You Truly Love When You Tolerate

On my way to work this morning I boarded a bus, and in that bus a certain woman sat beside me. Few miles into the journey, without permission she closed the window even though I and other lady were the ones near the window.

When she did that without considering the fact that the bus could be hot for other passengers, we didn’t utter a word.

Already while she was entering the bus I knew something was wrong with her with the way she slowly walked into the bus, though I couldn’t figure out what it was, but I just knew she was going through something.

All through the journey she wasn’t herself, she could probably be catching cold and perhaps too weak to talk that made her close the windows without permission.

Apparently she was restless; thank God for those of us in the bus who had the fortitude to tolerate her, at some point I felt the nudge to ask what was wrong with her, but the thought of how she would react restrained me. I just prayed in my spirit that whatever it was she was going through that heaven will come through for her.

Finally we got to a certain bus stop and she alighted. She couldn’t even open her mouth to tell the conductor that she was going to alight, what if another passenger had not alighted there, does it mean she would let the driver drive pass her bus stop?

That is to tell you how weak that woman was.

As she walked towards a building, I looked; low and behold it was EKO hospital that means the woman was really ill.

Then I thought to myself, what if we had been angry and intolerant with her that means we would have added to her problems not knowing she was going through pain.

You see, people are going through stuff, and the last thing you should ever think of doing is to become self-centered, mean, intolerant or judgmental towards people especially when you have not made any effort to understand where they are coming from or what they have been through.

Just last month, our fellow country people were massacred in cold blood by the evil Fulani headsmen, and while we were yet to recover from that, many others were caught up in fire on the Otedola bridge along Lagos-Ibadan express way, and the truth is that none of those people were plugged from the tree, they all came from a family who possibly are still trying to rap their heads around what has befallen them.

Perhaps soon you might encounter them in the market place getting agitated when you negotiate their product below a certain amount.

You might even meet them on the roads or in the bus acting in an irritable manner, please do not be too quick to get angry, some people’s problem are so much that it will only take the help of God for them not to lose their minds completely.

People are really going through a lot.

I know you also have your own problems to deal with, but please can you pause a bit with yours and look out for the person next to you?

That is the only way we can co-exist as human.

Don’t be too fixated on yourself to the point where you lose altruism towards your fellow human.

Lend someone a shoulder to cry on.

Call up someone to know how he or she is doing.

Be kind enough to accommodate the interest of other people.

Be slow to anger.

Talk less and listen more.

Be the help that someone has been praying for.

Learn to look beyond people’s faults.

Be kind.