The Child of Womb and Child of Back

Just recently I remembered a story that was shared by a former boss. He told us how he failed to give his brother money to enable him release his wife from hospital after she had given birth. Later that very day he went and completed a transaction for his new car that had just landed. This took majority of us present at the meeting by surprise. I would say we gave him blank looks perhaps calling him a mean person. He just smiled. It seems he was totally not surprised by our reaction. Before we could continue the rest of the meeting in disgust, he explained his actions. 

He told us child birth isn't an emergency. His brother had 9 months to plan for it. He went on to explain if his brother had an initial plan that failed it wasn't right to wait till last minute. This made perfect sense. My boss then went ahead to explain had he not paid for his new car he would have dealt with fines. He wondered why he's the one to pay for someone else's irresponsibility. Oh and how he had squeezed up his savings to get to that point. Oh and the car was a pressing need for him.  The car was to comply with the image when he meets his clients. This would help him raise money to finally secure a house for his family. 

At the end of the meeting each of us had a new kind of thinking. There are things that are not an emergency. It is just that we humans feel our needs are more important than those of others. It's no wonder a person will come to the salon and want to be attended to because they feel theirs is a simple task. Picture this, you go very early to the salon to get plaited and go about your day. A customer in need of Blow-dry comes and wants the person attending to you to stop so that they are attended to. If theirs was a simple task why didn't they book the hair dresser like you did? 

This same thinking is the reason some of us will think someone going for a holiday is wasting money. Or someone paying for a presidential suite when they have a luxurious mansion is wasting money. We need to wake up to some hard realities. 

The thinking that basic needs are food, shelter and clothing is long gone. A need becomes a need depending on how important it is to an individual. While a car is a luxury to one, it's a source of livelihood to another.  Stop looking at someone stressing over their BMW X5 as undeserving because you are stressing over food. They have food so they stress over the next important item.

Demeaning needs of others is also strongly linked to the numerous suicide cases. When a person opens up , their reason for wanting to take their life is because they lost 1dollar or their team lost and we demean that reason , we are tightening their suicide rope. Majority don't seek to understand the attachment one has to something. The dismiss it as a minor need. 

Let's learn to respect each other. We are all at different levels of life. We are all dealing with different struggles. No struggle is greater than the other. Let's not feel we are more placed to be helped, attended or listened to more than others. Let's not laugh at each others struggles because it appears mere. All of us are balanced in our own right. 

As those that speak my African language say, "There is no child of womb and of back"  Another saying closely related:  Only the shoe wearer knows how painfully the shoe pinches.