Opinion: The Concept Of Oneness In Interactions And In Building Productive Relationships

“Would you still be wearing jeans after you have a baby?”

“Are you sure your fiancé would want you to be actively engaged in fitness routines after you get married?”

“Why is she wearing tinted hair? Isn’t she a pastor’s wife?”

“Mama Sade, you’d better talk to your daughter? Going back to school to study for an additional degree might not count in her favor when suitors begin to show up”.

“Bola, why are you calling your husband by name? Don’t you know people would disrespect him because you call him by name? The culture and even religion stipulates that we shouldn’t call ‘our head’ by name”.

“Look at you, just adding weight daily, you’d better eat less”.

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The above statements and those in its offensive, unsolicited, interfering and demeaning categoriesdo we hear as women from our fellow women and men alike. For a fact, our communal ways of living, which is deeply ingrained into the very core of our being requires that we look out for ourselves and our neighbors which is extremely laudable, we even have an adage in the Yoruba language that buttresses this peculiar aspect of our live, “ojukanni’nbimo, igbaojuni’nwo” which literally translates as, “just a pair of eyes delivers a child, but two hundred pairs nurtures the child”.

However, “baba omokol’oko, ko ma l’ala” which literally interprets as “a father and son cannot jointly own a piece of farmland without a distinct line of boundary”.

We were taught a very laudable value of looking after one another but have let this crossed into judging what does not look like us. This has criss-crossed into almost every aspect of our lives that we have destroyed beautiful future collaborations, relationships and partnerships by our unedited and unsolicited utterances of the present.

Don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong in calling another’s attention to something wrong that they are doing or helping re-direct their focus on something better that they could be doing even without been asked, however, what isn’t right is judging, criticizing and trying to impose on others, what we think is best for them, taking a cue from our lofty thinking that we are better off and have made better choices in our lives.

This type of condescending, gossipy, demeaning and disrespecting advices are often given from the place of pride which is highly common amongst us women, the thinking that because we are better off in a certain aspect of life, we have the right of place to tell others who are still struggling or yet to reach their own maturity that they got it all wrong from the beginning. Ignorant of the fact that people’s paths in life will definitely be different from ours.

People often advice for the sake of sameness and disrespect our oneness.

When we question people’s choices based on difference and not value, when we verbally pressure someone else, trying to make them think like us, act like us and make choices like us, we press for sameness, the collectiveness of different people to look, act and behave the same. Sameness stifles the colorfulness of our distinct diversity, personality uniqueness, individual purposes and the exceptionality of each person’s originality. The very concept of sameness in friendship and relationship unconsciously destroys our oneness.

Oneness is the core, the foundation of who we are. The binding factor which connects us all together: our humanity and humanness, our mortality and the God-likeness in each and every one of us.

We often don’t respect the uniqueness and difference of those who are unlike us which is why most people have friends who are just like them, think like them, talk like them and act like that. There is nothing wrong with having friends who are like us, having the same tastes and desire but the question is this: are our friendships with others based on oneness or sameness?

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A lot of people were beyond shock when the former Emir of Kano, Muhammed Sanusi II went with his full Emir regalia as a mark of honor to the service of songs of the late Mrs. Ibidun Ighodalo. I read an account that in fact, Pastor Ituah Ighodalo and Alhaji Sanusi Lamido have been friends for over forty five years starting their friendship as secondary school students at the popular Kings College, Lagos, in the seventy’s and have maintained close friendship since then.

That is what you call deep friendship.

The friendship that has survived for over four decades between a former Emir and a Pastor must be something concrete based on oneness and not sameness. I am sure they understand one another, having built their friendship which invariably must have passed through different turbulent times on trust, love, loyalty, honor, respect and integrity, none trying to change the other to look like him or that friendship won’t have survived the turmoil that comes with the rivalry between their different religions, ethnicities and tribes in our country.

This also speaks true of marriages: marriage is a union of two different unique people linked by the bridge of their emotions. Trying to change the other to fit into an idea or ideal is often counterproductive in the long run.

Not all your friends would have the same taste as you or have the same preferences and choices as you which is very normal, however, we must each learn to respect the boundary created by difference in tastes, opinions, decisions and choices.

Avoid the temptation of trying to force people who are close to you into being the idea or image that you think they should be and peradventure you can’t accommodate different opinions on matters that are salient to you, respectfully and honorably bow out of  that particular friendship,amicably, without acrimony, disrespect or shaming the other party.

In our communalistic ways of living, a lot of us have been saved by the timely intervention of someone who saw a wrong path we were heading on, corrected us and we readjusted thus adverting a major disaster and on its flip side, a lot of families, friendships, business partnerships and marriages have been destroyed because of adherence to unsolicited wrong advices.

As women, home builder and nurturers, we sometimes get asked by people who sees us as mentors for advices on various aspects of life, this doesn’t make us any better than the person asking, it just signifies grace of privilege: it doesn’t confer supremacy on the person offering the advice or weakness to the party asking.

Likewise when given an advice, sieve everything via the screen of truth and take what resonates with you, your circumstance and situation.

Above all, no one is perfect, knows it all and has all the answers, furthermore, if we think deep enough, we will know that no one has the right of being proud for we are all products of right placements, divine grace and unmerited favor of the almighty.

Photo Credit: shutterstock.com

OLUWABUSAYO MADARIOLA

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