TRAFFIC PRESSURE

Few days ago, I was on a street in Kaduna and I got hit by the STOP traffic light. It’s not always a rosy stop when you have been racing to hit the green light and just at the point when you feel you are through it, you suddenly see a flash of RED staring at you seconds before you hit the junction.

It takes a conscience not to beat the light and zoom ahead or rather it takes you evaluating your life first (in the light of having an accident) especially as you may encounter some impatient people like you also trying to use the advantage of the green shown to them on the other ends.

Then to my amazement, the car before me sped off! The one by the side also sped off.

I looked to see what was happening and I noticed that the motorists at the other end who were supposed to use the green light were absent. The traffic light is a logically controlled system. It works based on time and not on the amount of traffic at the junction. So whether you are there or not it regulates as it has been programmed.

The motorists noticed this and took the advantage (was it really an advantage?). I looked at the man beside me. He was one of my mentors, I had driven him all the way down here and was also doing the in-town driving he needed done. He sensed what question flirted within me and calmly responded “Wait for the green light, do not follow them”. That calmed my spirit and knowing he was a minister of God and a practically living Christian, I expected no less. Then came a sound behind me. It was upsetting!

Phunnn!, Phunnn! Blared horns behind me. The motorists that I preceded were impatient and wondering why I wasn’t taking the ‘advantage’ like others and to worsen the matter, I wasn’t giving them the opportunity to take theirs either. They blared their horns without restraint and my heart pumped faster. I was really torn between heeding my mentor’s instruction and giving in to the pressure…then I remembered that I didn’t have to be torn.

I wasn’t heeding him just because he was my mentor, no! What he asked me to do was THE RIGHT THING. I was supposed to wait for the green light before I moved, because if I do not follow the order I might cause an accident irrespective of the presence or absence of the other motorists.

But I must confess, I was under undue pressure because of the horns blaring behind me. Not that I would have moved but I was uneasy and that is what pressure does.

In life, we need to learn to subdue pressure in the course of doing what we know to be right. No matter how much advantage others take, we are not them. They may beat today’s RED light but what of tomorrow’s. If it becomes a habit then one day what they sow, becomes theirs in reaping.

I will wait till the light is GREEN. I will wait for my turn. I will not beat the light or sublime before wrongful pressure. The more I make up my mind to do right, the more RIGHT I become.

I will be GREEN and not RED.

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