Chronicles Of Life "A This Generation Point Of View" (4)

by vosedegea
EPISODE 4

Comprarism:
Growing up we all had this issue, even till now we still do, but I think we've grown or built capacity to handle it. Although back then it wasn't funny. Comparism is a big killer of self-esteem.

Growing up my mum always compared us to anyone possible. She compared us to one of our neighbour's children, his name, Endurance, everything that happened at home lead to comments like; "don't you see Endurance?" "can't you be like Endurance?" we could never do anything right as long as Endurance was there, he was a saint in my mum's eyes until he insulted her and lost all credibility.

Imagine how that made us feel.....We were in cloud nine, our bar had just been broken, its wasn't just Endurance, it was almost everthing we did.

I remember coming back from school with some very excellent results, when I say excellent I really mean "it was excellent" ironically, and my neighbor's son came with a result that beat mine a hundred (100) times.

Read EPISODE 2

Not that I was dull, I was just an average student, when I thought mine was worse, I actually had high hopes when my brother presented his own result, all hell was let loose and the comparison began that night. You all will agree with me that you hate it when you are compared with someone else.

Apart from the fact that comparism reduces self esteem, it also causes strife between you and whosever you are been compared with, you begin to store up bitterness because it seemed the child outside has the love you seeked inside.

Growing up with a competitive mindset that you have to be better than everyone because you need your parents to notice you, you pray for the downfall of who you are been compared with, in the bid to try to redeem yourself or do something worth noticing, you end up been compared the more.

Read EPISODE 3

It's so funny because just as you are complaining that you are being compared with your neighbor, your neighbor is also complaining that he/she is been compared to you, it's a never ending circle.

Most times I just wished I could call a family meeting and say "I am who I am, I can't be the boy next door neither can he be me, I'm not perfect that's for sure but neither are you, how would you feel if I compared you to other parents out there...." anyway this speech never came to light, that's why I can write this book. If it had, I think I would be in white robes by now singing "kumbaya oh lord kumbaya".
I know we all wanted to say something like this but we couldn't and didn't, thank God you didn't if not who will read my book....?

We all had that child in church who we know isn't an angel but that's how our parents see them.
I'm from a Christian home, and at home our devotion was shared amongst every one, we all had our different days to take charge of devotion, mine was Wednesday.
I remember one night after my siblings and I had done something in the house that we were flogged for, the evening devotion was round two, we were flogged both physically and spiritually, using scriptures to injure you, the charge for the night was strictly about us and about our neighbor's children, each of us got a huge dosage of spiritual comparison, every word is backed up with a scripture so you can't argue you just nod your head in defeat.


Subsequently we got used to it, it just sounded like a broken record, yea I'm guessing this brings back some not so fun memories.

We are who we are, we have to accept it so we can get past it and move on.
EPISODE 1



To Be Continued

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