like. I think most of us easily slip in those places. We tend to equate social status with actual humanity as if we were born differently with the tags attached to us like ‘High Level Human Being;’ ‘Middle Level Human Being;’ ‘Low Level Human Being.’ It wouldn’t be thinking over the board to say that there actually would be many who see things with such spectacles. And that reality causes us to fail in expressing the correct respect for our fellow humans.
We were talking about saying “No!” to things which go against our life principles. We raised ‘respect’ because it is one solid life principle which experts advise us to make ours. Indeed, what a wonderful addition it would to our voyage through the lows and highs of life if we realize respect is about treating everyone equally. Period!
Problems come when you face things which you don’t believe in or aren’t accustomed to do. Say you are not a raw meat enthusiast. In fact you never tasted it and never had the thought of having a bite or two just to see why so many have become so committed addicts of raw meat. Someone close but not close enough to know your dietary habits offers to invite you raw meat.
“You know what we’ll do on Saturday! We’ll go a famous house where a kilo of meat costs two thousand birr and have our fill. After dining we’ll have the best tej ever made anywhere in Addis. All is on me.”
“Thanks; but I neither eat raw meat nor drink tej.”
The guy wouldn’t take it easily as he has been mulling about inviting you for some time; and you turn down his invitation! Now that’s not a very friendly reaction.
Look, we’ll be out only for a couple of hours. I’ve been thinking about this for some time.” Oh really! This might touch a nerve or two.
“Sorry, but…”
“I’m not pushing you to do anything you don’t like. I’m asking to have lunch with me after a long time and turning me down…” The voice trails off as the veins across the face begin speaking for themselves. This touches not only a couple of nerves but an entire battalion of nerves. Believe me, it takes really iron-strong nerves and the conviction to accept what may to stick to principles and say, “No, thank you!”
That’s why to easily slip and give in. “Look, I’m doing this for you just this time only. I don’t want you to be sore with me. But…”
The guy’s face is already sparkling with a hundred twinkling lights and whatever you say next makes no sense to him as he has got what he wanted. Since many of us don’t want to break friendships at a time when real friends are hard to come by. These days all kinds of people try to convince you of things you despise and even hate. There is so much going on being in fields like politics, religion and a host of other issues the scouts are out looking for people to join them. And among the scouts could be people who are close to you and try to use friendship and camaraderie to pull you into one shallow pit or another!
“No, thank you!”
BY EPHREM ENDALE CONTRIBUTER
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 10 MARCH 2024