Say something good.

We live in a world today where the bad (perceived in some cases) done to someone is easily remembered than the many good done to the same person by the same doer.

I once corrected a colleague about this. Ahmed came to meet me to complain about another colleague of ours, Musa. He had asked Musa to lend him some money but Musa couldn't render the help. About three days later, Musa came to work with a new phone, whose cost was far more than the money he had wanted to borrow from him. He came to complain to me that Musa was inconsiderate for not helping him out in an emergency but chose to spend his money on luxury items like a phone.

I was confused at first. I asked to be sure of which Musa he was talking about.

"Do we have two people bearing Musa in this office?" He responded to me with a question.

It became clear to me that there wasn't a mix-up of identity. I then asked him two questions;

"Is it the same person that lent you 50000 Naira two months ago? I mean the one you persuaded me to talk to on your behalf when you defaulted on the agreed day of payment."

He nodded in response.

"Did you discuss with him to ever know how the phone came about?"

He didn't respond to the last question.

I least expected him to complain in that manner. The person that he was talking about had lent him money countless times in the past. He even defaulted on the payment of the last one given to him. I pleaded with Musa on his behalf to give him more time to pay up the debt. He eventually paid.

Instead of thinking about the numerous good done to him by Musa in the past, he chose to hold on to what he concluded was an insensitivity to his plight.

I knew that Ahmed was in dire need of money that particular time because his wife was hospitalized. I even gave him what I could afford. Though the money was nothing close to what he needed to pay the bill. But on my own part, I believe that this wasn't enough a reason to disparage someone that had helped him in the past because of his unverified assumption.

I called it an unverified assumption because a few days after the encounter, I realized that Musa didn't buy the phone. His brother sent him the phone as a birthday present.

Throughout the period, Musa was showing genuine concern about the hospital bill. I was convinced that if he had the money, he would have intervened.

Though Ahmed felt bad and remorseful when he got to know that Musa received the phone as a gift, I still let him know that he was too quick to forget the good old days.

I see it as improper and an act that could sever a relationship if no third party heard it when someone attends to your needs many times but the person becomes the topic of gossip because he couldn't render assistance once. If I was the only one that he told, I wouldn't have concluded that it was backbiting because the three of us were close and we knew many things about one another. But to my utmost shock, Ahmed told many other people about the refusal of Musa to come to his aid in discharging his wife from the hospital. He failed to tell them the numerous times that the same person had bailed him out of some emergencies.

This post was inspired by a song by my favorite reggae legend, Lucky Dube. The song is titled "Shut up."