Someone’s form of making it maybe eating beside a toilet. It may be his dream, his fulfillment and his ultimate choice of life. To him, eating his burger beside a toilet gives him total satisfaction and joy.
To many this sounds gross, it sound awful and distasteful. It sounds unhealthy, childish and evil but to this guy, this is heaven on earth. The world would do the obvious - to try and convince this guy that they need to eat in a more decent place, somewhere clean, neat and presentable.
The world would say it is not ‘normal’ for one to eat beside a toilet. The world will try to take the guy for a psychiatric test, maybe do some cleaning rituals or pray to God that he may see the light. He will be labeled, ‘The guy who eats in the toilet’ and will be forever ridiculed and treated as an outcast.
The guy whose fulfillment comes from eating beside the toilet will now try as much to eat in the dining to ‘fit in’. He will fake the smiles, make casual jokes at the dinner table but deep inside he understands and knows that the toilet is his sanctuary but he can no longer eat there because of societal pressure.
Slowly, food becomes tasteless to him. By now, he has faked enough smiles at the dinner table and has learnt a new habit - faking it to please others. He now fakes everything, his gait, his hobbies, his desires and he slowly cannot bear with the weight of the original.
Beside his funeral, his murderers say things like…
“He was an amazing guy!”
“Life is so short, this was such a poor soul.”
“But what was wrong with him? This guy shouldn’t have killed himself. Everything looked okay.”
“I believe there was something we couldn’t see. This guy had enemies, crazy debtors or was in shoddy deals, he wouldn’t have just killed himself.”
You are that person who loves eating beside the toilet and so many have ridiculed you and you are now faking smiles in the dining table. Guess what, you have also killed so many who loved eating beside the toilet because you loved having your sumptuous meal in the dining table.
You have been murdered so many times and you also let your persecutors torture you first with endless excruciating pain before they killed that passion of yours, your freedom of expression and art and your freedom of choice.
But you are also a murderer, you have killed so many when you told them things like":
I don’t love that picture, choose another career not photography
You are too loud, when will you learn to be quiet?
You call yourself a fashion designer? Really?
Come back to the real world, you are daydreaming a lot.
And all these are said subtly, sometimes in puns and the receiver usually feigns a smile but later as they sit to meditate in their quiet time, the words of their murderers take a hit on their soul and they die slowly.
So how do you outgrow murderers?
Simple, stop murdering. Stop killing other people’s dreams and aspirations. Stop killing their peace and sanity, stop talking down on them and start building them.
Words are the most powerful things on every realm.
There is a reason why God created by a word of mouth. There is a reason you are saved by testifying by words, there is a reason why we speak things into existence because words in themselves transcend realms.
Kingdoms have risen and fallen through words. People are in bound or free simply because of words. How can one be careless about what comes out of their mouths?
Your definition of success should first be - ‘How can I make others succeed first?’ You cannot have a definition of success if you cannot build or create an environment for others to succeeed.
Ask yourself, “If I want this for me, unapologetically, am I ready to allow others to want what they want for themselves as well so long as it doesn’t harm others or infringe on what I want?”
Most want to thrive at the expense of others, most want the right to define their success but don’t want others to define their own version of success. For example:
A rich family would want their well-educated son to continue running their family business.
A career person would want their business-minded child to pursue a career
A sibling would want another sibling to act and live a certain way lest their bring shame to the family.
And so on.
Again, what’s your definition of success?
Another question to whip the cream - are you bold enough to define your own success?
And if you are bold enough to define your own success, do you have the balls to live it no matter what anybody says?
For years, I was the guy who loved eating beside the toilet and I would constantly ask
What are people saying?
Is it normal for people to love eating beside the toilet?
Won’t people think am nuts?
Today, am slowly teaching myself to choose me, to choose what I love doing and what I want BUT NOT at the expense of other people’s peace and harmony. I am rewriting my own beliefs, culture and values. I was so shaped by the world that I forgot me, I just went with what was ‘normal’.
So far so good, am doing amazingly well.
So what is your definition of success?
And does it infringe on other people’s rights and freedoms?