By Eze Echie
What would it look like if you woke up in the morning and found a scary scene on your bed, especially if it was such that you happened to lie alone on that bed? You might ask what is meant by a scary scene.
Can you readily recall any day you woke up and found a particular part of your bed different? I mean negatively different? Have you ever woken up to see lions or lionesses on one side of the bed on which you lay and those lions and lionesses started scaring and chasing after you helplessly, and hopelessly, too?
Have you woken up any day to see snakes and scorpions on one side of your bed and they scared you to jump down and you are almost feeling you are already almost dead ?
You might just be wondering what kind of a picture I am trying to paint here in the foregoing thoughts. I am not talking about a situation whereby one jumps up from sleep crying or shouting, gasping for breath, because of a nightmarish encounter that makes one hurriedly jump out of the bed. I am looking at a normal situation, except that in this normal situation there is something negative or abnormal (so to speak). There is a tinge of something negative that stems from the state of the mind that equally rubs off on the moment’s reality as one faces life in its stark reality.
It often happens that people say that they woke up on the wrong side of the bed. This kind of saying (and or thinking) reasonably raises some doubts, and, of course, serious questions in my mind, as evidenced in a way, in the preceding discourse. It is not, however, something to be thrown into the trash can of thoughtlessness. Never at all should it be thrown into dustbin of history. It deserves some reflective consideration, if you ask me. And that is the essence of this writing.
One of the recent things I have done (not excluding my previous thoughts) is a reflection that takes this inclination, trying to see the ugliness or beauty of this line of thought. It is usually a very perturbing time when one wakes up in the morning and begins to feel this wild and wide sense of emptiness. It makes one feel that one has just woken up on the wrong side of the bed. As it is, it leads to an abstracted gaze into the present and future, making things look queer. There is an air of uncertainty that hovers around as one peeps into the coming hours, days, weeks and, perhaps, months plus years gazing aimlessly into a panoramic unknown.
It has to be told in a plain language, (at times one does not leave out literary or metaphorical paintings, pictures or languages), that the hollow feeling does definitely wake up with us or wakes us up at times.
This is not something that one person alone experiences. In other words, one has to clearly realise that a lot of other people experience this same kind of hollow feeling at some point in time or the other. It is a sort of feeling that leaves one almost breathless (and at times, hopeless) as it makes the day seem gloomy, thereby leading up to the thinking that it promises nothing good at all, except a rich dose of robust emptiness. But is it really so? Not certainly!
t is not because people wake up on the wrong side of the bed. It is simply because they wake up on the wrong side of their minds (or, say, the wrong side of their minds’ beds). What does this tell us? At times, people have a carry-over, indeed something forming a serious hangover, of the previous day’s disappointments or negative experiences. They remember shattered and or unfulfilled dreams. It could even be a matter of a failed relationship or a relational stress they went through or are going through (at present). As they carry such to their beds, they wake up the next morning (or even before the morning hours) grossly feeling disappointed. They are either directly or indirectly mentally programmed to be bitter, frustrated and filled with the feelings of utter-hopelessness and utter-failure. Is this a myth or reality? Is their emotion of scary numbness not a mirage? But their minds try to substantiate this mirage by incubating the thoughts that help to crystallise the mirage into a reality.
IWe are never in doubt that life can be very energy-sapping and breath-taking so much so that its vagaries, varying moments and the memories that spring from them could cause one to despair and nurture supposedly empty memories that present a potentially scary aura that dovetails into a gloomy future. In this case, beforehand, one is erroneously conclusive in thoughts and actions that the end (the feared end, failure) is inevitably real. Amidst all this, it is important to note that things can turn out entirely different if one is able to skillfully ‘adjust’ one’s mind.
Life can be a whole lot different if we consciously or deliberately nurture our minds in a way and manner that helps us not to think that we have woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Instead of clinging to the negative thoughts and feelings, which do deter us from being able to move forward or up our games in life, we should, rather, discipline our minds or tell ourselves the truth that the wrong side of the mind is worse than the presupposed wrong side of the bed. There has to be a sort of ‘mental game’, or a deliberate game plan, to positively ‘deceive’ our minds not to go in the direction of the negative reality of the day or moment. It is this kind of renewed mental disposition that can help us to positively and powerfully reprogramme things, events, circumstances and challenges around us. It can as well positively influence how we relate to those around us, our immediate circle of friends, influence, and every other person we come in contact with as we face the day’s activities and challenges.
n this scenario, our minds are stirred not to be lured into the misleading thinking that there is a side of the bed that is wrong. Our minds, when rightly stirred, can be steered on the path of positivity and things can be thought of and turn out differently – in a very unique way.
Therefore, no matter what may come our way in the journey of life, we can rest assured that there is really no side of the bed that is wrong. This misconception happens only when the mind has helped to deceive us not to understand that it is itself that misleads us, not any part of the bed. This is the crux of the matter, and it must be taken very seriously if one must live differently or positively as the case may be.
Eze Echie is a writer, poet and columniist, wrote in from Port Harcourt
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