Today, I called a colleague who was on his way to my side of town, and asked him to help me get some takeout. I wanted to try out a new restaurant, so I asked if he knew it. He immediately said, “Yes.” So I sent him the funds required.
Two hours later, he arrived at my doorstep with takeout from our usual eatery, not the one I mentioned. Immediately I mentioned the mix-up to him, he froze and apologised. He explained that he just went to our usual place, without thinking.
I thanked him, and happily started opening the meal. But he stopped me, saying he would rather have what he bought for his personal consumption, and go back to get what I earlier requested. I told him it was okay, and that I was just being adventurous with trying out a new restaurant. He did not back down.
He explained that he would not be able to find peace today, until he got it right.
He took back what he had gotten, and left, to get what I had earlier requested.
When he returned with my takeout, I thanked him agai, and asked him why he could not live with just letting me have what he had earlier gotten. He explained that his mistake fundamentally meant he was not listening, and what’s worse, he did not show enough care to my needs, after committing to help. “That is neither the man I am nor want to be.”
I am thankful for the people that go the extra mile, sometimes at great personal cost, to live true to their values.
Day: January 17, 2021
Envy
We envy what we do not understand.
Cue 108 – Quotes
Quotes
“You say you are a nameless man. You are not to your wife and to your child. You will not long remain so to your immediate colleagues if you can answer their simple questions when they come into your office. You are not nameless to me. Do not remain nameless to yourself – it is too sad a way to be. now your place in the world and evaluate yourself fairly, not in terms of your naïve ideals of your own youth, nor in terms of what you erroneously imagine your teacher’s ideals are.” – Richard Feynman: Letter to a former student, reprinted in “Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track”
Gloom
There are days you just feel like being unhappy.
Nothing is wrong, but unhappiness is what you desire.
It is hard to explain it, but you turn away from anything that makes you happy and you seek gloom.
Then, just as it came, you snap out of it, and begin to wonder what was wrong with you in the first place. Gratitude then refills the space you earlier created for complaints.
Those who are lucky do not get to transmit the gloom of that phase to others.
Those who are unlucky have to live with the consequences of the gloom they spread to others.
When faced with an unexplainable feeling of unhappiness, resist the urge to justify it by spreading it. Observe what is happening, and smile. It will pass.
– Osasu Oviawe