By Johnny Coomansingh
There are a whole bunch of losers in Trinidad and Tobago. It’s apparent that the country is in the business of manufacturing losers. I could have been one of them if I had not chosen wisely. I could have been a loser if I ignored the writing on the wall of my schoolroom, which read: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10). However, I always questioned the meaning of “The fear of the Lord.”
Proverbs 8:13 provided a most interesting answer: “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogance, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.” I understood what it meant to be evil, proud, arrogant; the evil way, but the froward mouth came up for analysis. In this case, froward refers to actions that deviate from right doing. A froward mouth or tongue extrudes perverse, deceitful, and rebellious speech.
There is right doing, and there is wrong doing; no middle ground. In biology, I learnt about the ‘All or None’ principle. The ‘knee-jerk reaction’ that people experience when their foot kicks forward after a physician taps on their knee with a neurological hammer is dependent on the full stimulation of the reflex arc; the specialised neural pathway that controls a reflex. It’s all or none before any movement occurs.
As the saying goes, no one is born a winner. No one is born a loser but everyone is born a chooser. In the book of Joshua 15:14, the Holy Bible says: “And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve … but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
I wasn’t a bad boy. I tried my utmost to meet all the requirements demanded of me in high school. Somehow, I was led to believe that my efforts were not enough. I remember writing 100 lines of penance in high school. It’s possible that something or someone in my home situation prevented me from doing my homework. It could be that I did not have the textbook or relevant materials to do the assignment. We were living too far below the poverty line for me to accomplish anything. The poverty line was one thing, but there was another line coming at me.
The Canadian geography teacher gave me the line: “The way of the transgressor is exceedingly difficult.” Two choices arose in my mind: to write or not to write. My first inclination was to rebel against the penance. Although I thought that penance was a waste of time, I wrote the lines, and in my mind I said: “Take dat and eat it!” I was angry, but I did not exhibit the rage inside me. Life for me was already hard. I asked myself: Did this white woman arrive from wherever to make my life a little more difficult? I felt that colonialism was still very present in the colony. From then on, I swore that I did not want to study geography, and I did not choose geography as one of my ordinary level subjects.
After succeeding with my Cambridge University General Certificate of Education (GCE) O’ levels, I immediately became a high school teacher. At this job, I never assigned the writing of lines to any child. Never! I did not see lines as having anything to do with learning. Nevertheless, I assisted the principal with the teaching of the regional aspect of geography for GCE O’ levels. Imagine that. Somehow down the line in my scholastic efforts, I successfully completed a Master of Arts and a doctoral degree in geography and eventually became a geography professor. I had a choice to wallow in my poverty, my ‘misfortune’ in high school, my anger, my rage, and to become a loser and a menace to society.
Presently, I am compiling some notes for a book titled: How to be a loser. One of the first thoughts that came to me was that ‘A loser is someone who doesn’t want to win.’ Stephen Covey in his book titled: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People presented four scenarios namely: Lose/Lose, Lose/Win, Win/Lose and Win/Win. The best scenario is Win/Win. You win and I win. This comes with the choices we make. In other words, don’t give yourself permission to lose. All things being equal, we all have the power to choose. We do not have a predicament. We have a choice. Do not take God, whatever you conceive God to be, out of your thoughts; choose wisely.
Once upon a time, I heard the song: “It is no secret what God can do.” And it is no secret that I read the Holy Bible. The Bible provided me with examples about people who chose wisely; who chose to win! Some of them include Moses, Joseph, David, Solomon, Daniel, Mishael, Ahazariah, and Hannaniah. In Hebrews 11:24-25 we read: “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Sin is sin no matter how we paint it; no matter how we try to sugarcoat, excuse, and/or defend it. I remember my godmother stealing cocoa pods beyond her cocoa estate boundary. When I told her that what she was doing was wrong, she retorted by stating: “Dey eh go miss dat.” I was, but a child and she was a big old woman…no example! There you have it. There are those older folk who promote the manufacture of a generation of losers.
Who are the ones to assist young people (high school students) with the need to choose wisely? Parents? Teachers? Pastors? Preachers? Priests? Pundits? Imams? Mullahs? Community Workers? The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS)? We have all those who are probably doing the best they can. Nevertheless, Trinidad and Tobago is now in a terrible mess with a bunch of losers! The manufacture of losers in Trinidad and Tobago has mushroomed!
This losing streak must come to a halt less we be overrun by malevolent creatures parading in human form, brandishing firearms, invading homes and businesses, robbing, raping and murdering people, grabbing purses, snatching gold chains, and stealing vehicles, not to mention the scourge of praedial larceny. In reality, I am of the view that many young people fell through the cracks at home and at school, losing their way; they do not have a compass to guide them into the harbour of right doing. Proverbs 14:12 states: “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Choose life!
What shall we choose? Choose the good things…the good path. Choose uplifting things. Choose to be educated. (Education makes an individual fit to live and fit to live with). Ellen G. White in her book Education, defined education as the harmonious development of the physical, intellectual and spiritual faculties. Choose to be humble, generous and helpful. Do not choose the garbage of society. Do not eat from the landfill of laziness and slothfulness. When I was 11 years old, I learnt: “Laziness is so slow that poverty overtakes him.”
Do not blame others for your choices. Treat mistakes as stepping stones for greater success because nothing succeeds like success. Some people rationalise that this is my life and that nothing is wrong with this or that. It’s their mantra to repeat: “Do it if it feels good.” Some say that it is the society and its norms and its idiosyncrasies…some believe that it is not so bad, but not so bad is still damn bad. A rotten egg is a rotten egg, no matter how you cook it. Choose as Solomon chose. Choose the right friends. Some friends carry you and don’t bring you back.
The life of the loser is manifested in the choices he or she makes. Hearing the instruction of fathers and mothers, but some are stiff-necked, insolent, insubordinate, belligerent, and wicked, never wanting to adhere to instruction, as though ‘stick broke in their ears.’ Then they take the road that is broad, wavering, and cannot find the true path. They do whatsoever pleases them. Their shortsighted, myopic ideology is all that guides them. They prefer to feel the embarrassment. Their stubborn ‘know-it-all’ obtuse, narcissistic attitude controls their whole nature…looking for silly excuses to flounder in their filth.
Such people ignore the status quo…create their own laws and lifestyle, preferring to be an ‘outsider,’ rebels without a cause…not settling down to productive work…dilly-dallying and piddling…chaos oriented, messy…careless and confused…disorganized…and leans toward being socially and spiritually bankrupt; a defensive, arrogant, procrastinator, with a lack of accomplishment, uneducated, self-righteous, constantly seeking for a new excitement. Such individuals live without a purpose, fulfilment, a meaningless life…empty and judgmental.
They persecute those who are progressive and good-mannered…addicted to nonsense, drugs, crime, hateful, always in want, discontented, blaming someone else for their misfortune, cheaters, liars, deceivers, parasites…living off other people, greedy—high-minded, haughty, lukewarm, indecisive, insensitive and inconsiderate. They vacillate. They are unstable, troubled constantly and constantly in trouble with the tendency to be Crude, Arrogant, Confrontational and Argumentative (CACA). Their crass, callous, and impatient forays bespeak those of real losers.
Losers can be found everywhere. You will know them by their fruits. They do not have a focus on anything…I mean a good and positive focus for the benefit of humankind. They do not have a purpose-driven life…they are like “the chaff that the wind driveth away.” In primary school, I learnt the first chapter in the book of Psalms. At that early age, I couldn’t really understand the importance of the passage of scripture. Now I know the meaning thereof. This chapter is full of instruction about winners and losers:
“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”
I close with a verse taken from Micah 6:8: “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”