POISONS

I was once rushed to a hospital late in the night. I had serious diarrhoea and within a matter of minutes I had emaciated and looked like a Somalian refugee. All I could hear myself say was; “God, why me?”, because I could not figure out what was exactly wrong with me. When I got to the hospital there was no doctor on duty but the nurses managed to get me a bed and gave me drips.

The following morning a nurse took my urine for a laboratory test. The result for the test for released in the afternoon and the doctor examined it asked what I ate earlier the day before. From his examination the cause of my illness was “food poisoning” which was found in the last food I ate before going to the hospital. I realized it was the “wakye” (a local Ghanaian delicacy prepared with rice and beans and coloured leaves) I enjoyed in the afternoon on that faithful day.  He prescribed some drugs after his examination.

Some years later I thought of that incident and the word “poison” came to mind, so I decided to look it up in a dictionary and I got this definition: Poison is any substance that usually kills, impairs, or injures organisms or something destructive or harmful. After reading this, I began to think that I could have died from that food poisoning. One thing that also came to mind was the fact that if one takes in anything, be it food in liquid or solid form and the food contains any substance that can harm or cause the body to malfunction can be determined as poisonous.

Thanks to science and technological advancement poison in whatever form can be detected through a laboratory test. However there are yet some poisons more harmful and deadly that science and technology have not been able to provide the appropriate technology for their detection and treatment. These poisons have destroyed many lives, families, friendships, marriages, businesses among others.

These poisons are ANGER, BITTERNESS, and JEALOUSY (ABJ).

ABJ are the world’s most deadly poisons that science has not yet discovered their cure. These poisons are more fatal than venoms from plants, serpents, scorpions etc. ABJ are a sudden keen displeasure aroused by injury or injustice and greed and are usually accompanied by strong desire for vengeance or get even. They cloud our sense of reasoning, fellow feeling and set us on the road to self destruction.

ABJ cause us to point fingers at others when frankly speaking those fingers should be pointing to us and because we find fault with other people, we plot to punish by any means possible, to the extent of killing. We would always want to be on the same level with our neighbours or be better than them because we feel and think they are the reason we are where we are in life.

As all these self annihilating actions, pursuits, and plans are not enough, we expend all energy available to split families, set friend against each other, break marriages and collapse businesses. We do all these for the reason that we are angry, bitter and jealous in one way or the other.

I believe we can construct meaningful lives irrespective of the hurt and unfair treatment meted out to us by others. Instead of applying all our energies to fight back for all the wrongs done us, we can focus all our efforts to LOVE and FORGIVE, for there is more LIFE in loving when hurt than VENGEANCE.

If you forget that “anger is an expensive luxury in which only men of certain income can indulge (G. W Curtis)” please do well to remember that “the jealous man poisons his own banquet and then eats it”.

J B ESHUN © 2011