Tuesday Column By VICTORIA NGOZI IKEANO
vikeano@yahoo.co.uk 08033077519
Good day readers. ‘Long time no see, no hear’, you would say. This writer/column has been away for a long while. No, I was not on any sabbatical. It was just that I lost someone close to me. Her passing hit me emotionally. Although less visible than physical injury, emotional pain is more lasting because it is deep, touching our core, our soul. However, as a saying goes, time heals all wounds, which is now the case with me.
In the intervening period so much was happening in our country and world at large that one longed to comment on them. Alas, the spirit was willing but the body was weak. There was a gulf between desiring and action which boils down to laziness. Events kept rolling by, thick and fast and the urge grew stronger in me. Often times I crafted headlines for issues I wished to comment on in my mind, wrote them already in my head but to take the last step of knocking them out from my laptop for the hard copy became somehow laborious. Apparently, I was getting used to always reclining, recoiling in my bed, cushion chair that I found it a difficult task typing on my computer once more. And so procrastination set in.
I kept on postponing, delaying resumption date for my writing, out of sheer laziness I have to confess; just as one brushes off and pushes back the time for waking up in the morning in the delusion that one is enjoying a ‘sweet sleep’. Still, the urge to start writing again continued to grow in me. As I continued to dither, suddenly, it dawned on me that I am fostering a germ with dire consequences if I continued to feed this my lethargy, rooted in inertia. It occurred to me that I was indeed flouting Creation’s law of necessary, constant movement, that it is only through movement that everything in the universe came into being, is maintained and exists. Then I reminded myself that one cannot disobey Creator’s law without harming oneself, in body and soul. Indeed, laziness, INACTIVITY is a disease that slowly poisons body and soul, leading to eventual death, both physical and spiritual death.
An inactive person is liable to die before his/her destined time. Our forefathers lived well beyond 100 years, enjoyed a much healthier life for the simple reason that they were very active and in sync with nature. Obesity, a trait of modern-day lifestyle was generally alien to them. Trekking/walking was more or less second nature to them. In those days of yore there was nothing like commercial motorcycles or tricycles, shuttle bus, much less intra city buses. So they walked to neighbouring communities, towns, markets, steams, farmlands, etc., etc., They worked from sunrise to sunset and joyfully too; working during the hours for such as ordained by Nature and resting during the appointed time for sleep
Today, walking has become alien for majority of us. We indulge in a largely sedentary lifestyle. Once we hop off from our beds in the mornings we dash to the bathrooms (a routine apparently imposed on us by nature because keeping our bodies clean is a necessity that contributes towards optimum living), we dress up, hop into our cars in front of our houses, drive off to our workplaces or business locations, sitting down most of the times, hop back into our cars at close of work or business, return to our houses where we recline on our beds or cushion chairs watching television or browsing on our smart phones and thereafter sleep off, wake up at dawn to begin similar routine daily. For those of us without cars, upon dressing up for work/business we book an uber/taxi or call a commercial motorcycle driver right from our bedroom, to take us to and from our work/business and continue with our sedentary inactivity at home.
Consider: our body, mind and spirit function at their optimum level through exercise, activity, movement. Whatever we call it, the bottom line is that quite apart from our physical bodies, our talents; gifts are strengthened through being active, that is, making use of them. Should we neglect this for whatever reason, they remain dormant and thereby gradually wither, die off, disappear. Therewith we recognise the truth of the statement, ‘to him who has not even what he has shall be taken away from him’. This simply means that whoever has been imbued with some talents, some gifts but does not activate them, does not make use of them through activity, this talent, gift he has left unused, dormant, will be taken from him/her and given to him/her who through making use of them in activity, make them blossom, multiply and race towards perfection. Is it not said that ‘practice makes perfect’? Having come to this point in my reflection, I now resolved to summon the courage to rouse myself to activity. And so here I am dear readers.
