Fade up of complete strangers who try to inject some political or other ‘concoction’ into your system. They could talk for hours and your reaction would be, “What the hell was he saying.” Unfortunately many of those trying to sell you their political ideas know anything but politics. The trouble with such people is that they fail to realize that life is about choices individuals make for themselves. They fail to realize that every time they try to convince or pressure you to tow their line they’re actually asking you to give up your choices. The heartache comes when they refuse to take “No!” for an answer.
People have their choices of favorite places. I mean there are places which people I know almost worship but I don’t want to get anywhere near. Why? Because those places don’t feature in the list of my choices. Expecting others to like our choices, and trying to shove and push them into accepting our version of whatever the topic they’re discussing is being disrespectful at the least and rude at the worst.
Of course standing firm by your choices in life isn’t something which always gets you the thumbs-ups and the applauses. In fact you could be taken as an arrogant person who thinks he has head and shoulders above the crowd. So it demands integrity and perseverance however long it takes to stick to our choices and come out with still in one piece.
Some of our colleagues who come for visits think that we would destroy their names if they don’t take us to the four and five star hotels. No a title nice café would do. It is matter of choice. When people try to dump their own choices on you without considering your choices that wouldn’t leave nice feelings with you.
Quite a while back a couple of long lost friends come back home for vacation. A few days after their touchdown this call comes in the early hours of the evening. After the usual greetings and pleasantries they say that they were waiting for me in a bar in the Piazza area in close proximity to where I lived until a few months back. I thanked them and said I couldn’t come. They asked me why. Well the why is that I don’t go out in the evening hours and also it has been practically almost a lifetime since I last entered the pace they were in. It being noisy to the point of giving you all kinds of ailments you never experienced.
They were surprised to the point of accusing me of trying to avoid them. I tried to reason with them that my choices didn’t include nighttime outings. I can tell you it was a call that didn’t end well. The next day I thought they deserved a little more explanation and called they were using during their stay here. It wasn’t answered. I repeatedly tried to no avail. I knew they were telling me what they felt about my previous night’s turning down their invitation. What could anyone have done in such a situation! The other option was going against your way of life just to make them feel good. Now, if you ask me I don’t think that is the right way of doing things. Why should anyone go against his life’s choices just to make others, friends or otherwise, feel good?
Take someone, maybe one of your best friends, comes and tries to win you to his side with political rhetoric you’re fed up of listening to. Life is about choices as it is about principles. And the nicest thing is for people to respect your choices as they do respect theirs. You tell him that you’re not interested and that you’ve your own choices.
Life is about making choices, isn’t it?
There has been a lots of talk about people you used to know acting in ways that look strange and off-the-mark to you. You find it quite trying seeing how they have changed. You just can’t belief to realize to what extent they have changed, believe how they’ve changed. Their ways might not be comfortable to you. But then who cares! They’ve made their choices and it is for us to respect them. After we are talking about their lives and they make the calls!
Things begin to go wrong when we innocently or deliberately try to interfere into people’s lives and make the choices for them. You don’t have to agree or disagree. After all we’re talking about their lives.
Of course it doesn’t mean we make the right choices. No! Not at all. But then when it comes ‘the right choice’ is subjective, isn’t it? Say all of a sudden some fellow whom you thought was a teetotaler life suddenly hits the bottle. He tries to rationalize things saying that as long as he doesn’t overdo it that has been the case the look of that.
Say a person you know closely decides to hit the political road. “I have decided to join such and such political group,” the person tells you. You might either have no idea about the mentioned political group or it might be one of those worthless and aimless groupings you hate like hell. So what? That’s his choice and who’s anybody to tell him he’s on the wrong path? Years back I’ve heard of a well-knit group of friends going bust because of political choices. Isn’t that sad!
Ours must be one of these places where personal political choices make or break friendships.
Say the lady you thought was destined to be a very prominent lady of letters decides to be an activist on some subject you scoff at and consider irrelevant. But that’s her choice and the best one can do is respect her choice. But that’s her choice and that must not come into considerations in friendships.
Even with friends there are boundaries. You can’t be comfortable with people who, maybe unconsciously, try to dig deeper into your personal life and try to push, sometimes bully, you into throwing your choices out of the widow and take up theirs. If your refusal to do so and decision to stick to your own choices means the final chapter of the friendship, so be it. If it splinters into a hundred over such a trivial matter it means it was never the real friendship you thought it to be. So though it is hard to accept it at first you’re better off being out of it. I mentioned this because people I know closely enough who have stayed friends for quite a long time part ways because of personal choices. If only we realize that as we respect and hold dearly our own choices, the other persons too have every right to hold on dearly to their personal choices. Things couldn’t be simpler!
EPHREM ENDALE
The Ethiopian Herald July 7/2024