from www.josoftblog.

The insidious destroyers are sneaky attitudes that creep into our lifestyle daily, unnoticed, which if not checked, can destroy potential and lower one from grace to grass. Today’s post is the second in this series.

Recently I was watching a football match in sparsely populated viewing center close to my apartment in school when something interesting occurred. It was Manchester United versus Ajax Amsterdam in the Netherlands a week ago and when United’s Mexican striker Javier Hernandez spurned a good opportunity to double United’s lead, the united fans in the room yelled curses at the North American striker for the woeful miss. Their pain as expressed by one of them was that their players are paid too much to miss such chances. But while they were still raining the curses, an obviously irritated neutral from behind the room howled in pidgin “Una no dey pay school fees, fail exams?” I couldn’t help laughing it out loud, it was funny of course. And even the cursing United fans saw light in his opinion. When I got back home after the match, in my usual manner, I pondered on those words.

The ranting United fans had a point of course – Hernandez is paid an amount in the region of £80,000 a week most of which comes from money United fans in England and around the globe pay to watch their club’s games week-in-week-out. So with such money and high level of expectation from the supporters, Hernandez should not be missing such opportunities.

But the other side of the coin told a similar story of the people who were hurling stones at the United striker for his miss – they are ALL students; their parents/guardians pay exorbitant school fees yearly for them, and also invest a lot in ensuring they are well sheltered, fed and provided for while at school. All these just to ensure they give the child a good education and hence a good start in life. But in return, most students spend all their time and resources in school on frivolities which include watching football of course, and on a hedonistic lifestyle, eventually failing courses or dropping out of school or ‘sorting’ their way through school and eventually graduating with a poor or average grade.

These were the same people ‘casting stones’ at Hernandez for “earning so much” and “missing such an easy chance.” Indeed, ‘let he who is without sin be the first to cast the stone’. As fate would have it, and as often happens in life, Javier Hernandez was the man who scored the goal that sealed victory for United in Amsterdam, much to the delight of those United fans.

The insidious destroyer in today’s post is PREJUDICE. We see it everyday, as victims or perpetrators. We are often quick to condemn people when they do what we would have done under the same circumstances. We write-off the poor, that they can’t become anything meaningful. We look down on the young and those lower than us, that they have nothing to offer. We discriminate against people from a culture, race and tribe different from ours, often destroying their self image and thus hampering a peaceful and cordial relationship with them.

But as often happens in life and as happened in the Javier Hernandez case above, ‘the stones that the builders reject, becomes the corner stone’. Popular soul music artist, Bukola Elemide (Asa pronounced ‘Asha’), in her single titled Mr. Jailer, refers to one who lives with prejudice towards others as Mr. Jailer, saying that both the jailer and his prisoner are victims and slaves as theirs lives are restricted to the prison. She then sings in that epic song, “If you’re walking through the market place, don’t throw stones, even if you do you just might hit one of your own.” She was simply relaying through that song, that through this market of life, prejudice is not the right path to follow but rather advises “be good to your fellow man”. She adds further that “life is not about your policies all the time.” How true.

Prejudice destroyers potential. Potential ideas, friendships, relationships, partnerships and harmony. I once read that the greatest weakness of man is Doubt; that Self-doubt, doubt in faith and doubting others are attitudes that terminate possibilities. Whether that is true or not, we all know that doubt is what breeds prejudice and prejudice becomes an insidious destroyer when unchecked.