Shut Out The Noise

We all know how good and bad getting pressured can be, it all depends on who is pressuring you, but most times, it's always best for you to be in charge of the situation, to try to think clearly and not just allow yourself to be pressured into doing something that you haven't given a proper thought of...because at the end of the day, if things end up going south, you will have the blame all to yourself.

_{photo by Thiébaud Faix}

For a while now, we haven't had water (not drinking water) in our hostel. And no, it's not because there's no water in Africa, but because the machine we use in pumping the water from the ground has been faulty. This happened more than a month ago and now whenever we need water, we have to go to the neighbouring hostels to fetch it.

The story of how that machine got damaged is one I probably won't be forgetting for a while because I used to be the guy in charge of that machine, until I eventually had to step down for the same fear of the machine breaking down. You see, prior to the day it got damaged, the machine has always been one that can't withstand low currents, and for some reasons around here, we mostly get low currents until later in the night when everyone is asleep.

So most times, what we do is wait until midnight to turn on the machine, but since I stepped down, no one wanted to do that, so no one went for the position. But then, one day, while there was power supply, everyone at the hostel was complaining about the fact that there was power supply but no water at the hostel.

So one of my neighbours had decided to be the hero that day and went to turn it on. He turned the machine on and everyone was happy, only for him to go back there the next morning to turn it on again, that was when he found out that the machine had gotten damaged. Apparently, the current that was on the previous day was too low and it had damaged the machine even though it worked that day.

And then all of a sudden, everybody turned on him. The same people that were complaining about no water, the same people that pressured him to go turn it on, were now blaming him for doing what they asked. That whole experience felt like a movie to me because watching them switch on him was scary.

_{photo by Serhii Tyaglovsky}

Sadly, this same thing happens in real life too. People will try to pressure you into doing certain things and then watch you take the blame for it when it doesn't work out. This is why you have to shut off all of those voices and try to listen to yours first, if it doesn't sound right, then maybe you shouldn't be doing whatever that thing is.