Making mountains

out of molehills

The man had an expensive Mercedez Benz parked in his drive way. His watchman, with a modest salary devotedly and carefully washed his car every morning and evening. This morning, he caused a very minor scratch because the sponge he used had a small solid particle that caused the scratch. Despite the fact that his car had come with special paint to hide such scratches, the car owner shouted and abused the helpless watchman and even reduced his monthly salary just to teach him a lesson. The elderly watchman simply tolerated this because he had no other choice.

For some people every wound, however small, is worth its woe. Each one’s molehill is a mountain to them because they prefer living life selfishly thereby drawing them into a world that allows them to graze endlessly on the meadows of egoism instead of using life to better it for themselves and for those around them.

When life has blessed them with affluence, prosperity and status they forget that many of their problems are relatively trivial and that it is a crime against the bounties of blessings that they have in their lives when they opt to live selfishly or get enslaved to a lifestyle meant to show others that they are superior. They forget that whoever consider it necessary to impress others by their ostentatious behaviour do actually harbour an inferiority complex of some type or else why should they want to impress others?

In Tanzania we have so many blind, deaf and dumb people and there are others with major disabilities including the mentally disabled. We see a few begging on our streets, others may have been kept in special centres but most of the people who suffer such ailments have families who have to make many sacrifices to see and be there for them everyday. Then there are those with alcohol, drug or sex addiction and various forms of abnormal behaviour whose families also have to live with them...sometimes with traces of shame. Similarly there are others who commit crimes whose fathers, mothers, brothers or sisters living honourable and respectable lives have to deal with the darkness they bring in.

Then there are people who live without any outings because of health or money problems, people who have no food to eat or who have just a few clothes to wash and wear. There are widows and widowers, children in orphanages and the young forced into prostitution who live in darkness at night, darkness at noon. There are mothers cooking, washing, sleeping in a hut and watching on helplessly as life goes by. There are people who've lost friends and families without a goodbye or last look in car, train and ship accidents who have just gone with so much left unsaid and unshared (fortunately few Tanzanians have been affected by plane crashes). Also waking up to the same Sun shining down on the world are those with wrecked family lives who live with only memories, people with diseases that put an end to all their aspirations, people who had it all once, now with nothing and people living in abject poverty living like cats and dogs alongside cats and dogs in slum areas that could be destroyed at short notice through the Government’s urbanisation policy…..hopefully with compensation, however inadequate this may be. 

The list is endless. All people on earth have problems and those with faith handle such problems rationally rather than emotionally because emotions aggravate rather than solve problems. Where problems cannot be solved, like the death of a close one, those with faith harbour patience rather than depression because depression fans the flames of misery.

For those who are fortunate not to be afflicted by major problems, they have so much to enjoy life with and to share with others their happiness. If they are affluent they can help the poor and the sick. If they are educated, they can serve society to facilitate the life of others. In a big way, small way, anyway, but definitely in some way they can be a source of inspiration to those around them thereby also expressing their gratitude to God by showing their solidarity towards the world at large.

When people inch themselves towards moral enrichment they discover simplicity, concern and modesty. With these qualities the reaction to the watchman for the scratch on the Mercedez Benz would be much more tolerant and respectful with of course a call of caution for this not to be repeated.