THE TWO PEOPLE I FEAR! By: Extradallenum Olusegun Akinsanya

I fear two set of people. Anywhere I go, or any association I belong to, I watch out for these two people. Immediately I see these two people, I switch on my red button, I place my heart pulse on red alert. From that moment on, I watch carefully what I do or what I say.

The first of these two dangerous elements is someone who had failed and too despondent to pick up the pieces of his misfortune and try again. Rather he sucks, blames his environment or other people apart from himself and develop a negative mindset. Since he has failed and didn't learn anything from that failure, rather envies people who succeed and tries to drag them down to his level. Such a person can kill. He has cancer in his soul. That cancer is called envy. Cain eliminated his brother Abel because of this. When I see an envious person, who can't achieve what I aspire to, but stands in the way, then I intensify prayers. No one is safe in the hand of someone who wants what you want in life, but couldn't get it, and determines that no one else gets it.

The second person I fear is someone who is overambitious. When a person is overambitious, nothing on his path makes any meaning to him. He crushes everything and everyone along his path. He doesn't care who has to die or how many people he has to pull down to realise his ambition. In his desperation, he destroys valuable relationships, betrays loyalists and stabs close allies in the back.

As I advance in age, with a large bag of mistakes firmly fixed on my backside like a shapeless hunchback, I watch my back each time I see any trace defeatism and desperation. Anyone who possesses such attributes plans no good for everyone except himself.

©EXTRADALLENUM OLUSEGUN AKINSANYA

Artwork: Poplars on the River Epte seen from the Marsh by Claude Monet, 1892

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