I have a backlog of writing to do. Things that the Holy Spirit has been wanting to minister through me, but I have been putting off. So today I am going to write. I really don’t know where this one will lead, so bear with me.
Desperation…yes, that’s where I will start off today.
I just quit my job this morning. It wasn’t a terrible job, but it just wasn’t for me. I was tired of the job and it was wrecking me emotionally. I won’t go into the details of the job, because it’s not important in the light of this matter. I can only say that most people on my job felt the same way, because it required a lot of walking and took 8 hours of the day, but you got paid for just 5 out of the 8 hours. When I told the rest of my team mates I was leaving, they were like “don’t you need the money?”
Read Later: The Desperation of the Unemployed
“Well”, I told them “I do, especially in the time of this crazy exchange rates, but I am grateful to God that I am not desperate enough to live in a situation and an environment I know is toxic to my emotional and physical life”.
They looked at me like I was crazy, because honestly, the pay was not so bad and it was an opportunity to get paid for ‘just walking’ for 5 hours, as long as you they didn’t fire you. However, I knew I was done, because I didn’t like the person I was becoming.
This whole situation cast my mind back to a movie I watched – “Iquo’s Journal”. If you have not yet watched it, please go and find it. It is a classic example of ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’. Let me add to that popular saying that; “the longer you keep carrying out those desperate measures, the more difficult it is for you to see a way out”.
I used to think the worst people were those into prostitution or drug trafficking but now I understand a little better. Think about it, how easy is it to leave a ‘job’ that pays you 50,000 a night to one that would potentially pay you 30,000 a month? How would you keep up with the life you were used to? How do you pay your bills? Don’t get me wrong, I am not justifying any of these actions, I just look at them less critically now.
How is the honest work I did for honest gain comparable to dishonest gain? Well, in my mind, they are very similar. Prostitution is harmful to the body; my job was stressing me out and wearing out my feet. Drug trafficking wrecks the conscience, well…I was constantly with team mates who would swear and smoke weed. Frankly, I was beginning to see nothing wrong with these things. Prostitution wrecks the conscience, believe me….my emotions were getting tossed all over the place and my joy was almost extinct because each day, I realized I was to be on duty. I grew so sad!
Although I must admit, God brought me this job right when I needed it and let me know it was the right time to give it up. What if I had put myself or found myself in a situation where I desperately needed the job? I would absolutely refuse to quit the job. I am sure some of you reading this right now are like; “ah, she has not suffered that’s why she is talking like this”. Maybe you are right, and I sincerely thank God for that. However, you are not so right because I don’t have any money. Notwithstanding, I refuse to be in a terrible environment because ‘I have no choice’. The truth is that, we ALWAYS have a choice. So before you keep staying in that toxic environment, consider carefully if it is worth the price of your soul/sanity, your sense of right and wrong, good and evil.
My dad always tells me; ‘Don’t box yourself to a corner.’ Well, what does that have to do with anything? It has everything to do with this. Simply translated, don’t rope yourself so tightly to a corner that you are barely left with choices. This is slightly different from putting all your eggs in a basket which means; putting all your hope in a person or situation. This means, endeavour to do all you can to be sure you never find yourself in a desperate situation, where you have little or no choice but to find out the price of your soul.
Don’t be so dependent on the praise of men that you do all you can to gain it or so disappointed by their booing that you do all you can to avoid it.
Count the costs before you build a house so that you don’t have to be ashamed the day your loans are no longer sustainable and you are so afraid they will take your house in front of everyone- which leads you to sleep with the bank manager. Don’t buy a car at the expense of your savings and investment such that when you lose your bank job you have to do shady deals to save face. You are still in school or NYSC so what’s your own abi? Your own is there…myself included. Don’t let your grades define you so much that you will be willing to do anything (including cheating or sex) to be a first class student.
Above all, there are no desperate or “choiceless” situations in life, except of course you are failing to look at the big picture. If you will just be patient, you will realize you always had a choice.
Do me a favour, cast you mind back to times when you thought you just had to or there was no choice…… in hind sight, did you really have to? Was there really no choice? Again, don’t box yourself to a corner. Pray that you would never have to discover the price of your soul and if ever you do contemplate it, ask God to help you not to sell yourself short but to help you patiently seek the way out that He has provided. In the larger scheme of things i.e. God’s plan, there is always a way out and the earlier you take it, the less difficult life becomes.
Written by
Miss Anonymous
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This article is coming at a very good time for me. I left a job too for nearly the same reasons and now, I am trying to get another one. It is very important to know that with GOD, there is always a way out! GOD bless you for the article!