Qualifying your Beefs, Haters

“Speak your truth quietly and clearly;

and listen to others,

even to the dull and the ignorant;

they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons;

they are vexatious to the spirit.” Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

“Mannu, we need to look for a chance and blaze it out for these guys. I hate the ways these haters are pushing us down” Edu, my fellow internee complained for the n^th time. We were strolling after lunch back to office.

I completely agreed, but my only reservation was how the word hater and beef, common in Nairobi, was thrown in the statement. I have come to think about Edu’s statement at the beginning of our attachment and found myself reciting the lines above from Desiderata.

For my readers outside the Kenya, the words originate from Hip Hop meaning someone hell-bend in stunting your growth in life, business, career or relationship.

The words have got a fad with beefs (quarrels) against haters being an in thing for one to appear cool and focused in life/business/career/relationship etc

In the case above, or rather Edu’s, the beef was that camera and events were being kept away from us though we later successfully skirted through the hurdles by keeping away from obnoxious individuals and gaining trust from helpful ones to learn a lot within a short period of time.

To the gist of this post is trying to look at how one can qualify beefs and haters; that is if there is a need to have any.

First and foremost, just because you think you have a tight business plan, in ‘serious’ relationship, run a popular blog, with a perfect CV etc, etc doesn’t make anyone not interested in your idea a hater. Just go ahead with your plan and not hating people just because they are not reading from the same script with you.

Consider Stephen King’s Skeleton Crew and George Orwell’s Animal Farm the two though rejected by publishers revolutionized paperback books and literature respectively.  The two went ahead with their plan without dwelling on haters.

Secondly, going about looking for and tagging haters is a sure way of killing your dreams and opportunities in life.  The world is filled with people calling themselves open minded/experts/pioneers clouded with their individual proclivities by taking issues with your lifestyle and achievements. Never take chance with someone struggling to pull you down to his level.

The best way is side stepping them to “avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit”

Additionally, taking an angle to shine so as to prove to a hater your worth only reduces one’s effort to being a mascot. You easily deviate from your goals to impress an ego giving a dearth of passion, satisfaction or need of success in life’s dreams and goals.

“We are experienced just take your time to ask and you will be helped” an office worker advised us which confirmed that people we have beef with may sometimes not be haters. Let me digress and explain this in the next two paragraphs.

Once when I was a kid growing up in Mombasa, Kenya we derived pleasure in hitting electric wires and marvel at sparks emitted when they touched. The best time was the midday heat when the wires were lax; we were oblivious of how excess current used to burn up appliances and power transformers.

We went on with our childhood pranks innocently which could have made KPLC tagging us as ‘haters’ laughable. That is exactly when you hold a beef with people who don’t even care if you exist leave alone your feelings.

In life when you are sure of what you do and being in right track then combine dedication, passion and honesty to reach your dreams. With a world full of people looking for scapegoats  in beefs and haters move on and never be bogged down with other’s trivia!