A Talk with Tusse: A Jogging Convo
Welcome
My paddy, welcome back! This time I’ll be sharing perspectives exchanged between a friend of mine, Tusse and myself on the football pitch.
It was that time of the month when it was not economical to fuel the car, so I joined ‘Along’ to the field. Many thoughts had been on my mind that period about family & country, investments, charity and responsibility; quite a mix right? But yeah, ‘na so e be at that time’. So I walked into the school where we trained, straight to one of the guy’s car trunk to lace up my football boots, there was Tusse, ‘we holla normal’, then the conversation sprang naturally. Let’s dive in already… Don’t bother who said what, we were in motion, jogging, so it’s difficult to track because we mostly spoke in sync.
The Concerns
“Oh boy, how can you help people in this country, ‘how pesin fit support family’?”
“Help starts from self, you can’t really help anyone who is not desiring better for themselves anyway.”
Privileges & Rights
Life in itself is a privilege, resources that come to you when you’re alive are also privileges. How you use them is your right. But as it is with all rights, they can be abused or put to good use. You must pick your battles within the family and take on those that hold a promise. For instance, parents may have chosen to invest in the education of their children, it was their right, some may call it a responsibility though, but either way, that investment was a pure choice, a way of expressing their right over the resources they had (or had not). The same privilege may present itself to you and me, the question really is how we respond, how we express our rights.
Country & Family
Many of the national ‘wahala’ aren’t so different from what could be seen in individuals and in families. Greed, corruption, ingratitude, nepotism, name it. We just point fingers at the ones on TV conveniently because they are on TV, in the public space. Sometimes the greed is everywhere and it stems from ingratitude for what we have, a pure privilege. The corruption is right on the tip of our pens, what we scribble on paper and submit. We ask for more and forget the initial bargain, the Creator who gave is thanked only initially, the employer who employed didn’t think right. If I must solve the country ‘palava’, I must address my own ‘kata-kata’.
The Way Forward
You see that short talk above in the “The Concerns” section, it is one of the ways forward. I must desire better for myself and for others before the desirable can flow to me. I must thank those who ‘think’, then mine will come to me. We must seek to criticize with our own basket of support strategies to freely offer as advice. Tusse shared how he’s doing his bit to assist the country within his capacity, that’s why I salute him with this piece. Lastly, kindly re-read the last sentence in the “Country & Family” section.
We go jam later, insha’Allah.
