Your loyalty starts being questioned when you do not act based on your own opinion, but rather on the opinions of these people.
You claim that you are friends with a person. Your family clearly does not like that person. So you choose to neglect the person's needs and refuse to offer them support in their time of need.
You claim to love a person, of whom your family does not approve. You are always reassuring him or her that you love them and care about them. And yet, many times you have refused to do right by them because you don't want to displease your family.
When I arrived in the UK in 2013, my mother instructed me to not announce my arrival to some family friends who had relocated months before me. I did otherwise, and I did so because her reasons were neither sensible nor satisfactory.
When I was in financial difficulty, again my mother instructed me to not seek help towards that same friend and her family. Again I did otherwise because her reasons were not satisfactory.
My mother had her opinions about people. I had mine. I never chose my friends based on her own criteria or judgment. When it came to picking the people I wanted to share important moments with, I relied on myself to make that decision.
She and I had very different opinions about the sense of good and bad. I felt that she had normalized a lot of bad behaviours and that she herself had become guilty of such bad behaviours.
She on the other hand thought that I didn't have sense as her own idea of sense implied doing what had to be done to get what you want, even when it involved acting immorally.
The irony of it was that my mother couldn't stand being at the receiving end of any immorality.
There was no way I could possibly take her opinions seriously. But that was me. I had friends who thought differently. However, I reserved the right to decide whether or not I want to put up with that kind of hypocrisy.
You can't call yourself a friend, affirm that you trust that person, tell them that you believe and will always support them, but when they need you, you aren't there. And this is because your family who doesn't know them or their story as much as you do, says otherwise.
You can't tell someone that you like them, share intimate moments with them, then turn around to tell them that you can't be with them because your family is against it.
Your family is never the problem. You are the problem.
Loyalty is a very rare quality but people often ignore the hefty responsibility it carries.
A lot of people erroneously believe that loyalty is all about sticking with the person who matters the most to you generally, whereas loyalty dictates that you stick with the person who matters the most in that particular situation.
You see, loyalty does and cannot work alone. It's not an isolated quality. Loyalty needs honour and integrity to properly function.
When loyalty is acted upon on its own, people often end up covering up for horrendous crimes and abuse perpetrated by a loved one.
Honour matters because a person of honour is a person who has a penchant for justice. They do what is right even when it goes against popular opinion.
I have supported my friends against the opinions of family because that was the right thing to do.
I have supported a stranger against the opinions of friends because that was the right thing to do.
If you think that someone is a good person, a good friend or the one who has been wronged, why should a contrary opinion make you act otherwise?
Loyalty is expensive, friends. Those who can't afford it should never been given access into your life.
If you do, you will count plenty of losses.
No comments:
Post a Comment