You Never Know Until It Happens

You can never truly know how something feels unless you are there or it happens to you. Many people say this, but in one way or another, some never believe it or relate to it that way. What does this really imply? If you have gone through someone’s situation or it has happened to you personally, you will understand that you can never know where the shoe pinches unless you wear the shoe yourself.

It is normal for people to tell others that they are not doing enough. It is common to start pointing fingers and engaging in the blame game, as if nothing ever happens. However, understanding comes later when reality dawns on you and you face similar struggles or experiences.

Imagine someone battling a health challenge and accusing the person of faking it. This happens quite often. Some people are so strong that even when they are seriously ill, it does not show. They continue with their daily activities as if nothing is wrong until they eventually break down, and only then do people realise it is not a joke.

Someone very close to me once shared her experience about her boss at work, who never believed anything anyone told her. She always assumed people were lying, especially when they asked for permission to be absent from work due to medical reasons. I heard she often responded by saying that if you lie, whatever you say will manifest immediately. While some people can lie, I do not believe that someone in their right senses would lie about their health or claim an illness that has never happened to them.

Some women do not appreciate the little their husbands bring home. They complain, suspecting the man of womanising or engaging in all sorts of things. I once heard a story about a man who was a driver. His wife constantly complained about the amount of money he brought home daily, forgetting that the man faced many challenges on the road.

One day, the wife happened to board her husband’s bus when she went out to buy something for her shoes. Unfortunately, the vehicle developed a fault on the road, and the husband had to start pushing the bus by himself. As it grew late into the night, the passengers began to collect their transport fares one after the other so they could board another vehicle to their various destinations. Can we blame the passengers? The answer is no, because they did not ask the driver to operate a faulty vehicle.

Out of the eighteen passengers, only one remained behind until the driver managed to push the vehicle to a roadside mechanic, where it was eventually fixed. At the end of the day, the total amount left with the man was ₦1,500. The wife sighed and said, “Is this what you face daily?” The husband simply replied that it happens at times.

From that day on, the wife learned to appreciate the little things her husband brought home.
This shows that we can never truly understand people’s struggles unless we go through them ourselves. Life is unpredictable. You never know what lies ahead until it happens to you. Let us learn to be kind to one another because many people have been going through a lot in recent times.

It affected me personally as well. Many things I had planned to do could not be accomplished due to the various challenges that kept arising.