MIRROR TALK

There are certain things that are not in abundant supply, one of them is time. They said we should do everything to save and manage it, but Mark was always bad at it. Although he never seems to talk about it, you would never see him complaining about it, but he sees it, knows it and tries to do better. I don't say this because I know him, or because I want to give excuses for him, and even if I'm being a little defensive at this point, it's because I know Mark is the kind of person that deserves to be understood considering the actions he has made to get things done. One time I had to ask him why he was always late for any event he was going for and that was when he gave me a very hilarious answer. To answer the question, he first asked me if I believe names have meanings. I asked him what he meant and he said since his parents changed his surname, people have always had to wait for him and he too developed great patience in waiting for people.

According to him, His surname used to be Samuel, but then his parents thought he should not be having two English names, so they ensured he bore his father's native name “Aforkoghene” as his surname. Now he believes that is part of the reason he can't help his plight. Hearing this one might say he is lazy and has no discipline, not until he showed me proof of his dedication to his work, even in times when he was so unmotivated, he showed up (although late). One time I remember following him for an occasion, I saw how much effort he put in to ensure we got there early, we even left his house an hour to the event, only to end up 30 minutes late because there was suddenly a traffic jam. But then after all these experiences, I thought about him and his beliefs and decided to ask him a series of questions.

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Hey Mark, what's your purpose for living? Do you feel your life has any meaning to it? This one when I got another hilarious answer from this guy. He answered by asking me another question; “Is life supposed to have a meaning?” To be honest I was stunned by his question, not until he followed it up by saying; “I think we are the ones who like to give meaning to something when we want something selfish out of it” thinking about this I became confused, because I thought life should have a meaning. I decided to ask him to elaborate on it, and then he said; “When we look at life from the way we were thought, we just want to give it a meaning and start doing something believing that we are important when in contrast there isn't really a big deal in what we are doing, and we are the ones that make simple things so important that we would do anything to make them.

I sat down listening to my subconscious (Mark) . We had a pretty long conversation, one that was going to make me change the course of my life. I found the need to change my fortune, and I only had Mark to talk to. He's a really good listener, always has been, he gives me alternative opinions and makes me question my every action. On the day we had this particular conversation, I was going to get a job while in school and was trying to find the motivation and believe that someone would want to employ a student. Since I couldn't get the opportunity to talk to anyone about it, I took the conversation to Mark and he made me realize I was putting too much pressure on myself for something as little as a job. He motivated me in the most weird way, by first downplaying everything I saw as important and compulsory and made me see that life was so easy if I viewed those things as simple.

THIS IS MY ENTRY INTO THE INKWELL CREATIVE NONFICTION PROMPT #126