The universe is a very big place and there are planets, with the earth being one of them. The earth which consists of both land and water can be divided into seven continents and these have several countries within them. In these countries, there are town with communities, which in turn have houses in which people live.
In a house lived a young man who felt he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He sat on the floor in the corner of his room, his back braced up against the wall. He had cried for hours on end and with his swollen red eyes, he stared blindly down at his cold-striken hands. He was weak from hunger but had no appetite. His mind was in turmoil and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
He had not always been like this. This young man had been a fighter. He had fought against many odds and beat them. His childhood had been so difficult that it was a wonder how he had survived through it.
This gave him a large dose of courage to have even greater dreams, believing that he would conquer. He began to glide through life, having realised that every challenge was an opportunity to be greater. He worked hard and strived even harder until he reached heights that his peers could not even dream of. But one day, something terrible happened.
There had been viewers of his success. They weren’t too pleased at how quickly he had attained success as opposed to them who had gone through years of unending struggles. So they planned against him, not only to bring his career to a crashing halt but to reverse all his accomplishments. This bright and brilliant young man had no idea what his respected senior colleagues were up to and before he could decipher it, everything unfolded before his very eyes.
He was deeply distraught. He tried to fight the wickedness and suppression, but all doors were shut against him. He grew weary of fighting and went to his house. He sat in the corner of his room and cried his eyes out. He believed that his life had come to an end and there was no point living anymore. Then he began to think of ways to take his own life. As he sat in the corner, he pondered. Pills, a rope, a moving train… these were a few of the options that came to mind as he thought about how to take his precious life.
‘Precious life’, the two words reverberated in his mind and he began to argue with himself. He didn’t believe his life was precious anymore and he was willing to take it away forever, just because he had lost what he thought was the most important in life, his awesome career.
His mind, vehemently against this, began to remind him of the other great things going for him like good health, the ability to start his career again and attain greater heights, the love of people around him and many other things.
Then this young man realised that he didn’t have the weight of the world on his shoulders. It was merely a little problem that could not change the community or the country or the continent or the planet or the universe, and therefore taking his life on such an account would have been a foolish mistake.
Have a great Sunday
Oluwaseyi Lawal
