Everyone has an enemy - even the good person who had never offended anyone. Knowing who your enemy is isn't bad, and understanding whose enemy you are isn't bad either. But picking the wrong Enemy can be the greatest injury you inflict on yourself.
A particular saying goes: bring your friends near, but keep your enemies closer. The idea is your friends wants to make you happy, and they appear to be there for you. But how honest is this? The best people who can really tell you to your face how you sulk, are people who have nothing to do with you, people who really don't care if they please or hurt you - and most times this is true.
True friends can be good enemies: when it comes to criticizing you and making you a better person; sadly though, we may sometimes mistake them for real enemies.
But who really is an enemy? We consider someone an enemy when they pose direct threat to us either physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Some are considered enemies because they criticize us all the time, not to make us better but make us feel bad about ourselves.
Being able to differentiate between these sets of people is vital to picking the right enemy, Nonetheless it pays sometimes - if not most times - to have your enemies around, this way you will understand how those who don't like you perceive you. This is important if you want to advance in whatever thing you are committed to.
Some people have enemies because of what they heard about someone, whether it be true or not. And since they don't have the patience to find out about what they heard, they establish hatred towards the other person - often to their own disadvantage. When you find out something offensive about another, before you go on to hate the individual you should investigate if the person who narrated the unpleasant things to you is the offender or the offended.
Sometimes we pick a fight with people who could have been of help or a blessing to us, simply because someone we liked and trust don't like them. I have had a situation where someone confided in me that the reason she hated me was because of what another close friend told her about me. Incidentally, I heard very unpleasant things about her from the source but choose not to hate her as I have no evidence. She decided to take a turnaround when the same person who have been feeding her with lies turned out to be her worst enemy.
After she opened up to me, it was clear that one person wanted to create a riffle amongst us. If I had gone ahead to hate the same lady because of what I heard concerning her, imagine if she would have been generous to open up to me. Scenarios like this happen all the time - it appears some people have a specialty in breaking walls and creating enemies; a few sensible ones are concerned about mending fence and building friendship.
Enemies are created too when we are jealous of someone. It's natural to feel threatened around others when they are doing well, but you must understand that it is not the person's fault. If you admire someone's success, it's only natural to want to be like them, and you can get close to them to learn how they could succeed in that area. But hating them because they are doing well shows something is really wrong with you - you are a disaster waiting to happen, and the world need to be careful around you.
Sometimes it is those who are doing well that hate those who are not doing well. This is crazy. Whatever the reason, jealousy is real and unhealthy jealousy - what you call envy - is dangerous. In more other case, it has to do with fear: we fear people even though we do not know why; or we fear them because of what we have heard about them; there are times when we fear because we have had bad experience with other people that the certain individual reminds us are of; in other words we believe they would do us potential danger. Whatever the reason for the fear, fear itself is bad.
A fine acronym reads: fear is 'false expectations appearing real'. If fear is the basis for hating someone, then we are not justified. Being afraid of a thing or person should serve as precautions for that thing or person, and not to hate. In hating, we waste mental - even physical - energy; we do ourselves a great disservice, showing our own vulnerability. Anytime we fear, what we fear always takes advantage of us. And even if we have good reason to fear, we should tackle that reason and not hate - it may not be worth it.
There are times when we are completely responsible for the enemy we make and keep. Often times, we offend others and for the sake of pride, we don't apologize; then we hate them for showing us how angry they are because of the offence. We are to blame in this. Everyone deserves some measure of respect, if not more. It didn't matter of the person we offended is a subordinate, they have a right to be angry and we owe them our apology. And if they become enemies because we fail to humble ourselves and say the simple word - I am sorry - then they are right to see us as enemy.
It is important to understand who the real enemy is - the person who wants to harm you, destroy you, and keep you from being happy at any cost. But some enemies we keep do not fall into this category; we could be keeping the wrong enemy for very wrong reasons. It takes character and guts to set healthy boundaries and not make an enemy out of a future helper. Everyone we meet have a reason for coming into our lives, and one way or the other we would soon find out.
We are the real enemy of ourselves when we do not set the right boundaries, and when we fail to see that people are different and should be treated as such: the way you treat a tribesman may not be the way you treat a stranger, this is because our beliefs and experience to life are different. In this day and time, we really do not need enemies, but friends who would add value to us. A healthy outlook to life is important if we intend to have happy ending.
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by: Gloria Okezie-Okafor
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(c) I Must Talk | 2022
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