Becoming is easy; knowing what to ‘Become’ is the difficult part…
(Don’t bend over backwards to make someone like you. No one likes anyone because they are perfect. Despite your imperfection, those who choose to will find a reason to like you, anyway!)
No matter how much you try to fight off negative labelling effects, it isn't easy to prevent them from hitting their mark eventually — especially if that label is thrown at you daily.
The feeling that I would never be good enough, no matter how hard I tried to please my uncle’s wife, was soon to place a big burden on my young head. I could just have stopped trying. But I couldn’t. Hope and faith were two of the legacies my mother and grandmother had bequeathed to me before I left for Lagos. ‘Doroyen k’Abasi, nie mbuotidem (trust in God, have hope). I held onto that and tried even harder. If I try harder, Aunty will like me eventually. Maybe I am not trying hard enough? Somehow, I was convinced of that. How was a child who was barely ten (by that time) to know that no one likes you because you make them or because you are perfect? How was she to know that despite your imperfection, those who choose to like you will find a reason to like you anyway?
No one likes you because you are perfect. But despite your imperfection (and maybe even despite it), those who choose to will find a reason to like you, anyway!
However hard I tried, somehow, I could not get Aunty to like me. It wasn’t long before her lack of affirmation began to make me feel exactly the way she said I was — worthless. Suddenly, it wasn’t just her and her children who were putting me down. I, too, was doing it. Why was I so stupid? Why couldn’t I get simple instructions? What was wrong with me. A ‘perfection’ mentality that was completely out of line with someone my age closely followed. If I saw a tiny speck of blemish on the floor, I went immediately down on all fours and scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed as if my life depended on it. If I noticed a stain on the corner of a shirt, I took the entire washing off the line and rewashed it all over again. This ate into my time and impacted my other chores, which resulted in more abuse from Aunty, which led to a further need to get things done just perfect. And on it went — like a hamster on a wheel.
The carried-over damage from this perfection complex lasted for years. If I knew then what I now know, I would have realized that the way Aunty treated me had nothing to do with how I was carrying out my chores. With that, I would have been able to avoid years of feeling not good enough.’ Undoing past years of negativity was, therefore, the area I focused most on when I began to work on healing myself. It took seemingly forever. That is why I have zero tolerance today for name-calling or any form of labelling. Call me out on anything if you misunderstand me, and I will be the one seeking resolution even if I am the aggrieved party. Just don’t’ call me names. Don’t label me. This, I find it hard to forgive.
It took years, but I finally did it. I saw myself the way I really was — a woman full of inner grace, dignity and beauty — rather than the ‘worthless’ and ‘pointless’ my uncle’s wife said I was. I was also able to realize that the only way to invalidate someone’s negative narratives is to change your own negative reports. It all starts within. And that’s what this book is all about. If you take time to know you enough to know your worth whatever someone says to you won’t matter; whatever that person tries to put upon you will flounder and roll right off like water over the back of a fowl.
Trevoh Noah was, of course, right in BORN A CRIME. ‘Being chosen’ can be the greatest gift anyone can give to you. However, choosing yourself is the greatest gift that you can give to yourself. And that happens when YOU become the author of your own narrative.
