Pride as we know it goes before a great fall. People who go the extra mile to protect their pride like it is a golden artifact find it hard to utter the words: “I am sorry”.
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They won’t just swallow their pride and say it so as to promote peace and sanity. Even when they are at fault, they still stand their ground and beat their chest that they won’t. Such people take every little information and blow it out of proportion. The painful aspect of it all is when they make it contagious to innocent minds around.
Since some people get influenced easily by both verbal and physical dispositions, the egoistic ones influence the young minds by either telling them directly or by displaying this act for the young ones to watch and learn thereby promoting insanity in a guise for ego protection and all manners of negativism.
A tale of an accident
Scene of the accident (photo taken by me)
To put things into perspective, let me relate a true story I witnessed in a neighborhood next to mine. It goes thus: I was heading to my mom’s to pay her a weekend visit. I had ordered an uber taxi earlier and so I stood waiting for his arrival.
Just suddenly, I heard a loud sound. When I turned to see the cause, I was shocked to see an accident few meters from where I stood.
A motorist had just hit a parked car. The parked car was badly hit that the left brake light fell off. For the sake of this story, I will call the motorist Mr. Ani and the owner of the parked car Mr. Okafor (not real names).
Before Mr. Ani could say “Jack Robinson”, Mr Okafor sprung out from nowhere and asked about how it all happened in a reasonably calm and friendly voice.
To the surprise of Mr Ani and onlookers around, Mr Ani didn’t show remorse for his action, rather he blamed Mr Okafor for parking his car wrongly whereas the car was parked appropriately.
Mr. Okafor demanded an apology else Mr. Ani would pay for damages done. Mr. Ani annoyingly refused to give the apology required of him and this infuriated Mr. Okafor and he gave him a slap.
The slap was so hot to the extent tears started rolling down the cheeks of Mr. Ani. Mr. Ani responded with a blow but it was an exercise in futility as Mr. Okafor skillfully dodged it and sent a mortal blow to his (Mr. Ani) nose.
Mr. Ani fell to his knees holding his nose (which was now covered in blood) and screamed in excruciating pain.
At this point, he gave up the fight and threatened to charge Mr. Okafor for assault. However, Mr Okafor move closer to him to continue beating him but for my timely intervention.
Mr. Okafor then tightly grabbed Mr. Ani’s trousers while asking him to pay for damages done to his vehicle, He quickly paid in order to prevent further beatings.
Mr. Ani accepted defeat and entered his car in shame and guilt and drove off slowly to the amazement of onlookers and to be honest I felt for him. Just then my uber arrived and I proceeded on my journey to my moms, though I wanted to see the very end of the brawl.
Final thoughts
Here is the deal, violence is and will never be the way to settle a dispute. If Mr. Ani had said “I am sorry”, Mr. Okafor would’ve let him be and he would’ve drove out of the scene unhurt. But he paid for damages and sustained injuries. The pride/ego he was so protecting was eventually shattered. Don’t promote violence and don’t hesitate to apologize when you are at fault. Saying “I am sorry” won’t make you feel less of the man that you really are, it won’t make you look inferior or stupid like others would think. The truth is, you don’t know the tolerance level of the next person out there. Promote peace and sanity at all times because peace is what we really need to stay safe and united with every other person in our already wounded planet.