I have always wanted to write about ingratitude and the entitled helper, I just didn’t get enough push to do so.
However, listening to one of Pastor Tunde Bakare’s message recently he said something that finally gave me the push needed to write about it.
He said his late mother taught him some native lessons anytime she was advising him.
And the lessons were:
1.Ma fi ibi San Oore(don’t repay good with evil) this is a highest form of wickedness and ingratitude.
2. Ma se oore ki o loso tii( that is do not become an entitled helper)
3. Ma fi ibi San ibi(that is do not pay evil with evil, revenge)
These are deep lessons and if this becomes the hallmark of your relationship with people you would hardly harbour any toxicity or bitterness towards humans.
When I heard these lessons taught by Pastor T. Baks mom to him, I knew that as humans we all have issues.
And it takes a level of maturity and spiritual growth to live by this kind of principle.
Ingratitude is horrible and it creates problem for you if you do not know how to be grateful to people who have helped you one way or the other, or people who have given you something.
There is nothing like being grateful to people who have done something for you.
Appreciate them, thank them and make them understand that you appreciate their gesture and that you are deeply grateful.
Gratefulness is different from asslicking, saying thank you and appreciating someone who has shown you a good gesture does not bring you down or reduce your self respect.
I have observed that some people are not grateful because they feel their helper does not deserve the position they were, to be able to help them.
You see people like this take away the credit that belongs to their helper because they want to prove to the world that they did that thing themselves, or perhaps secured it themselves.
They cannot bear the thought that their helper was the one who helped them.
An example is when someone helps you to get something, but due to pride and an ungrateful nature you refuse to appreciate them, or you go ahead to create an imaginary helper who helped you just because you do not want to be grateful to the people who really did help you, or because you feel that they do not deserve to be in a position to help you.
Another example is someone helping you to secure a job.
This person told you about the position and even collected your CV in order to help you submit it in their organisation.
Then you got the job and instead of you to be grateful you suddenly remembered that one of your uncle is an ED in that organisation and he was the one that really helped you.
Where was this uncle when you were desperate and crying to friends and everyone around to help you secure a job?
You got the job through a friend or someone with a magnimous heart and rather than thank them deeply and be grateful you decided to apportion your gratitude to your uncle or imaginary uncle who does not even remember that you needed a job to start with.
Ingratitude has many faces, another face is when you resent your helper for helping you and you do everything possible to sabotage them or to take them out of that place where they were, which made it possible for them to help you.
Example was someone who helped his friend who was dismissed from the civil service back into the civil service after so much lobbying.
As soon as the friend got back into the civil service the first person he started targetting for possible dismissal was his friend who lobbied for him to be readmitted into the civil service.
This person is not just an ingrate, he is also deeply soaked in all shades of wizardry in my own opinion.
He doesn’t want to keep seeing the face or hearing the name of his helper in the same vicinity or organization where he works, so the best way to gratify his pride was to collude with people who could work his friend’s dismissal out of the civil service.
Or perhaps he was deeply ashamed when he needed help from his friend, he felt he had lost his self respect so the only way to gain it back was to sabotage his friend and put him in that same position where he was before, that is begging for a job or assistance.
Being ungrateful, or sabotaging your helper is not a way to break free from them if you think they might use their help to cage you on the long run.
It is pure wickedness and outright evil to behave this way towards people who have been of help to you.
I understand that as humans we crave our freedom and we want to put measures in place in order not to feel caged by one good will or the other, or perhaps we are practicing what the scripture says
“let no one say he made Abraham rich” but I tell you INGRATITUDE and sabotaging your helper is not one of those ways, and it does not align with this principle.
Learn how to appreciate people deeply, and if providence permits, be excited and willing to also be of help to them.
Be contented and grateful for their help even if they may never need your help in life.
Remember that some helpers are God sent and you don’t need to nurse the desire to pay them back.
Nursing a desire to pay them back could also stem from pride and could breed all sorts of negativity.
Be gracious to accept such help wholeheartedly and be grateful in return.
