2018: Love as the way forward

                                           

     As we enter the New Year 2018, there are signs of joy and happiness on our faces, at least for scaling through the socioeconomic hardships and political uncertainties of last year. “Compliments of the season” greetings are still sounding from our lips, as we hopefully look forward to a more rewarding year.

            It will be good, if we should remember vividly certain things in our minds this year, so as to sustain the good wishes of the New Year from fading away as it does every year, especially after the first two months of the year.

            We desperately need love and tolerance in our society to keep us in harmony.          Usually, most of our actions are for our own interest. This shows that we love ourselves. We also love those who are our blood relations, while this is not the natural love I am talking about. Biblically, we have being advised in the book of St. Luke Chapter Six Verses Thirty-two and Thirty-three, that we should extends our love beyond those who do good to us. The Bible said: “for if ye love them which love you, what thank have yea? For sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you only, what thank have yea? For sinners also do even the same”. For instance, it is a fact that the armed-robber who kills his fellow man and carries his goods, will still have someone he love.

            Apart from the love which we show to other individuals there is also the love we ought to show to the society in which we live. To show that we love our society, our actions must be directed toward the well-being of our fellow countrymen. We must obey the accepted laws in our society and ensure that there is justice and fair play. We must be honestly committed to our society in whatever we do. These are all signs of the love we have for our country. In fact, if this culture was imbibed by all and sundry, our society will be Heaven on earth, a place to live with no fear.

It is time one should look into these two words which love gave birth to, Patience and Tolerance. Let’s take patience first. Most ugly traces of indiscipline facing us in our society today are caused by lack of patience. For example, the impatient attitude that are being shamelessly displayed when people queue-up to buy commodities, like fuel in filling station or to share things;  some people will not wait for their turn; they “jump the queue” or try to push ahead of those who are waiting quietly for their turn. Such people usually think that they are more intelligent or influential, but this is not true. The simple reason is that they do not have patience. They cause commotion and disarray everywhere. Even the law enforcement agents are the law breakers in society today. They do evil as duty in triumph, not knowing it is a seed of iniquity that will grow up in the future for them and children’s children.

Secondly, tolerance is a word we often used sometimes instead of patience. Tolerance has to do with our attitude to people who misbehave or offend us, either deliberately, mistake or simply out of ignorance. In such situation, we should endeavor to always tolerate and forgive our offenders. By so doing, we create happiness for ourselves and others.

In fact, Dale Carnegie, a profound thinker, must have reasoned this way when he wrote his book titled “How to Stop Worrying and
Start Living”. In it, he advised: “Let’s forget our own unhappiness – by trying to create a little happiness for others. When you are good to others, you are best to yourself”. This is difficult to achieve, but we must start today to build a better society.

To conclude, one would advise that, as  this new year 2018 has come to us not by our own making but by God infinite mercy; let us take into cognizance our dream for a better Nigeria, let’s ask ourselves these few questions: Am I cherished? Am I loved? Or am I the impatient in our society that causes indiscipline? What could I offer to keep our society in harmony”. Above all, let’s remember that man is not earth bound soul. Life is a transient.