Shakespeare Says: Settle your own mess first, and always.

I am taking a risk by beginning this discourse with Shakespeare. I am aware that you would soon dispense with it than relive the abuse from literature you had to endure in your highschool. But Shakespeare puts across such an important point, one I think warrants a discussion. I am here to help you see it simply and easily.

In Shakespeare's play Hamlet, when Laertes is about to leave for France, he is careful and kind enough to advise his sister, Ophelia, on the danger of the passion of ‘green’ love and warn her of Hamlet, who seemed to have a crush on her, though that is in some regard debatable.

The piece of advice is certainly a spectacular one, but Ophelia's reply so struck a chord in me and has led me here.

Here was her reply:

“I shall th' effect of this good lesson keep

As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,

Do not as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,

Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,

Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads

And recks not his own rede.”

I understand that you don't always get it the first time, I didn't, and this is Shakespeare's for goodness sake.😂 If I didn't get it wrong, then at least I hope to be right, even if in part, in the words that follow.

Striving to be a better person and good at what I do has heralded a lot of frustration in my life. And I have only been able to see it not long ago. After I had learnt my lessons, or thought I had learnt them; after I finally believed I had understood the necessity of circumspect and disciplined living; after I had gotten some fleeting feeling of inspiration on what it meant and why it was important to be focused in our life pursuits, I would begin to see myself as the savior of the messed-up and broken souls I knew. I was right to think that these were people who had a lot of potential, who were able to live the most fulfilling lives, but I was wrong to imagine that I was the one who would be responsible for that turn around; I was not the one to lead them out of their captivity.

Once in a while we see paradise, and it is really kind of us to want to lead our fellow comrades and acquaintances to this place of respite and refreshment. But after some keen deliberation, we would be disappointed to find out that we never knew this paradise too well in the first place. We had not really known its incomparable joy or its sweet water, neither did we know anything of its cool shades and flowered paths. Yet we thought ourselves capable of leading others into this amazing place, even thinking we could make them stay. A place we had made ourselves believe we knew but didn't.

Our world thrives in comparisons. Comparison inspires competition that is meant to stave off complacency and keep us striving. But given the kind of comparison that has been engendered by the brokenness of our world today, we are only able to either see our inadequacies or our virtuousness when we draw these contrasts. The tendency to feel useless and a failure in comparison to our peers is certainly disquieting and one that requires addressing, but I am convinced that the seemingly innocuous tendency to think highly of ourselves is the more evil twin.

It is easy to see how better we are than other people, how disciplined, how reserved, how beautiful, how gentle, how intelligent, how sharp, how graceful. Yet this is a form of self-delusion that holds us back from improving ourselves and keeps us from doing the real and important work. The temptation to make an impression has never been greater, we want people to think highly of us, to pay attention to us and applaud us, so without knowing it we have settled for appearances. I saw this in myself when I would raise my voice in conversations, wanting to be heard and to be the center the conversation revolved around; I wanted to be the one who gave the wittiest remarks, the one who shared the most laughable and interesting anecdotes; I wanted to be sympathized with and felt sorry for. And I have never been so disappointed.

Many mistakes in people's lives remind us of how better we are than them. We occasionally claim how we could never be so careless and dumb as to fall victim to what they did. “Nijikute!” we proudly say. But are we really safe? It's so easy to judge and label other people for their mistakes and failures, and forget that we are not immune. 

‭‭I Corinthians‬ ‭10:12‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

[12] Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. 

Temptations and compromises are greatly a matter of context and environment; so many of us would be liars, drunkards, thieves, idiots, even promiscuous if the circumstances favored it. Sometimes while we express our displeasure and loathing for people we think to be social pariahs and immoral, good for nothing idiots, we would do well to remind ourselves that may be we are just jealous of the freedom with which they do these things, or the fact that they always seem to get away with it.

As much as we would want to change the world and make it a better place, as much as we would want to change other people and make them better human beings who thought like us, talked like us, dressed like us, loved what we loved, and despised what we despised, there is only one person that we can ever prod, shape or change with any degree of success: the person we see when we look into the mirror. Other people aren't some kind of robots we can program into obedience or compliance, they are facts we need to accept and acquiesce ourselves to.

We can't be careful about improving ourselves and still have the time to meddle in other people's lives. I believe it's not many of you who will honor the words I say here simply because I said them, you will respect them because you saw me mirror them in my actual interactions with others and took note of the poise with which I carried myself. That’s the reason why it's so difficult to master the courage to put these things down in writing, because I would have set a standard of performance that I would have no excuse but to meet, or to at least try to. If we begin to think of how far we have to go down this path of destiny, how much we have to do to improve ourselves, getting our hands messy and heads full with other people's business is no longer a good idea.

It is called self-discipline, a standard we apply ourselves to without wanting or forcing others to honor as well. Self-discipline is not about us burdening other people with what we think or feel is a right.

Not everyone can be like us. It's not fair. It's not possible. How bleak the world would be without the Kidakes, how boring it would be if everyone was Henry. Our energies should be marshaled at living rightly than speaking rightly. We could be the compass by living virtuously, not pointing fingers at and shaming people we think are being careless or indisciplined. Sometimes a little self-searching reveals that these things we hate in others are actually things we hate about ourselves. That is exactly why it inspires all the self-righteous outbursts. 

We have a lot of work to do on ourselves, trying to change other people and force them to be us is the first sign that we are losing grip of that goal.

Shall I show you the steep and thorny way to heaven, then take for myself the primrose path of dalliance?