A six year old Johnny run to his father with delight shouting happily “Daddy, I have bathed your car, Daddy I have bathed your car. Daddy, I have removed all the dirt from your car”. Daddy’s heart skipped a beat.
Daddy didn’t know what to think. He stood with his heart in his mouth as his son kept on pulling and pestering him. Johnny was insisting that his Daddy followed him to the garage where the said car was “cleaned up”. Daddy hesitated but the joy on Johnny’s face did the trick. Daddy followed as Johnny, pulling and clutching led them into the garage. Daddy’s heart sank on the sight of his brand new Toyota Camry Saloon Car. The car was totally disfigured due to Johnny’s use of a hard sponge in “cleaning the car”. Instinctively, Daddy had the urge to hit his son but all of a sudden, Daddy’s face brightened up. Daddy embraced his son Johnny for “cleaning his car”. However, he gave Johnny cotton made cloth to be used in cleaning the car and explained to him why the use of the hard sponge was completely inappropriate.
How many times do we misjudge the intentions of others and hurl insults or accusations at them when they commit mistakes? As humans, how many times do we just look at the actions of people, fail to realise the reason behind their actions and end up passing judgement on them as if we are beyond errors?
Just like this lovely father, we must develop the ability to question the intention of the actions of others towards us. We should not be hasty in judging situations just by the way those situations seem to appear. We must develop ourselves to be interested in intent and not actions alone. This way, we will be able to understand people better and prevent ourselves from falling into preventable predicaments.
There is always more to what the optical eye can see.
Baiden Gideon. [email protected]
