by Jim Donnett

                    “I saw sheer stupidity in my seeming wisdom and so I made a resolve to change.”

I am nice, or at least I used to be. If you needed to do something or get something done, I was your go-to guy. So good I was at this that one day, I walked in the rain drenched from head to feet just to “help a friend”. After my walk in the rain all she could say was ” You’re nice to a fault”, Jeez! The truth is she didn’t exactly needed my help at the time but typical me, I couldn’t rest until I saw the “pleasing smile” on her face. Voilà! and there it was.

Her cab finally arrived, in and off she went.  Then, I realised that the ” thank you” came just about the time we parted ways. The rain drummed harder on the concrete floor. It was one of two things for me, either I stood there shivering in the front porch of the locked cafeteria or I walked down to a decent shelter, which would mean  a really long walk. I was drenched already and could feel my feet squishing in my shoes; So I made my choice, I walked under the heavy downpour.

This kind of scenario went on for a while; Different stories, diverse situations and various circumstances, until that fateful Saturday in September when disaster struck on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. Two died but again, I lived. It was my second near-death experience and from thenceforth, I saw things in a whole new light. It was like another window opened, through which I saw things from a changed perspective. I was shocked back to reality. I saw sheer stupidity in my seeming wisdom and so I made a resolve to change.

Prior to this unfortunate incident , I got waylaid on the ghetto streets of Ibadan and was dispossessed of most of my personal belongings. My Blackberry, the only tool as a means to constant communication with my social world was gone. Yet only one person called to find out why I’d been ‘MIA’ on the BBM scene.

After the road mishap, I left for home with no means of reaching out. Now it’s been a little over a month, all I’ve had the whole time was God, the attention and care of family and just three friends. What hurt me the most was that of these three friends, one of them, would never have made the list of my first ten friends (were I to make such); But there she was, every step of the way, helping me keep faith while still entreating on the behalf of those who I now realized didn’t matter much.

I wondered, where the rest were. My “perfect seven” friends, where were they? I was the one involved mehn, not just anyone, me! If the roles had been reversed, I wouldn’t have just made an effort to ping them, I would have besieged their phones with text messages. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t just have sent dozens of text messages, I would have called them . And when I’d call, I would have spent quality time talking and keeping the conversation going with these ones; But now it was their turn and they had failed the test. They abandoned me when I needed them the most.

I’m writing this almost two months after the terrible incident and I’ve realized now to live for me. They said I was “really nice” but what I think they meant was that I was “really naive”. I live my life now to please me, only me. No more going out of my way to do the seemingly impossible, or going the extra mile to do the extraordinary, I’m done with that. I don’t need to see the “pleasing smile” anymore to make me feel good. Now I just take a break and have a rest, because in one fell swoop, I lost the urge to care!

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Jim Donnett is a significant one in the many who make the cut of the “small but mighty” world populace. With so much to give, he’s not content with just being seen, he also wants to be heard and by whatever means possible. He tweets from @jimancipation.

30 Days, 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians from across the world to share their stories and experiences – creating a meeting point where our common humanity is explored.

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija