This morning I read the above quote from a post on Instagram, just few words but powerful enough to capture my brain’s attention. As I thought about the post, this particular question kept chasing my mind all day long: is it fair to define people by their past mistakes? While thinking I have come to this realization: many people are willing to change but their environment does not favor this courageous process. For instance, in my country the culture insists on saying that it is almost impossible for a bad guy to turn into a good one. Even many proverbs in our language (Kinyarwanda) revolve around the fact, eg: Akabaye icwende ntikoga, aho ihene yonye ihoramo, ububwa buravukanwa, etc. It is not only in Rwandan culture that beliefs undermine people's potential to change, even in the foreign fairy tales and movies I have grown up reading and watching, there were always this villain whose fate was to be killed by a hero at the end. “it always made me wonder if the job of heroes is to kill villains or if it is to transform them into good guys” Alright, I get it: the moral of these stories was to teach us not to do bad, but what if we are already villains🤔? At the end of the day, we all screw up. We are humans (this is what we always say in our defense to justify our cruelty, right?) it leaves me with this big question: is our humanity a reason to cause harm or to do no harm? 🙄please help me understand….who is more humane? A villain or a hero?
Don’t you find this ironic: if we choose to associate our mistakes with our humanity, why do we ask cruel people to be kind and more humane? Aren’t we contradicting ourselves? Is humanity kindness….or cruelty? To clear this confusion, I would say that being human is having the ability to choose between good and bad, cruelty and kindness, being a villain or a hero. This ability is what makes us human not the choices we make, Humanity is not static, it is dynamic: you can always move from one camp to another. You can change! You were not born good or bad, you were born a human with the ability to choose between right and wrong. There is no curse or blessing upon you which controls your choices. You got it on your own; you can still be advised, motivated, influenced but the final decision is yours to make. Here rise the question, if human beings have ability to change why do we keep defining people by their past, if they are willing to make new better choices? On one hand, I can somehow understand: when we do mistakes, we deceive people and by deceiving them some bonds are broken and trust fades. So, when we are knocking on people’s door asking them for a second chance it is not easy to make them understand that we have learned, changed and moved on. And I think the reason why we are skeptical in the eyes of people who claim that they have changed is fear but also pride. Fear because we are afraid to be caught in the same trap twice, then pride because we don’t want to be outsmarted. we are like "you don't get me twice"🙅🏼♀️ Now let’s put our pride and fear aside and give chance to villains to show that they can be good too. If not so, we will be discouraging people to change. For example: How can a person who has been imprisoned change if for most of descent jobs, in order to be hired you have to first prove that you have never been in jail? As the matter of fact, this is something that need to be revised! If you have been a bad guy for so long, don’t be discouraged by people who think you can’t change. Go back to people you wronged, ask them to forgive you, prove to them that you can be good too, after all you are a human and you have that ability to be good. Life is not a scripted film where you are meant to be bad till the end. Don’t just sit and wait to be killed, everyone deserves a happy ending. You deserve a second chance, fight for it, be courageous and choose to change, this is how heroes are made. However, keep this in mind: There is no guarantee that People will accept your willing to change right away but don’t be discouraged by their criticism. If they don’t want you back in their lives, forgive them and move on. Go make another life, make your past experiences a strong foundation, write a new story and don’t hesitate to make yourself a hero, you deserve it, you have that ability, you can choose good.
6 Comments
Eve
6/17/2020 20:38:49
Yp we have the ability to change
Reply
Urugwiro
6/17/2020 23:57:55
I strongly believe that change is possible, it all depends on our choices and our willingness to live a different life
Reply
Giramahoro R
6/18/2020 08:36:44
That is true, everybody deserves forgiveness, not once, not twice but as far as life goes on! in fact, our failure to forgive others is our ignorance to recognize that we will need to be forgiven at some point in time!
Reply
Claude Cyubahiro
9/24/2020 19:28:30
'If they don’t want you back in their lives, forgive them and move on. Go make another life, make your past experiences a strong foundation, write a new story and don’t hesitate to make yourself a hero, you deserve it, you have that ability, you can choose good.'
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Who's behind the blogHello, I am Denyse INEZA
My blog's name "ishyapluma" is made of two words ishya and pluma. Ishya from my mother tongue(kinyarwanda)means prosperity and pluma is a Spanish word for pen. Being very introverted, I started blogging because I was so inside my head and I needed a way to get out of it. later on, it became a way of reaching out to my audience. I now write to influence, to inspire and to give hope for a prosperous future to me as well as to everyone reading this blog. welcome to Ishyapluma! Contact: +250784266072 Archives
August 2020
|