- Many a times you hear people in relationships depressed because of their toxic partners.
- While a toxic partner might drive one into depression or even suicide; remember toxic partners exist in people's minds through express invitation and retention.
Image: STAR ILLUSTRATION
Many a times you hear that people are depressed or have committed suicide because they don't have money. While that might be true from a "value-on-the-note" perspective, the contrast is factual when the concept is phenomenalised from the "value-in-the-note" perspective.
What you need to know is that poverty is not the lack of money, and while lack of money at a specific point in time is not poverty. Poverty is merely the lack of ability to conceive economic ideas, and/or the inability to convert economic ideas into money like moving money from the head to the pocket.
Any sane person, at any given point in time, if not everyday, always comes across an opportunity or has an idea that can be transmuted into an economic venture with realisable monetary value.
And luck, contrary to what people misconceive it to be, is nothing other than opportunity meeting preparedness. Luck never knocks on your door, you have to step out and look for or create your own luck. It has to find you on your own way; not the other way round.
Some people just pass on the opportunities because they are 'below their class' —opportunities that are later actualised by others to monumental greatness. Class is a consequence of outward comparatism.
The over-entrenched 'gambler mentality' brought about by the addiction to cultural compliance and outward comparatism in Kenyans is what has send many into depression and suicide.
This is because many are busy chasing other people's luck, living other people's lives and even sleeping in other people's dreams — be it in education, employment, business or relationships and marriages.
What people forget is that, naturally, we are blessed differently and we can never have the same capacities to enable us see the same things in the same way and achieve different goals the same way; to the same individual and societal effect.
Have you ever wondered why 'poor people', uneducated people and people with IQs below 89 are never depressed nor suicidal, and it's only the 'broke people', learned folks and people with IQs above 121 that are always depressed and even commit suicide.
Who doesn't come from a village where someone who gets an A must go to university and become a doctor or engineer. Who doesn't have a 'stubborn aunt' that believes that you must marry or be married at a certain age, or a 'drunk uncle' that believes that you must have a son for you to be complete as a man or father? Or that you have the liberty to philander until you get a son, incase your wife can't get you a son?
Many a times you hear people in relationships depressed because of their toxic partners. While a toxic partner might drive one into depression or even suicide; remember toxic partners exist in people's minds through express invitation and retention.
Manipulative people manipulate manipulatable people and control freaks only control people who allow them into their heads to be able to control them.
Remember, trouble never looks for anyone. It's people who always look for or court trouble, and in rare cases where trouble looks for you. Like a case where you find yourself in the path of someone who suffers from Obsessive Love Disorder, it's up to you to choose whether to court that madness or eliminate it, even using the law.
Evidence has it that 99 per cent of people who are suffering in relationships and marriages got married for the wrong reasons (age, kids, security, family, friends, society).
Sometimes I wonder if someone's spirit can take care of the children or be a hero after they are killed by a toxic partner. Some even live under the misguided illusion that things will change.
Things don't change on their own, things must be changed intentionally and with sufficiently meaningful effort. Instead of waiting for non-existent miracles that can enable things to change, you are better served leaving alive, sane and not traumatised beyond recovery.
Summarily, there is no guarantee that what has worked for someone will work for you, even when you think you are the same or the circumstances are similar.
Admire and appreciate successful people and learn from them with an intention of executing that what you have learned from them that made them successful.
But always try to execute it in your own way and based on your own unique abilities and circumstances. Don't be discouraged by the failures of others. You are not them. Instead learn from their failures and avoid repeating their mistakes.
Adore the adorable couples, but don't get into a relationship with an aspiration of being like them because you are not them.
To avoid unnecessary tears and post-failure bitterness and toxicity, just create your own small heaven with your partner based on your unique desires and circumstances.
Thereafter, focus on that what works for the two of you, not your parents, siblings or friends. The world always adapts to your choices, and in the long run, real and civilised people will always accept you for who you are or have chosen to be.
Don't be discouraged by the bitterness and toxicities of those who have failed in their relationships or marriages; you are not them, neither are you marrying their ex.
In order to make rational and logical decisions, never leave your brain behind. Stop misusing the heart to love and make decisions. The duty of the heart is to pump blood, and when you give it the wrong duty of loving or making decisions for you, it develops heart complications like hypertension.
For your own safety and peace, always use your brain to love and make decisions, as opposed to using the heart.
Finally, focus on comparing your current self to your former self as a measure of your progress, not comparing yourself to others. Look for your type; but be your type's type too.
Mental health advocate and community development enthusiast