When People Offend You PDF

WHEN
PEOPLE
OFFEND
YOU
Practical Keys on How to Handle Offences
and Restore Harmony to Your Relational Life.
MATTHEW JOSEPH
Unless otherwise indicated, scripture quotations are taken from the King James
Version of the Holy Bible. Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from Holy
Bible, New International Version, © 1978, 1983 by the International Bible Society.
Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are taken from the English Standard Version.
Definitions of Greek words are taken from Strong‘s Exhaustive Concordance.
WHEN PEOPLE OFFEND YOU: PRACTICAL KEYS ON HOW TO HANDLE

OFFENCES AND RESTORE HARMONY TO YOUR RELATIONAL LIFE.
Paperback Edition
Matthew Joseph
mkehindejoseph@yahoo.com
ISBN: 979-86098-127-66
Kindle Direct Publishing
1200 12th Ave. S., Suite 1200, Seattle, WA 98144-2734
Copyright © 2020 by Matthew Joseph
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means—
electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written
permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright
law.
When People Offend You Matthew Joseph
Dedication
TO
MY DAD AND MUM
All your efforts to give me the best possible life is duly

noticed and hugely appreciated.
3
Contents
FOREWORD .................................................................................... 5
PREFACE .......................................................................................... 6
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... 10
PART I: UNDERSTANDING OFFENCE, EMOTIONS AND THE

POWER TO MAKE DECISION .............................................................. 15
1. WHAT IS OFFENCE? ......................................................................... 16

2. THE FACT ABOUT PEOPLE: WHY PEOPLE OFFEND YOU .................. 37
3. WHY WE GET EASILY OFFENDED .................................................... 50
4. OFFENCE AND EMOTIONS ............................................................... 64
5. CHOOSING HOW YOU RESPOND .................................................... 94
PART II: YOUR APPROACH TOWARD HANDLING OFFENCES AS A

PERSON OF CHARACTER .................................................................. 110
6. THE RATIONAL MAN VS. THE IRRATIONAL MAN ......................... 111

7. THE PEACE SEEKER ........................................................................ 129
8. THE BOSSMAN ............................................................................... 145
9. THE FORGIVER .............................................................................. 158
10. THE SELFLESS MAN....................................................................... 177
11. THE PLANNER .............................................................................. 192
CONCLUSION .............................................................................. 203
NOTES............................................................................................ 204
FOREWORD
This is a revolutionary book. As I was reading through
this book, I couldn‘t help to think that whoever has
written this book is either a psychologist, therapist or a
Doctor of human souls.
This is one of the most thorough and elaborates books on

this topic. I am sure it will probably be the best book out
there on the subject of offence. Friends, this book will get
you, no matter who you are and no matter how long you
have been in the Lord. It is like an epistle going to the
soul of man, dividing between the bones and marrow.
I will like to recommend this book to everybody that has

ever been offended at any point in life, or maybe you have
been a source of offence to others. This book will bring
healing, harmony and settlement to all involved.
I would recommend this book to everyone who is looking

for peace with himself, his neighbour and with God. You
cannot read this book without being challenged and
changed.
May the Lord bless Matthew Joseph for a great work he

has put to this. Blessings!
Dr. Sunday Adelaja.
Founder and Senior Pastor, Embassy of God,
Kiev, Ukraine.
5
PREFACE
N
obody can make you offended. The best they
can do is to manipulate your feelings with
words and actions that will normally get them
offended. So they try to make you feel what they will feel
if they were on the receiving end of their shenanigans.
People might offend you but you don‘t have to take

offence. When we get offended, we assume that someone
made us offended, but making someone offended is as
impossible as making a ship sink by putting it on water or
making a plane crash by putting it on the air. Of course,
unless you‘re the captain of the ship or the pilot of the
plane, then you can only try to destroy it—make people
offended—but you can‘t.
What makes people offended is their ego. A Cognitive

Therapy and Research journal defines offence-taking as
the ―perceived deprivation of what is rightfully due to a
person.‖ That means there‘s a level of expectation that a
person has towards you to ‗what is rightfully due‘ to
them, otherwise they‘ll get offended.
We are the pilots of our plane and the captains of our

ships. We must determine that no matter the quantity of
water around us, we wouldn‘t sink. Unfortunately, people
place a higher priority on their selfish feelings and
demand that others treat them right and make them feel
good, which seldom happens. They live like the world
owes them something.
In reality, we are supposed to quit expecting people to not

offend us. We ought to establish predetermined morals
6
and values that will not be compromised no matter what

people do. We ought to hold on to our values and keep
ourselves from doing what we just feel.
Through offences, life will test the quality of the strength

of your values but you must respond appropriately lest
you sink your ship and crash your plane.
There is always a reaction to offence. And that reaction

determines what would happen to us afterwards. Offence
is like going through a test that will determine our future.
When gold passes through fire, it becomes refined. But
when wood is passed through the same fire, it literally
burns to ashes.
Offence is a test and what you do with the test

determines your future—whether you‘ll become better
and stronger like the gold or bitter and weaker like the
wood.
Offence has a causative effect; it never leaves you the

same. When you get offended, you either come off as
mature or immature; calm or overreacting; forgiving or
unforgiving, wise or stupid—you‘re never left the same.
From scriptures, Jesus, as precious as he is to the world,

was seen as something offensive to the folks that never
wanted to believe in him. To those who don‘t believe in
him, he‘s not precious—he‘s a stone that causes them to
stumble. They saw him wrongly and got offended at him.
Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture,

Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect,
precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be
7
confounded. Unto you therefore which believe he is

precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the
stone which the builders disallowed, the same is
made the head of the corner, And a stone of
stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which
stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto
also they were appointed. (1 Peter 2:6-8).
We need to develop a different approach toward offence

because it‘s not an enemy. If we position ourselves
strategically, we could actually benefit from offence. Our
attitude toward offence and our perception of it matters a
lot. If we see offence as a problem, we miss out on
deriving benefit from it because, with such mentality, our
attitude will be predominantly militant.
There‘s really no shame in being offended. Once that is

taken and accepted, it becomes easier to pass the test and
get better in our lives. Well, you might be wondering,
―how does offence benefit us?‖ Stan Tatkin, a clinical
psychologist comments: ―There‘s nothing as difficult as
another human.‖ A major part of dealing with humans is
handling offences—whether it‘s your wife, husband, child,
co-worker, employer, etc. Offence is like the hard training
we get that prepares us for dealing with people. Really,
there‘s nothing as difficult as another human, and when
offence is handled with maturity we acclimatize ourselves
to the difficult thing that weak people would naturally get
all worked up about. We grow and mature when we learn
to handle offences appropriately.
You don‘t want to remain at the lower plain of life,

getting mad at petty things—do you? You want to rise
8
above the world like a king where difficulty becomes your

normalcy.
You can‘t legally prevent offence because offence is not

entirely an objective external reality. Part of it lies in the
subjective perception of others. And, since we can‘t please
everyone, it‘s therefore impossible to make a workable
legal restriction that caters to everyone‘s need as
pertaining to being offended.
Of course, legally, there are already laws against

verbally offending people as well as all kinds of laws.
There are already laws against slander and libel. The
courts are designed to legally apply those laws in each
individual case presented before it. However, there‘s no
law that can stop people from offending one another and
being offended; it‘s pretty much an unavoidable
phenomenon. Offence is a normal part of our existence
on earth. We have to learn to get used to it.
Matthew Joseph.
9
INTRODUCTION
E
veryone will be offended. But if everyone will be
offended does that mean everyone will get
offended? Is getting offended the same as being
offended? By the way, is it possible to be offended
without getting hurt? What if I get hurt, should I pretend
I didn‘t feel hurt so I won‘t appear weak? Do my feelings
even matter? Should I suppress them or give them full
vent? Is getting offended a choice or not? How should I
really react when I get offended? Should I retaliate
offence? These questions and more have remained in the
hearts of many, but there seem to be a lot of confusion
about them.
This book seeks to brings clarity to these questions and

provide concrete answers on how we ought to handle
offences. Handling offences the proper way is of utmost
importance; especially because offence is an inevitable
phenomenon. There are a variety of things that could
offend people:
o Being falsely accused for a crime you never

committed,
o A woman‘s 5-year old daughter was raped by
a rascally 29-year-old man,
o A man‘s wife and children were kidnapped by
some savage men,
o Your money gets stolen in a business
transaction with some shady individuals,
o The goods you ordered on the internet
weren‘t shipped,
o Wine is poured on the white dress you‘re
supposed to wear to an official event.
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All these and more are examples of situation that can

offend us, but, again, what should be our reaction?
Handling offences isn‘t about giving a better or smarter

retort, but about keeping a mature attitude in the face of
immaturity and still effectively handling the situation.
This book is filled with keys to help you, not just handle
offences, but also to develop yourself into a person of
character and nobility even when you‘re being tempted to
act otherwise.
This book will help you reach a level where people do

not control your feelings and emotion whether
intentionally or non-intentionally. This is not about being
numb to the things we inevitably feel, but you knowing
what to do with them. The importance of being able to
control your emotions for yourself cannot be
overemphasized. Other people sitting on the wheels of
your emotions and pressing your button at will is both
immature and unreasonable.
Again, everyone will get their fair share of offences.

However, what we do with these situations will determine
our future with God our creator, and man.
Being Offended, Getting Offended
It‘s not possible to make anyone offended. They might

get offended when you try to make them get offended but
really, the best you can do is to try to make them get
offended. The decision remains with them as to choose
whether to be offended or not.
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If you get to find out what get a person ticked off and
you try using it to get them ticked off, and it worked. Still,
you didn‘t get them ticked off, you only tried get them
ticked off and it worked.
Hence, in the history of the world, no one has ever

gotten anyone offended or made anyone offended. They
only tried, and it worked.
Understanding the terms ‗subjective‘ and ‗objective‘ will

play a big role in understanding how impossible it is to
get another person offended. In linguistics, the term
―subject‖ or ―subjective‖ is directly opposite to how
Philosophy defines it.
In linguistic, traditional grammar defines object in a

sentence as the entity that is acted upon by the subject.
For example, Tom studies grammar – Tom is the subject
and grammar is the object.1
But in the more general understanding of the word,

when we say something is subjective, it means something
that is perceived by a person.
Subjective: According to wikitionary, (Philosophy)

Experience by a person mentally and not directly
verifiable by others. It is essentially personal—based on
one‘s feeling, thinking and perception.
Hence, there must be a clear distinction between the

individual carrying out an act of offence and the person
feeling the impact of the offence on the other end. One
person can‘t offend someone and help them feel
offended—one person can‘t do both.
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So, Offence is the act of provocation that is done in an

attempt to make a person feel offended. To make anyone
offended, you have to first become that person, and
control their minds and choose their feelings, then you
can make them get offended, otherwise, it won‘t be
possible to get them offended.
Knowing this gives you the power to choose for yourself.

What you‘re going to do with your power to get or not get
offended.
You might offend someone, hence, we can say that

person is being offended, but the part of ―being offended‖
is subjective on the offended. If you say Mr. so-and-so is
being offended by his secretary. That statement would
only be accurate if you meant the secretary is doing
things and saying things that could get him offended. But
it‘ll be inaccurate if you mean the secretary made or got
Mr. so-and-so offended.
Again, you can‘t make or get anyone offended; you

could do things that could get someone offended;
someone could become offended because of what you did
to them, in your objective perception, you could offend
someone, but the feelings depends on the subjective
perception on the one being offended. Hence you really
didn‘t ‗make‘ them feel offended—you only tried and it
worked.
The power still remains with them to decide. If you keep

on reading this book, you would gain more clarity about
subject of discourse like this and others.
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14
PART I
UNDERSTANDING OFFENCE, EMOTIONS AND THE

POWER TO MAKE DECISION
15
CHAPTER ONE
WHAT IS OFFENCE?
―Our response to an offence determines our future‖
(JOHN BEVERE).
Offence is a word that was borrowed from old French

ofense, from Latin offense and it means ―injury; affront;
crime, displeasure; a striking against.‖ Merriam-
Webster‘s 11th Collegiate Dictionary describes offence as:
 The act of displeasing or affronting.

 The state of being insulted or morally
outraged.
 A breach of a moral or social code.
So anytime you break a law or breach a particular code

it is an offence against that law or code. Bringing this to a
personal level, anytime you do or say something that
displeases insults or outrages someone, it is an offence
against that person. But how does this happen? Does this
mean everyone has their individual laws that you mustn‘t
break when relating to them? Well, how do we know
everyone‘s individual laws so we don‘t break them? And,
when we get to know, is it possible to live up to
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expectation of everybody and satisfy their individual

needs? Well, absolutely not. It‘s not possible to satisfy all
the needs of anyone let alone everyone.
The word ―offence‖ can be represented in a number of

ways—many times it‘s not ‗offence‘ that we feel. Offence
could just be the cause of a certain feeling of being
offended. And when you‘re offended the feelings come in
a variety of ways. For example, look at these words the
words:
 Repulsed
 Annoyed
 Bothered
 Provoke
 Humiliate
 Embarrass
 Scandalise
 Exasperate
 Displease
 Injure
 Disgust
 Irritate
 Discomfit
 Upset, etc.
We could feel any of these things and say we are

offended. For example, we could say an offended person
was provoked by offence. Hence my definition of offence
is this:
17
 Offence is the act of provocation that is done in

an attempt to make a person feel offended.
 Offence is whatever is done, seen, heard, smelt or
physically felt that causes someone to be
offended.
 Offence is a state, event, circumstance,
phenomenon or anything that sets off a feeling of
displeasure.
Hence we can say when a person is wronged; cheated,

mistreated, insulted, disrespected they might or might
not feel offended. But the act of cheating, mistreating,
disrespecting, insulting, etc., are all acts of offence. And
in their best, they‘re all attempts to press others‘ buttons
to see which button will get them ticked off, so to speak.
Offence is not the feeling; it‘s the act. Because it‘s

absolutely impossible to make anyone feel offended.
People might cause you to be offended by their actions,
but the power always remains in your hands to get
offended or be offended. This will be explained in better
detailed. But you must understand that being offended is
a feeling, while offence is the act that‘s potentially able to
cause a negative feeling in us if we allow it.
Offence is an act, event or state of:
o …humiliating that could make one feel

offended.
o …disgusting that could make one feel
offended.
o …irritating that could make one feel
offended.
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o …insulting that could make one feel

offended.
o …cheating that could make one feel offended.
Notice, we‘re using the words ―irritating‖, ―humiliating‖,

or ―insulting‖, in action or verb form. This is because the
―feeling‖ is a description of one‘s emotional state but that
was caused by an external factor—an action. If anyone
could make you feel offended then it‘ll work anytime and
with everyone, not once in a while or sometimes.
Therefore, offence isn‘t a feeling; it‘s an act, state, event,

phenomenon, situation, circumstance, object, person,
scenario or anything that either causes or can cause a
feeling of displeasure, disgust, insult, irritation, etc., in a
person. Hence, everything is a potential offence because
as the saying goes, ―one man‘s food is another man‘s
poison‖. That could be said to mean something can be an
offence to you, yet not an offence to me. And we don‘t
know what applies individually to every person.
10 FACTS ABOUT OFFENCE
#1. Offence Is an External Phenomenon, Not an

Internal Feeling
There is a state of being offended and a feeling of being

offended. The state of being offended is event or an
external phenomenon—other people make this happen.
On the other hand, the feeling of being offended is an
internal feeling—you make this happen.
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―It is not insult from another that causes you pain. It is

the part of your mind that agrees with the insult. Agree
only with the truth about you, and you are free.‖
(ALAN COHEN)
Offence is not something you feel. It could cause you to

feel something, but feeling is not what it is. We need to
differentiate what makes us feel offended from what we
feel. Offence is normally an external phenomenon. It is
usually something we observe with our 5 senses.
You could see something with your eye that offends you;
feel something on your skin; smell something with your
nose; taste something with your tongue or hear
something with your ear that offends you. Those things
that you pick with your 5 senses that offends you, that‘s
what offence is.
Offence isn‘t the feeling that follows what you observed

with your 5 senses, but offence is whatever you saw,
smelt, hear, felt with your body or tasted with your
tongue that made you offended.
Hence offence is external but the feeling is internal. You

might not be able to control what happens outside, but
the internal reaction—what you feel—is totally dependent
on you. Sometimes it‘s hard, sometimes it‘s easy, but the
decision to get offended always remains with you. As we‘ll
explain later, offence is a choice.
An offended person feels something in the same way a

hurt person feels something—or an insulted person feels
20
something. The focus is on the receiving party. If he feels

nothing, then he‘s not affected by offence.
Arguing that you can make anyone feel offended is like

saying you can make someone to fall in love with you by
your loving them first. Although science has proven that
there is a tendency for us to fall in love with people that
love us—yet it‘s not in all cases. Hence, feeling offended is
relative to everyone. It‘s always their decision to take
offence.
If you love someone, but they don‘t love you in return,

then, it‘s clear that this person is not feeling love for you,
even though you tried to show him/her love that you love
them—there‘s no love response from the person.
Therefore, the effort to make the person feel love for you
was futile. It was only an effort at best. The decision
remains with the person to love. However, if the person
falls in love with you just because you showed them that
you love them, then that‘s animalistic. It‘s how animals
respond to love—based on stimulus. This isn‘t supposed
to be how humans respond to love. I believe love ought to
be a conscious decision based on logical, analytical
thinking.
There is no love on the part of the receiver if they don‘t

make the decision to receive and feel your love. And even
if they feel your love, the decision still remains with the
other person to respond with love. In the same way there
is no offence on the part of the receiver if they don‘t make
a decision to receive, feel and respond to your offence.
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A saint was asked, ―What is anger?‖ He gave a beautiful

answer: ―It‘s the punishment we give ourselves for
someone else‘s mistake.‖ To be frank, only babies are
permitted to give full vent to all their feelings and
emotions. They are immature and don‘t know much, but
as adults, we ought to be mature and knowledgeable.
That‘s the reason for this book: To equip us with the
knowledge that makes us act mature when offended.
Sometimes, getting someone offended is not just a

matter of intentionality; people don‘t have to be
deliberate about offending you before you get offended.
Other times, what people do might be intended to be
offensive but reverse may be the case; it might not be
perceived as offensive by you. Not all persons will see
your act of offence as an offence. This might be due to the
circumstances surrounding the situation, his/her values,
how the individual perceives your action or the nature of
the person or any other factor. Hence offence is very
personal.
#2. Offence Is Personal/Relative/Subjective
While there are codes of conduct, rules and regulations

and laws made by various organizations and institutions
to guide the actions of people in that particular
environment, there‘s none for dealing with people in
general. That‘s another way of saying you can‘t please
everybody. You might succeed with some, but ultimately,
you‘ll offend someone somehow.
Even laws aren‘t all-encompassing in its entirety. That‘s

why a Criminal Justice Acts puts a clause in its 1st page
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that reads: While every care has been taken in the

preparation of this Revised Act, the Law Reform
Commission can assume no responsibility for and give
no guarantees, undertakings or warranties concerning
the accuracy, completeness or up to date nature of the
information provided and does not accept any liability
whatsoever arising from any errors or omissions.
What this Act is saying is this: We‘ll have to keep on

writing for eternity to make this Revised Act complete
and satisfy everyone‘s needs. It‘s impossible to cover the
need of everybody. The above clause explains that there‘s
no general way or law to ensure people aren‘t offended.
There‘s neither a yardstick for measuring offence nor a
way to totally avoid offending people. This is because of
our individual differences and selfish nature. Offence is
subjective on one‘s personal perception. For example, if a
person loves evil, he gets offended when he sees you
doing good. Conversely, if a good person sees you doing
evil, he gets offended at your action. Again, there‘s‘ really
no way to please everybody.
Apart from the fact that you can‘t, it‘s also neither
necessary nor good for you if everyone approves of you.
The scripture says ―Woe unto you, when all men shall
speak well of you!‖2 Notice the word ―all men‖. That
implies you‘re a hypocrite if all men speak well of you
because it‘s not possible if you‘re living in integrity.
History reveals that you don‘t have to have a fault to

offend people, you might even be an advocate of
righteousness. Like Martin Luther King Jr., you might be
a harmless enthusiast, crusading for righteousness of
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equality among men, and end up offending a lot of

people.
Some have suffered for doing what ought to be done.

Many have been penalized for speaking against injustice,
not because what they were doing was wrong, but
because an evil person hates people who don‘t approve of
his actions; he‘s offended by those who accost and
challenge him. Our individual differences determine what
we value, how we see things and what offends us.
International differences also explain this concept of

offence being personal. In some places of the world, you‘d
be shocked what offends people. For example, in
countries like Japan, China and India refusing a request
by saying ‗no‘ is considered offensive. They have other
diplomatic ways of saying no such as, ―it is being
discussed,‖ or ―possibly‖ or ―we‘ll see‖.
Also, if you‘re visiting countries like Iran, Afghanistan,

Italy, or Greece, you better keep your thumbs to yourself.
It‘s offensive to raise your thumbs up in those countries.
Their sign of approval isn‘t a thumbs up. In Bulgaria,
nodding your head means no, and shaking your head side
to side means yes. In Netherlands, asking what someone
does for a living is considered rude. In most Arab
countries, refusing food or refreshment is incredibly
offensive—even if you aren‘t hungry or thirsty.
Whatever applies to your country or to you personally,

just remember: The people will be offended one way or
another, whether you‘re a good person or a bad person.
But the important thing is knowing what to do when
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offence come, which is what this book offers. Many

people have suffered in various ways because they don‘t
know how to get around an offensive situation or an
offensive person. As a result of this, they have resorted
into dangerous, revengeful strategies that at best cause
more havoc, regret and pain for themselves and everyone
around them.
#3. Offence Is a Bait
When a man wants to woo a woman there are certain

things he does. If he wants a woman to fall in love with
him, then he could use a bait to get her. He could take the
lady he likes out to a restaurant and try to be very nice to
her in the hope that she gets to like him, too. Then they
can develop some form of relationship from there.
Another thing he can do is to use emotional
manipulation. One of the way to do this is to tell her
really nice words that could get her stimulated. Well, all
these are just attempts at best. They‘re like baits to get or
lure or attract someone to respond to us in the same
manner that we are acting toward them.
Relating this to offence, if you study the word that was

translated offence in the scriptures, you‘d come to a
distinct observation to the fact that offence is like a bait
that is used to lure an animal to be trapped by a hunter.
As a result of this, the Bible tells us to beware of offence
of those that cause offence and avoid them because it‘s a
bait.
Now I beseech you brethren, mark them which

cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine
which ye have learned; and avoid them.
(Rom 16:17)
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The words ―mark‖ and ―avoid‖ say a lot about how

dangerous offence is and what our reaction ought to be.
Come to think of it, if you were an animal, say, a fish, and
you saw a fisherman‘s sickle dangling right in front of
you, will you go closer and closer to it till you get trapped
or you‘d run as fast as you can away from it? Well, I guess
you‘re going to run for your dear life. Now, that‘s what we
ought to do with offence.
The Greek word translated offence in the verse above is

skandalon – it connotes – a trap spring; a stumbling
block or impediment; a cause of ruin or misery; a cause
or occasion of sinning.
However, there‘s something offence thrives on to lure

us. This is the reason why the bait works: It‘s the ego. The
ego that makes it difficult for someone to pull out of
offence. You seek to defend yourself because you feel your
sense of self-worth has been diminished—you feel you‘ve
either lost something or you have something to lose. Your
ego tells you to prove yourself to be more than what
people make you look like. When offended, you‘re
tempted to get even to satisfy your egotistical cravings.
Many times, getting offended is useless because it‘s all
about the ego. Feeling offended is just the ego‘s way of
seeking importance. The ego is the pride that always
wants to be the boss—superior to others.
#4. Offence Is a Test
Offence is nature‘s way of challenging your values and

testing your priorities. Offence checks the level of
conviction you have about what you believe and what you
26
stand for as a person. If you really want to know the truth

about someone, watch them when they‘re offended—what
they say and how they act—do they change their
conviction? Or do they stand by what they believe.
If you compromise your values, beliefs and morals

because you were offended, then you weren‘t well
established in them. Sometimes, the good things of life
(i.e., money, power, success, etc.) tests a man‘s character.
Other times, offence does the job of testing.
In world history, we can observe that western

civilization has risen on the foundation of some values
and virtues that are today being tested. The standard of
honor, justice, morality and the esteem for life are some
of the foundational values on which western civilization
has risen. But today, these foundations are being tested.
The issue of abortion is one of the tests.
Due to their differing view on the issue of abortion,

many people feel offended when we say abortion is wrong
because it deals with taking the life of another human
being. Others think it is okay because they believe it is a
matter of freedom.
But any law that give the freedom or makes it right to

take the life of another human isn‘t right. True rightness
or righteousness is in seeing the preservation of human
life as fundamental to the peaceful existence of man on
earth.
27
#5. Offence Is a Blow to Self-Image
Research in social psychology explains that the feeling

of being offended has been viewed so far as typically
triggered by a blow to a person‘s honour, hence his/her
public ―face‖. It further shows that feeling offended
belongs to the so-called ―self-conscious emotions‖, like
shame, guilt, and pride, and like shame and humiliation it
is caused by a blow to the person‘s image and self-image.3
This seems to explain that our self-image might be

injured by some action of others, and we might feel
offended, yet this doesn‘t necessarily mean that we
should allow the offence to get to us. Sometimes, the
perceived blow to our self-image might not be avoidable,
but we shouldn‘t let that determine the assumptions we
make about the situation.
Consider this scenario: You‘re in a restaurant with a

couple of your friends having a great time together. One
of your friends then cracks a joke that gets you all
laughing in an obstreperous, high-spirited manner. This
gets the attention of some people in the restaurant, then a
young man walks toward you and asks, ―excuse me, are
you all laughing at me?‖
Considering the fact that none of you knew this young

man from anywhere, the utter surprise at his question left
you all speechless and elicits nothing but even more
laughter. This make the young man think you‘re still
laughing at him, and, with the embarrassment and
indignation he feels, forthwith, begins cussing and
28
swearing at you with all the vulgarity and profanity of

words he could muster.
The snapshot above explains how a lot of people get

offended. Their feeling of being offended isn‘t necessarily
because someone is consciously or intentionally
‗offending‘ them, they just feel offended because they‘ve
got a poor self-image, and whatever they see others doing
will easily pose a threat to their emotional security, yet
it‘s all baseless and doesn‘t hold any sense of rationality.
The truth is weak people would rather love to see and
esteem you as small and inferior to them. They feel
threatened when others are too comfortable and
confident around them.
The man was offended because he thought he was being

laughed at, which is false. But let‘s assume it‘s true that
he was being laughed at, does that diminish his value?
No. But he derived his sense of importance from how
other people saw him, which is why he took offence so
easily.
If you feel offended about something someone did to

you, but you‘re not sure whether the person intended to
offend you, the proper thing to do would be to make
enquiry.
―The degree of one‘s emotions varies inversely with

one‘s knowledge of fact.‖
(BERTRAND RUSSELL)
The quote above implies that the less fact you have, the
more your emotions can lie to you. To avoid having false
29
emotional alarms, you can make enquiry by either telling

the person what they did and how it hurt you or you just
ask them questions and be sure to get a response before
you decide on anything. This would make it clear whether
or not they really wanted to offend you. You might get to
find out that their action was either a mistake or was not
intentionally directed at you.
#6. Offence Is an Attack Against Ego
(It's only our inflated ego that leads us to take offence

over every trifle).
(DADA VASWANI)
One reason why many people don‘t like to be corrected

isn‘t necessarily because what was said isn‘t true—they
just feel their ego was hurt by the correction. What‘s the
difference between self-image and ego? Ego isn‘t harmful
or faulty in itself. Ego is ‗self‘; it‘s ‗I‘. It is a part of self-
image, while self-image is simply the perceived view or
image of ego.
If you have a poor self-image, you will be excessively

egotistical. But if you have an adequate self-image, you
won‘t be egotistical. If you have a good self-image, it
won‘t be difficult for you to accept corrections. Hence,
your ego isn‘t hurt by correction. But, if your ego was
hurt, then you were offended, and that‘s because you‘ve
wrongly attached being corrected to a poor sense of self-
image. Offence is a perceived attack against ego.
Note, it‘s not possible for it to be an offence if the attack

wasn‘t perceived. It‘s like being slapped on the face and
30
not feeling it because your sense of feeling is deadened,

hence you can‘t feel hurt by the slap on your face.
Of course, the way someone corrects you can determine

whether or not you feel offended at the person—as well as
their relationship to you. If it happens to be a person of
influence, then it‘s possible that you won‘t feel as
offended, i.e., father-son, employer-employee, teacher-
pupil, etc. as opposed to a subordinate. Yet, this isn‘t
justified because you ought to be able to accept correction
from everyone.
#7. Offence Is a Clash
Sometimes, what makes you get offended is a perceived

threat that was never implied. For example, a clash of
opinion due to an obvious misunderstanding of the other
person‘s idea or lack of the other person‘s perspective. It‘s
like an argument: When you‘re in the middle of a heated
argument it becomes difficult for you to think clearly.
Consider an argument about whether or not the cup of

water is half-full or half-empty. Both parties believe that
they‘re totally and absolutely right. Yet, the clear problem
is a clash of opinion borne out of a refusal to neither
understand nor consider the other person‘s perspective.
Offence isn‘t just a clash of opinion. It‘s a clash of

personalities; clash of thinking patterns; clash of
inclinations; clash of desires; clash of prejudices; clash of
beliefs, and so on. When there‘s a clash, then someone
gets hurt and pain is felt.
31
#8. Offence Is Inevitable
Offence is a part of our existence on the earth. We‘re

naturally made to offend one another. This is how we
were made. The differences between us make it
impossible for all of us to always agree with one another.
If offence is a clash, then we‘re inevitably going to clash
with one another sometimes.
In the next chapter, I‘ll explain why people offend us.

But one reason is we‘re not made to think, see, feel or
agree the same way. We are unique and specially created
by God to carry out our individual functions on the earth.
This is why offence is a part of life. Hence, we should
value and love one another irrespective of our differences
because the value of a commodity is in its rarity.
If people have a right to be who they are (and they do),

then people have the right to offend you. Offence is
birthed at the point of departure from commonality.
Where there are different perspectives, there will be
offence.
#9. Offence Doesn’t Have to Be Intentional
Offence isn‘t always premeditated or intentional.

Sometimes, it just happens. In fact, whether
premeditated or not, if a person doesn‘t really know you,
i.e., your likes and dislikes, they could attempt to offend
you and fail. Conversely, they could be working hard to
not offend you, yet fail. It‘s all dependent on you, not
them. If they really understand you, then they could
attempt to play against your rules and getting a higher
chance of offending you.
32
However, it‘s not common to find people that are

constantly on the loose, consciously looking for ways to
offend others. Even if they were, it might still not work.
The main thing is to understand that pretty much
anything can offend anyone anytime. So it doesn‘t have to
be planned, premeditated or intentional before it
happens.
#10. Your Response to an Offence Determines

Your Pain
Your understanding of and response to offence

determines your pain. Offence can be typified as a
stumbling block. If you walk around the block, it won‘t
hurt you. But if you kick your foot against the block, you‘ll
stumble. You‘ll be hurt if you try to fight the inevitability
of offence.
This is why I said no one can make you feel offended. I

already pointed out that offence is not a feeling but an
external phenomenon. When you feel pain, you might
want to check the inside of yourself, not outside. Pain is
only derived when we are able to identify with what was
done in such a way that we personalise the meaning.
Hence, when you feel pain, it is because of you the

interpretation of what you observed and the idea you
attach to it personally. Recognise that the occurrence of
offence is not a big deal because everyone will invariably
face offence. Hence you don‘t make a big deal out of it.
If you personalise, ‗overidentify‘ yourself with or make a

big deal out of the offence, what you‘re doing is that
you‘re taking the offence—then it can hurt you. Again see
33
offence like a trap. If you don‘t touch it, it won‘t hurt you.
Hence, when you find yourself getting easily offended at
people, you might want to re-consider how you think
about what people do to you. If trivial things easily offend
you, then you might want to re-adjust your priorities.
Check your heart to know what really matters to you
personally.
Is it Painful? It Must Be Valuable.
The degree of pain you feel when someone offends you

isn‘t necessarily a function of what they did but the state
of your heart toward that thing. If you‘re egotistical and
narcissistic and you think the whole world revolves
around you, then if anyone offends you, it‘ll hurt because
you only love yourself and you take yourself too seriously.
If you take a person seriously because you love them,

then they can really hurt you. This is why it‘s those that
are closest to you that can hurt you the most.
If you take yourself too seriously, that‘s an ego problem.

But if you take a person too seriously, then that person
will be like a treasure in your heart. Hence if your ego was
pricked or your heart was broken, it‘ll hurt more than
when your ego was never there or when your heart was
never involved. When it‘s heartbreak, it‘s usually an issue
of broken trust. And that‘s a relative phenomenon.
However, when it‘s not an issue of heartbreak, then it‘s

an issue of ego getting in the way—the ego was involved.
We know that it‘s impossible for a man to a have no ego.
The word ‗ego‘ is described as a person‘s consciousness of
self or ‗I‘. And it‘s pretty much impossible for anyone to
34
live without even a little sense of selfishness. Everyone is

somewhat self-centred. Hence, we might not be able to
avoid some sort of pain when people offend us. However,
we can choose how we apply our ego and decide what we
get mad about.
What do you value? Where‘s your treasure? What do

you take seriously? What matters to you personally? Is it
in what men say about you or what God says about you?
When you determine that your value isn‘t based on what
people think of you or do to you or say to you that will, to
a great extent, free you from the bondage of having to
react offended like a person whose ego or pride was
pricked.
Your value is based totally on the fact that you‘re a child

of God. You need to have your mind on God, not people.
The less you care, the happier you are.
Do not care about people‘s opinion of you especially if

it‘s obviously a biased one or if it makes no sense. You
don‘t have to be at the centre of what people say about
you, including insult, criticism or ridicule. If you‘re not
able to totally ignore what people say about you, the least
you can do is to pick their idea of you with a grain of salt
because their opinion neither defines you nor diminishes
your value.
Hence ‗you‘ shouldn‘t be at the centre. If you‘re not at

the centre, it won‘t hurt you. Don‘t accept their trash. If
it‘s not valuable, it‘s not for you. Hence, forgiveness
should be quick in such situations. More so, your problem
35
might just be that you‘re unable to properly manage your

emotions towards offence. We‘ll discuss what to do about
this in a later chapter.
36
CHAPTER TWO
THE Fact About people: Why

PEOPLE OFFEND you
―Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you‘re

a good person is like expecting a bull not to attack you
because you‘re a vegetarian‖
(DENNIS WHOLEY).
Like I pointed out in the preceding chapter, an

important fact you must come to terms with in your
relationship with people is that offences are inevitable.
Everyone is unique. Even the most non-identical twins

still have a lot of differences. This is how our creator
made things to be. Our creator loves variety. You might
be wondering why this is the case with people but it is so
because of our differences, which comes with advantages
and disadvantages.
It‘s like a team of soccer players that have their

important, individual roles where they‘re able to help the
team with their unique gifts. But when the fullback in the
team isn‘t thinking like the attacking midfielder, due to
the differences in their nature, inclination, likes and
dislikes, abilities; etc, then we might have a problem
37
because a clash could occur between them. They might

both feel repugnant toward each other. Each might even
think the other person is an absolute nonentity because of
how ‗weird‘ and different they think, yet each person is an
absolute wonder and beauty in the eye of the creator. We
might not all agree with each other all the time, but we
certainly are going to need one another sometimes.
When we understand certain facts about people, it

becomes easy to expect them not to live up to the
standard of flawlessness that we have set in our minds
concerning them.
―If you don‘t find a way to love a flawed person,

secretly you‘re teaching yourself that you‘re not
loveable because of your flaws‖
(T. D JAKES).
When you understand the nature of each individual as

different than yours, it becomes easy to give them the
benefit of the doubt when you understand that it‘s human
nature and the creator‘s design for people to be different
than you or not think like you or agree with you as much
as you‘d want them to.
In this chapter I‘ll outline 5 characteristics of human

nature. These characteristics define their selfish nature
because human nature is primarily selfish.
We can also describe this as the 5 thinking pattern of

people or the thinking habit of egocentric man. These
thinking patterns explain how man satisfies his need for
38
self-importance. Since these thinking patterns are all

irrational, they can be easily used to offend people.
Well, the truth is the best description for this chapter is

wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee chapter. This is because
people normally don‘t like to face facts, especially about
people. They want to assume people are all nice, sweet
and dandy. But when they get the opposite, they‘re
offended because their expectation was cut short.
However, this chapter doesn‘t seek to raise your hopes
about people but reveal the truth—perhaps the truth
you‘ve been avoiding all your life.
―You may feel dandy but the world is not your candy.‖
(LORIN MORGAN-RICHARDS)
If you‘ve read the classic book How to Win Friends and

Influence People by Dale Carnegie, then you‘ll have come
across this story that he told about ―Two Gun‖ Crowley.
―Two Gun‖ Crowley: The Self-Righteous

Criminal
On May 7, 1931, the most sensational manhunt New

York City had ever known had come to its climax. After
weeks of search, ―Two Gun‖ Crowley - the killer, the
gunman who didn‘t smoke or drink - was at bay, trapped
in his sweetheart‘s apartment on West End Avenue. One
hundred and fifty policemen and detectives laid siege to
his top-floor hideway. They chopped holes in the roof;
they tried to smoke out Crowley, the ―cop killer,‖ with
teargas. Then they mounted their machine guns on
surrounding buildings, and for more than an hour one of
39
New York‘s fine residential areas reverberated with the

crack of pistol fire and the rut-tat-tat of machine guns.
Crowley, crouching behind an over-stuffed chair, fired

incessantly at the police. Ten thousand excited people
watched the battle. Nothing like it ever been seen before
on the sidewalks of New York.
When Crowley was captured, Police Commissioner E. P.

Mulrooney declared that the two-gun desperado was one
of the most dangerous criminals ever encountered in the
history of New York. ―He will kill,‖ said the
Commissioner, ―at the drop of a feather.‖ But how did
―Two Gun‖ Crowley regard himself? We know, because
while the police were firing into his apartment, he wrote a
letter addressed ―To whom it may concern,‖ And, as he
wrote, the blood flowing from his wounds left a crimson
trail on the paper. In this letter Crowley said: ―Under my
coat is a weary heart, but a kind one - one that would do
nobody any harm.‖ A short time before this, Crowley had
been having necking party with his girlfriend on a
country road out on Long Island. Suddenly a policeman
walked up to the car and said: ―Let me see your license.‖
Without saying a word, Crowley drew his gun and cut

the policeman down with a shower of lead. As the dying
officer fell, Crowley leaped out of the car, grabbed the
officer‘s revolver, and fired another bullet into the
prostrate body. And that was the killer who said: ―Under
my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one - one that would
do nobody any harm.‖
40
Crowley was sentenced to the electric chair. When he

arrived at the death house in Sing Sing, did he say, ―This
is what I get for killing people‖? No, he said: ―This is what
I get for defending myself.‖
The point of the story is this: ―Two Gun‖ Crowley didn‘t

blame himself for anything.
Is that an unusual attitude among criminals? No. The

truth is people don‘t criticize themselves for anything, no
matter how wrong it may be.4
This isn‘t just about a callous criminal or a violent

sociopath or a wicked witch. This is about everybody. The
one fact that connects everyone together is this: Everyone
is selfish. Ego is one thing that we all have. And ego is
what we all serve. Ego is self. Of course, there are some
people that have decided to live above this level of
wanting to please self. But, if we must admit the truth,
people aren‘t out there thinking about you—how to help
you, what to give you, how to love you, etc—instead,
they‘re thinking about themselves. This is the fact about
people. And this is why people offend us.
From Crowley‘s story, we can deduce what I call the 5 I‘s

of human nature. Underneath these 5 I‘s is the need to
please ego:
The 5 I’s of Human Nature
1. Irresponsibility: People don‘t like to be blamed or

criticised or told what they‘re doing wrong. They
don‘t like to take the blame or responsibility for their
faults.
41
2. Immobility: People aren‘t inclined to feel what you

feel, think what you think or do what you want. Like a
snail stuck in its shell, they are stuck with themselves.
They‘re not going anywhere. They‘re not ready to come
out. They‘re not going to move an inch to consider you.
3. Irrationality: People aren‘t busy thinking about

you, their priority is themselves. So, they respond to
you, not on a well thought out, rational basis, but on the
irrational basis of how they feel.
4. Insecurity: People feel good when they‘re able to

tear you down, especially as a form of revenge. That is
the hallmark of insecurity.
5. Irritability: People will offend you and then get

emotionally worked up when you stand up to them. This
is express either in the sadness or anger that they
display.
To further accentuate these features of innate

human character, consider the points below. Have
you ever seen someone who did any of these?
 Beg you to lend them money but find it the
most difficult thing in the world to pay back.
 Fall in love but lose all the love in 2-year
period and want out.
 Lead you on to fall in love but ignore you they
see that they got you.
 Beg you for power, giving you all kinds of
promises, but failing to deliver on those
promises when they get elected.
42
 Correct you for something and you‘d later

find them doing the same thing they
corrected you for.
 Show a lot of admiration for you today and
heap a lot of hatred on you tomorrow.
 Beg you to help them, but refuse to
reciprocate the act when it‘s their turn to help
you.
 Get mad at you for forgetting their birthday,
but careless about your own birthday.
Believe it or not, these aren‘t extremes at all. These are

normal with people; it comes naturally to everyone to act
that way. In fact, what doesn‘t come naturally to everyone
is doing the opposite. If you‘re not yet sure, use yourself
as a guinea pig. Which do you find easier; being the first
to say sorry even when you‘re not guilty or not saying
sorry; giving a harsh reply to a censurer or saying
nothing; cussing back the guy that cussed at your mother;
hating the person that hates you. Of course, you know
which one comes more naturally to you better now.
Now, you might be thinking, ―what the hell then am I

supposed to do?‖ Well, before I tell you what you‘re
supposed to do, let me first affirm that it doesn‘t matter
how you‘re inclined to react, the truth is if you feel
offended at any of these, then—I got you—you‘re in the
class of selfish natured humans.
Now, talking about how you were supposed to react,

I‘m sorry, but the truth is if the basis for you reaction to
people is how they treat you, then you really need to
adjust your thinking. Emotional, instinct-based or
43
schizophrenic reaction is really not the best way to handle

offences. (We‘ll talk more about this in a later chapter).
Now, on the basis of the fact established about human

nature, are you still expecting people to bolster your ego,
love and please you all the time without failing or ever
offending you? Think again. Wake up and smell the
coffee. You‘re demanding from people what‘s not natural
with people.
In fact, even among married people where there ought

to be maximum love and affection, you might want to
imagine that that‘s the case all the time—well, I guess you
know better now. Apart from statistics that show the high
rate of divorce, especially among newly wedded couples,
as I earlier pointed out, the emotional high of being in
love also has been revealed to not last longer than 2 years.
After this, you have to make a conscious effort of loving
this person. There won‘t be an automatic feeling of
wanting to be nice and caring—at least not the way it was
in the beginning. So the selfish nature becomes more
dominant than the feeling of love. At this stage, it
becomes harder to put the other person ahead of yourself.
These are facts about people. This is the reality because

we‘re constantly in a race for survival. The root of such
act of selfishness is because people are driven by survival
instinct and the need for self-importance. If anything
makes you feel bigger or better than them then they‘ll
rather not do it.
Notice, this chapter isn‘t about how people act in

general but how people are. Just because you, for
44
example, find it hard to say sorry doesn‘t mean you‘ve

never done it before or you won‘t still do it later on in the
future.
My focus in this chapter is the nature of man that

determines his feelings and sometimes, actions. Feelings
are inevitable, but actions can be controlled. If, as a
human that has a selfish nature, you‘ve gone out of your
way to be selfless or do something that is against your
selfish nature, that means your feelings can be controlled
and logical decisions can be made by on thinking. This
still will be discussed in more detail in a latter chapter.
Due to the selfish nature of man, living with them can

be difficult. Yet, we‘ve got no choice that to understand
people and live with them the best way we can. Dale
Carnegie says about people, ―People will always justify
themselves when criticised because criticism wounds a
person‘s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance,
and arouses resentment.‖
―I‘ve learned that no matter how good a person is,

they‘re going to hurt you every once in a while and you
must forgive them for that.
(Anonymous).
There are a thousand scenarios similar to Crowley‘s case

that explains the selfish nature of man, but the crux of the
whole matter is this: People are primarily egotistical;
selfishness dominates us. Hence, don‘t raise your
expectations too high while dealing with people.
45
People are primarily selfish. Now, don‘t get it twisted,

just because I‘m mentioning ‗people‘ doesn‘t mean you‘re
not included. If you‘re a human being, then you are a
people or a person if you will. The truth is everybody is
primarily selfish; it‘s a nature that‘s characteristic of all
us, not just criminals. This is why showing love to
someone or going out of your way to show kindness or
not responding very sharply at those that offend you
usually require a bit of effort because it‘s not something
that comes naturally. Sometimes, it‘s hard to be selfless.
That is why people go for the easy part—selfishness.
Have you ever experienced this with people? I‘ll bet you
have experience a bit of this attitude with your family
member, friends and people that you meet everyday. One
word you can use to describe this level of human thinking
is immature. Consider this contrast between mature and
immature thinking:
Immature Thinking:
 I deserve!
 I‘m entitled!
 Pay my bills!
 Take care of me!
 Do not offend me!
 It‘s really all about me!
Mature Thinking:
 I must earn.
 It‘s about others.
 Challenge my views.
46
 I will buy my own stuff.

 Nobody owes me anything.
 I‘m responsible for my success.
Susan Heitler, PhD, a clinical Psychologist explains that

the physical age can be counted by numbers, while
emotional age can be measured by a person‘s emotional
reaction and habits. You‘d agree that there are many
immature adults on earth, hence don‘t expect people to
agree quickly with you. They‘ve got their ideas on how
thing should be: It must favour them. Hence, we must all
strive to go beyond the immature level of thinking and
grow up.
Now, the reason for pointing this out isn‘t for you to get
ready on hating people, the reason is to:
1. Help you get rid of the victim mentality: When

anyone shows us the amount of selfishness that
they‘re made of, one thing you must realise is they
didn‘t do whatever they did specifically because they
got a problem with you personally or they hate you,
but because that‘s their nature—they‘re fallible
humans with a selfish nature whether they‘re with
you or anyone else. Of course, you might have
wronged them, but others would normally get the
same reaction if others wronged them.
Victim mentality is one reason people get offended

easily. They feel victimised because they feel people
shouldn‘t hurt or offend them. Hence, when it happens,
they think the problem is them, not the person offending
them.
47
When they‘re victimised people think, ―This is

uncommon, hence it was perfectly orchestrated by this
person to hurt me. This was done because of me because
I‘m a miserable person.‖ Where in fact, people were just
being their selfish, imperfect selves.
Don‘t over identify yourself with the event and the

negative feelings that come with it. You need to just see
yourself as one person in the midst of this crazy world of
selfish humanity.
Without a doubt, when people feel victimised and they

begin thinking like this, they get offended and this leads
them in a negative cycle of feeling offended and trying to
offend people in return.
2. Lower your expectations: When you raise your

expectation too high about people, you increase their
power to get you offended. If we can develop
realistic, as opposed to unrealistic, levels of
expectation, we would minimize our
disappointments. Offence is something you must
expect and accept as part of life. See it like this:
When you‘ve got people around you, then you‘ve got
offence around you. The truth is offence is coming at
you sooner or later.
3. Set boundaries: Trusting people is perfectly okay,

but you must be prepared for the consequences.
While trusting, make sure you whole world won‘t
come crumbling when people disappoint you.
Hence, make sure you set reasonable boundaries
when dealing with people. The truth is you ought to
48
give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but when

they prove to you that they don‘t deserve your trust,
then you set boundaries and take necessary action.
Don‘t expect people to change. Instead, believe them
to be whatever they prove to you that they are. Then
relate to them from that level of knowledge.
We‘ve spent a major part of this chapter talking about

why other people offend us. Now let‘s talk about why we
get easily offended. In the next chapter, we‘ll consider a
few reasons why people get easily offended.
49
Chapter three
Why We get Easily offended
―It‘s now very common to hear people say ‗I‘m rather

offended by that‘ ―
(STEPHEN FRY).
Looking at the forgone chapter, we discovered that the

temptation to get offended is pretty much inevitable. So
it‘s alright to be tempted to feel offended. However, the
person causing us to get offended is not alright; he‘s got a
problem. You see, knowing this is very important because
people need to see that when a person tempts us with
offences, he‘s inviting us to join him in being ―not
alright.‖ He‘s using the trap of offence to lure us into
acting in a similar way.
There‘s a distinction between the offender and the one

being offended. There‘s a fight for self-importance here,
and, obviously, the offender feels less important than the
person he‘s offending. And that feeling made him go the
low road (the road offenders take), which shows he‘s
really an ignoble person.
And if you don‘t know this, you‘ll be tempted into

sharply replying your offender, thus causing you to go
even lower than he did. And then he gets more angry and
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he goes even lower. Meanwhile, you‘re tempted to believe

that you‘re more important and honourable, because you
gave a sharper and more savage reply, but that‘s wrong.
The mark of value for yourself is seen in how much

value you give to other, not in how much you try to take
from them,
We have to commit to taking the high road when

others, intentionally or unintentionally, wrong us.
(John Maxwell)
When someone tries to pull you into the low road, he‘s
pulling you into immaturity, irrationality, ignobility,
insecurity—and ultimately copy their act. Don‘t deign!
Don‘t go there! Don‘t go the low road!
Permit me tell you a little, short story about my

experience in high school with our senior prefect. He was
a person I used to know back in high school whom I really
respected because of one thing: He knew how to handle
offences. In fact, before the end of his time in high school,
he had gained a reputation for his civility so much that he
was awarded the senior prefect of the school.
Even as the most senior prefect in the school, he still

maintained his civility and humility, not allowing his high
position get into his head: There was a time, while he was
still the head prefect, he mistakenly stepped on my shoes
and got some mud loosely splashed on my shoe. He
probably wasn‘t aware that he did that but as soon as I
told him, he was quick to apologize. He even went one
step further to bend down and clean the mud off my
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shoes with his hands, but I stopped him and told him it
wasn‘t necessary to do that.
Such noble character only goes on to show why he was

promoted above his peers. That‘s what gaining an ability
to handle offences will do for you: It puts you on the
pedestal of distinction. It separates you from everybody
else. It puts you on the high road.
Why We Get Easily Offended
Just like in the last chapter, the root of getting offended

is the need for self-importance that people have. When a
man‘s pride is wounded and his self-importance hurt, it
arouses offence and resentment.
However, there are some other observable reason that

further explains this. By understanding those reasons, we
can identify them and work on dealing with offence
appropriately
Reason #1: Fallacious Assumptions.
Many times, we make assumptions about people that

are simply fallacious. These assumptions might seem to
be true, but until we make the necessary findings or ask
questions, we should never come to any unilateral
conclusion.
Most times, these assumptions are made on the basis of

our insecure disposition and hurt feelings, not facts.
These wrong assumptions do nothing to help us feel
better, instead, they make us feel more hurt, resentment,
bitterness and hatred. Yet, we hold on to them as though
52
they‘re going to help us or make things be better than

they were before.
For example, if a Teacher gets some signs in his

classroom that his students do not like him. Accordingly,
he begins to form false opinions, make fallacious
assumptions and look for the smallest evidence he can get
to justify his petty claims.
As a result of this, he makes a big deal of the smallest

things his students do to him. He gets mad, finicky, and
fussy over trivial matters, even though he ought to be a
leader and an example to his student, why? He‘s making
fallacious assumptions about the students in his
classroom and that‘s controlling how he reacts towards
them.
―Well,‖ you might ask, ―what if the Teacher‘s

assumptions were actually very true?‖ The truth is, even
if the Teacher‘s assumptions were true, (1) he shouldn‘t
care what others think of him—it‘s none of his business,
(2) he could choose to dialogue with his students and
reason together with them to get to know what they want,
instead of just musing over negative thoughts (3) it
wouldn‘t matter nothing in the world so far, he doesn‘t
focus on those negative thoughts.
On the contrary, he could choose to think what‘s good;

the kind of assumption that‘ll benefit him: ―Every one of
my students like me‖; ―every one of my students is my
friend. It‘s called the necessary assumption.
There are necessary assumptions and there are

unnecessary assumptions. The necessary ones are those
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positive assumptions that benefit you and those around

you. The unnecessary assumptions are those negative
assumptions that hurt you and those around you.
You‘d have to embrace the positive assumptions if you

want to have a positive impact with those around you. On
the contrary, if you want to be a poison to those around
you can as well choose to embrace the negative
assumptions–you‘ve got to make the choice.
Reason #2 They Feel Their Pride Is Hurt and

Aren’t Willing to Learn From Corrections
Why get offended if the person we‘re getting offended at

is actually right? What if the person correcting us is
someone respectable and knowledgeable? What if he‘s
right but just doesn‘t have the right attitude in passing
across his message to you.
In case of events like this, you would have to do these

four things:
 Overlook their undiplomatic attitude: They

might not be the most diplomatic person in the
world; however, that doesn‘t mean they‘re dump
or wrong.
 Consider the validity of the message : If what
they say is valid, implement it. If it‘s not valid,
ignore it. You must learn to cherish the
correction whether it‘s right or wrong because
having people in your life that have enough
courage to correct you is priceless.
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 Accept that you could be wrong: No one is

perfect. Hence, no one is above correction. And if
you‘re wrong, then admit that you are.
 Stop being so defensive: When you‘re defensive,
you‘re only focused on yourself. And that makes
you irrational in your analysis. Instead of
immediately rejecting the information, you can
learn to turn that poorly delivered information
into knowledge you can use. That‘s the hallmark
of maturity.
You do all of these so that at least you can learn

something. But when you choose to be defensive all the
time, you immediately act immature; you become the one
who analyses everything irrationally and from a selfish
standpoint.
When it comes to taking correction, I want you to take a

cue from King David in the Bible, who said: ―Let a
righteous man strike me — it is a kindness; let him
rebuke me — it is oil on my head. My head will not refuse
it‖.5
Reason #3 They Haven’t Known the Fact About

People
You can read about this in the forgone chapter.
However, how do you deal with people when they act in

such toxic way? Apart from the other ideas that I earlier
pointed out and will later talk about in this book, you can
apply these:
55
1. Don‘t focus on what they did to you: More so because

you already know their nature. They couldn‘t do any
better than they already did.
2. Set boundaries: Since you know their nature, you

can‘t expect them to change just because you want them
to; instead, set boundaries. Stop them or stay away from
certain people when you need to.
Not getting offended doesn‘t mean you‘re going to allow

people to step on you like a doormat. It only means you‘re
not going to let their stupidity make you react stupidly.
You don‘t have to be a wimp. Give toxic people a stern
‗no!‘ when they try to play stupid with you—otherwise,
they‘ll always want to keep making a fool of you.
It doesn‘t take too much for them to understand you

don‘t validate them. Otherwise, they‘ll believe you do,
which, of course, makes them see you as a target.
3. Don‘t respond emotionally: In essence, don‘t care too

much about what they do to let it bother you. Don‘t take it
too personally.
When a toxic person realizes he isn‘t getting no

emotional response from you at all (that‘s what he‘s
looking for), and every iota of desire to keep taunting you
in him will vanish.
Reason #4. They Base Their Value on How People

Treat Them
At the core of being easily offended is a fearful of losing

their self-importance or significance. Fear is like the
56
insecurity that says, ―I need to find security, I‘m not safe.‖

And the antidote for this type of insecurity is belief in
your self-importance and value irrespective of what
others say about you, and this is evident in your self-love,
self-respect, and self-esteem.
When you already love yourself, it doesn‘t matter who

doesn‘t love you. Instead of looking for someone to love
you, you‘ll be looking for someone to love. The main
reason why someone seeks approval from others is
because they‘ve got no approval from themselves. When
you boost your regard for yourself, fear of being devalued
goes away, and consequently, seeking approval from
others goes away, too.
Whatever emotion we experience is driven by a

particular thought we chose to focus on. If you‘ll stop
thinking fearful thoughts, you‘ll stop being fearful. The
key to stop this fear is to constantly affirm to yourself, ―I
can, I‘m enough.‖ When you do this, your thoughts begin
to go in the direction of your words. You literally begin to
feel what you‘re saying if you‘ll do it long enough.
The sense of inadequacy that a person with low self-

esteem has cannot be taken care of by others. You need to
have confidence in your own self and the best place you
can get confidence is from yourself. Therefore, learn to
cultivate a habit of positive self-talk and positive self-
evaluation.
When the positive beliefs you have about yourself is

ingrained, people‘s opinion becomes less important to
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you. And that makes it very difficult for anybody to hurt

or offend you by trying to devalue you.
It‘s an unreasonable, naive decision for anyone to place

his or her value on how people treat them. In essence,
they become a slave to people‘s good or bad opinion of
them. What people say about them controls their
thoughts, feelings and emotions, and if people do hurtful
things to them they become really hurt.
So, this viewpoint of self-value estimation isn‘t very

good because people can hurt you anytime. And if you put
yourself in a position where your self-value is gotten from
others, you could be really hurt when they offend you.
Consequently, that makes you want to go on and hurt
them in an attempt to compensate for the lack or
emptiness that you feel.
The problem isn‘t how people see you; it‘s how you see
yourself. The problem isn‘t how people treat you; it‘s how
you treat yourself. So, instead of getting mad at people for
not valuing you enough. Turn the tide over and begin to
value yourself.
Reason #5. Their Mind Is Focused on What

People Did to Them
The most powerful thing you can do with your mind is

to focus it on something. Equally, the most dangerous
thing you can do with your mind is to focus it on negative
things. Conversely, the most beneficial thing you can do
with your mind is to focus it on positive things;
something that‘ll benefit you in the long run.
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The best way to handle offences is to let it go. The worst

way to handle offence is to harbour it in your mind. When
you do, it results in hatred, bitterness, anger, resentment,
and all kinds of negative emotions.
It‘s very important for you to learn the art of letting go

and shrugging off the hurt, offence, insult, and all those
unpalatable things people did to you. Sure enough, you
don‘t want people to stop you from moving forward in life
while they keep on enjoying theirs.
But, that‘s what‘s going to happen when you focus on

what thing they did to you. When your mind is cluttered
up with the negative and toxic thoughts of what people
did wrongly to you, you become overwhelmed and
immobilized with self-pity.
If your thoughts are focused on the wrong things, you‘re

kept in bondage and you clog the wheels of your progress
and success in life.
This is why it‘s so important to forgive people if they

offend you. It really doesn‘t matter what people do to you,
what matters is how you respond.
16 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Focus on the

Wrong They Did to You:
1. What they do to you is none of your business. Our

creator would hold us accountable for our individual
actions.
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2. What you do to them is your business. However, if

you take the wrong action, you‘d be held responsible for
it.
3. What they say or don‘t say doesn‘t give you value.

Your creator has given you value. His authority is greater
than man‘s majority
4. Hurt people will hurt people. Don‘t assume the main

reason they did it was because they hated you. There‘s
probably something pricking them on the inside, making
them feel insecure and sensitive.
5. There‘s no good impact when you focus on how badly

someone treated you. It‘ll only make you negative and
gloomy while the other person is happy, having forgotten
they even offended you.
6. You ought not to focus on anything that makes you

feel negative emotions.
7. It helps you let go of the emotional hurt and makes

you feel better.
8. It frees you from the emotional baggage that keeps

you in the hold of depression.
9. It can negatively affect your health.
10. It can damage your self-image, causing you to decide

how you see yourself from how people treat you.
11. It frees you from devising dangerous vendetta

strategies that might put you in trouble in the long run.
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12. It‘s a normal part of life to be offended by people. 13.

It stirs your emotions negatively and makes you react
from a prejudiced, irrational view.
14. It‘s a total waste of time. It does nothing good to

you, but does bad things to you.
15. It frees you and makes you happy when you don‘t
focus on the negative.
16. You might, perhaps, have done the same if you were
in their shoes. You don‘t know what state they were in
before they decided to hurt you, too. Anyone thinking like
them–including you–would probably do the same thing.
Reason #6. We allow Ourselves Take it Too

Seriously.
―Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so

much.‖
(OSCAR WILDE)
The best way to offend your offender is to not take

offence. When you act like what they‘re doing is worth
your attention you will automatically become easily
offended. If at all you‘re going to respond to what is being
said at you, you can choose to not take it too seriously. Is
it a big deal to be taunted? It‘s not, because you cannot
control others‘ lip—you can‘t tell them what to think or
say about you so why fuss about the uncontrollable.
If it‘s coming from them, then it‘s their problem—not

yours. If an offensive person, say, a narcissist, sees you
respond emotionally as against responding rationally, he
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becomes impressed with himself and he goes ahead to do

more. If, however, he sees that you‘re less concerned with
what he‘s doing and saying, he‘ll be discouraged and
won‘t find enough momentum to keep coming back to
you.
Learn this: people might try to defame you and stain

your reputation, but your character (who you are in
private), is more important than your reputation (who
you are in public). If you‘ll keep a good character, and
ignore how people see you, no one will be able to
successfully pull you down—no one will be able to make
you lose your head in the middle of offence.
Those who seek others‘ approval are the ones that get
too easily offended. Their expectation is that people will
continually praise and respect them in public. Little
wonder, they get cranky when that expectation is not met.
It becomes the easiest thing in the world to get offended
when your expectation all the while has been to not be
offended.
Since you cannot control what others say about you,

why put your hopes and expectation where there‘s no
security. If you‘ll however not expect them to please you,
you won‘t be offended if they didn‘t. And if they did, it‘ll
be a pleasant surprise. When you stop caring too much
about what people say, you‘ll take off their hands the
power to offend you. You‗ll become in control all the time,
like a monolith, irrespective of what‘s going on around
you.
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They key is to never ‗overidentify‘ yourself with what

people say or do. Learn to separate yourself from what
people say or do to you. Don‘t make a big deal out of it.
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CHAPTER FOUR
OFFENCE AND EMOTIONS
―Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my

soul so high that the offence cannot reach it‖
(RENE DESCARTES).
I hinted in the first chapter that it‘s not possible for an

action to offend you if the attack was neither known nor
perceived. This, however, doesn‘t mean you should react
to every perceived offence in an attempt to prove that you
were offended. You could genuinely feel offended, get
offended, yet act as though you never were. This noble act
that is characteristic of people who use their minds is call
mind management. It‘s how mature people handle their
emotions. They understand that offence is a trap and they
don‘t allow the bait of offence get them.
So they feel everything they want to feel, yet only the

emotion that they‘ll like to show comes out of them. They
don‘t act based on whim and caprices. They act like
human that make their decision based on a well thought
out process.
However non-thinking, petty people don‘t care anything

in the world about mind management. They don‘t think.
They just want to let the whole world know that someone
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has offended them and that the offence must be

retaliated. In essence, these people take and give offence
very quickly and easily.
It‘s very possible that a person can offend you without

your consent? Yet, this doesn‘t mean they control your
actions. The feeling of being offended is a feeling that
shows itself in form of anger, disgust, etc. Feelings and
emotions aren‘t always triggered intentionally—
sometimes they‘re spontaneous. Of course, as the famous
motivational speaker, Tony Robbins explains, you can
create emotions with conscious effort. Motion creates
emotion. However, this is just the mechanics of emotions,
not its nature.
The effort to create a certain emotion must have been

due to the fact that there was an initial emotion that came
up spontaneously, and you‘re consciously trying to
change it. Hence, the nature of emotion is that they are
spontaneous. Yet this doesn‘t mean that we should give
an emotional or spontaneous reaction to offence—that
would be imply being loose and unmannered.
Meet Your Brain
In his book Incognito, neuroscientist David Eagleman

describes the brain as a ―team of rivals.‖ He writes,
―There is an ongoing conversation among the different
factions in your brain, each competing to control the
single output channel of your behaviour.‖ He lays out the
dominant two-party system of reason and emotion: ―The
rational system is the one that cares about analysis of
things in the outside world, while the emotional system
65
monitors the internal state and worries whether things

are good or bad.‖ Eagleman makes the case that because
both parties are battling to control one output—
behaviour—emotions can tip the balance of decision
making. As we‘ll see, when emotions tips the balance of
decision making, your ability to think for yourself is
greatly diminished.
When emotional system isn‘t prioritised over the

rational system, what we get is instinct-based reaction
based on feelings. I know humans live on the survival
instinct of fight or flight. I‘m not saying this survival
strategy doesn‘t have its place and relevance. However, if
we live like this all the time, then we‘re literally ignoring
using the greatest gift we‘ve been given by our creator—
our brains.
It‘s possible to feel angry without necessarily acting

angry. Really, nobody makes you angry in action; you
decide to use anger as a response. Don‘t say you have an
anger problem. Perhaps, it‘s an information problem. You
gave yourself the wrong thoughts, ideas and information
based on what you felt. Because of how you felt, you made
yourself believe that you can‘t control your action—and
lived your life that way.
Sure enough, your general perception, the nature of

your personality or the state of your emotions at the time
can influence your reaction toward an offence. However,
ultimately, it‘s the idea that has been engraved into our
minds that control our reaction. Change your thinking;
change your reaction; change your life. All these happen
when you engage your mind appropriately.
66
Taking Offence
Abraham Lincoln once said, ―we should be too big to

take offence and too noble to give it.‖ Taking offence is
purely a voluntary act; it‘s a decision that you choose to
make by yourself. No one helps you to take offence—you
do it yourself.
A key principle that we ought to practice if we‘re not

going to take offence is called ―mind management‖. There
are some people that consciously engage in mind
management. That is what characterises emotionally
intelligent people. This also separates man from animals.
Mind management isn‘t a method of trying to numb

your feelings so you don‘t have to deal with them.
Emotionally intelligent people—those who engage in
mind management—don‘t try to numb their feelings.
Instead, they are curious about their feelings, they feel
their feelings, they know their feelings, but they don‘t
over identify themselves with how they feel. They
separate themselves from their feelings and decide how to
act. Emotionally intelligent people are curious about their
feelings rather than controlled by them.
Mind Management
Here are a couple of facts about mind management:
 Mind management is a practical approach to

handling offence as opposed to a spontaneous reaction
towards offence.
 Mind management is a way to control one‘s mind.
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 Mind management is attaching reason to a situation

as opposed to attaching emotions to it.
 Mind management is a way of managing your
emotions and your perception about the people and
circumstances that surround you.
 Mind management is thinking before acting rather
than acting before thinking.
 Mind management is refusing to allow the actions of
others determine your reaction toward them.
Man Vs. Animal
Really, mind management is what differentiates

humans from animals. An animal is made to live on
instinct, reflex and stimulus; when a man doesn‘t think
before he acts, he falls in this category. Animals live on
self-preservation instinct to survive in its environment. It
doesn‘t practice mind management—managing its mind
and controlling its actions. A man ought to be different
than this. Sadly, however, many so-called humans are far
from this.
When a man‘s reaction comes from reflexes and

instinct, he isn‘t using his mind. He isn‘t applying logical,
analytical thinking. He doesn‘t engage in any form of
analyses to draw meaningful conclusion. He doesn‘t
possess any set of values that guides his behaviour. All of
these are characteristics that ought to be found only in
animals.
The only kind of humans that might be excused from

practising mind management are babies. They‘re still not
totally conscious of their actions, hence can‘t be blamed
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or held responsible for doing the wrong things. But as

adults, we are not expected to act like immature babies or
animals. We ought to act with reason, not emotions. We
ought to think.
The theory of evolution might describe us as higher

animal but we are not animals at all, we‘re God‘s highest
form of creation. At the beginning of this chapter, I put a
quote by, the famous philosopher, Rene Descartes, that
says, ―Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise
my soul so high that the offence cannot reach it.‖ That is
the evidence of mind management: consciously raising
your soul beyond the reach of offence, as opposed to
letting our minds go haywire. However, there‘s a far more
profound quote by Rene Descartes that‘s probably the
most popular quote of philosophy which says, ―Cogito
ergo sum,‖ this, in English language means, ―I think
therefore I am.‖ Those words encapsulates probably the
most famous quote in Philosophy.
Those words encapsulate the idea that if you‘re human,

not an animal, then you must be a thinker. Your ability to
think is what separates you from animals. Philosophy
here explains that one of the requirements for being
human is the ability to think.
―I think‖ element in the Cogito implies the direct,

immediate, certain knowledge of one‘s own existence.6
We aren‘t on the same level with animals because an
animal‘s ability to think can‘t be compared to man‘s
ability to think. Animals can‘t engage in higher forms of
thinking that deal with logic, criticism and analysis.
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The ―I am‖ element in Descartes‘ quote might be

indicative of man‘s existence. But, interestingly, God, the
creator of the universe, also uses the same abstraction ―I
am‖ to describe himself.7 Hence, further accentuating our
nature as human beings made in the image and likeness
of God. This means we can be creative with our minds
like God, the creator. We think, plan and strategise to
create—animals cannot do that.
When a person says ―I am…‖ this would normally be

followed by his name. But the tragedy of man is that ―I
am‖ goes beyond just a name or even awareness of your
existence. ―I am‖ is a knowing of why you‘re here on
earth.
If you‘re going to handle offences the right way, not

controlled by external factors, then you have to know who
you are. In Who Am I, Why Am I Here? Sunday Adelaja
explains something about a man that knows who he is:
He is a thinking man that‘s in control of his behaviour.
He writes, ―For a thinking man, the main thing is to
understand who he is within. It is to develop that person
within. Doing this creates invisible changes in a man‘s
character. This leads to changing the man‘s values and
behaviour.‖
Descartes‘ quote also show that man is more of thinking

being—a rational being—than he is an emotional being.
This doesn‘t mean we should neglect the fact that our
emotions are part of what makes us complete humans.
Nonetheless, we have emotions because we have a mind;
we also are able to think because we have a mind. Yet, the
proof of our existence as human beings isn‘t just
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emotions—because animals too exhibits emotions—it‘s

our ability to think before we act. Hence, we place priority
on thinking over emoting.
There are some situations that test your ability to

manage your mind; one of them is false accusation. Have
you been falsely accused before? If yes, how did you react
to the accusation? Were you offended? Did you try to
explain your innocence? Did you manage your mind? I
heard the story of a man who seemed to react very calmly
to an offensive situation—Hakuin Ekaku. He was a fiery
and intensely dynamic Zen master who lived in Japan. He
was famously known to reply ―is that so‖ to everything
he‘s asked when falsely accused.
Is That So?
A beautiful girl in a particular village was pregnant. Her

angry parents demanded to know who the father was. At
first resistant to confess, the anxious and embarrassed
girl finally pointed to Hakuin, the Zen master whom
everyone previously revered for living such a pure life.
When the outraged parents confronted Hakuin with their
daughter's accusation, he simply replied "Is that so?"
When the child was born, the parents brought it to

Hakuin, who now was viewed as a pariah by the whole
village. They demanded that he take care of the child
since it was his responsibility. "Is that so?" Hakuin said
calmly as he accepted the child.
For many months he took very good care of the child

until the daughter could no longer withstand the lie she
had told. She confessed that the real father was a young
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man in the village whom she had tried to protect. The

parents immediately went to Hakuin to see if he would
return the baby. With profuse apologies they explained
what had happened. "Is that so?" Hakuin said as he
handed them the child.
Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth, describes the Zen

Master‘s reaction to the event:
The Master responds to falsehood and truth, bad news
and good news, in exactly the same way: ―Is that so?‖ He
allows the form of the moment, good or bad, to be as it
is and so does not become a participant in human
drama. To him there is only this moment, and this
moment is as it is. Events are not personalized. He is
nobody's victim. He is so completely at one with what
happens that what happens has no power over him
anymore. Only if you resist what happens are you at the
mercy of what happens, and the world will determine
your happiness and unhappiness.
What We Learn from the Story:
 We might see the fault in people‘s action

and still choose to not react offended.
 Feeling or getting offended is a choice.
 Hakuin understood we can‘t stop trouble
from coming so he didn‘t try to fight the
occurrence of trouble.
 You can afford to lose some little battles
to win the big war.
 You don‘t have to let everyone get to you
with everything they do.
 If the normal reaction to a situation isn‘t
in line with your values, you can choose to not
react.
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 Choosing to not react is a sign that one is

thinking rather than emoting.
 Sometimes, you have to just stop being
worried and just have faith that things will
work out fine if you do what‘s right.
You might be wondering, ―Hakuin, the Zen Master must

have been a master at handling offence, how did he do
that?‖ An understanding of how we process offence can
help us grasp the content of Hakuin‘s thinking. Here are
4 stages in how we process offence.
The 4 stages in how we process offence are:
1. The Event: You‘re confronted with offence.
2. The Feeling: You feel or get offended.
3. The Decision: You take offence.
4. The Reaction: You react with an offensive attitude.
How We Process Offence:
1. The Event: You’re confronted with

offence.
Something happens or someone did something to you,
i.e., you were cheated, insulted, falsely accused, etc. So
here everyone remains rational. The 5 senses are picking
up information from our environment and analysing
them. When our 5 senses picks something, it sends it the
brain for interpretation. There no emotion in display
here—just observation and analysis.
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2. The Feeling: You feel offended.

Feelings are like feedback. They are the result of the
process our 5 senses picking information from
happenings and events around us and sending a message
to the brain, and then the brain interprets the situation
and gives off a painful feeling. Someone might be trying
to offend you, but until you feel offended, the best they
can do is try. You need to analyse it for yourself to see
whether it‘s worth a big deal or not.
―The feeling of being ‗offended‘ is a warning indicator

that is showing you where to look within yourself for
unresolved issues.‖
(BRYANT H McGILL).
3. The Decision: You take offence.

The feeling of being offended is still an indicator. It‘s
not final when you feel something. You can tell yourself
how to channel that feeling or even question it. Feelings
aren‘t always trustworthy. Hakuin perhaps felt insulted
by the false accusation because it tainted his reputation.
Yet, he didn‘t let his feelings control his actions.
How does one take offence? You take offence by

worrying, caring, obsessing, ‗overidentifying‘ and being
too concerned about an event of offence and how you feel
about it. You take offence by personalizing and accepting
the analysis of the event that our brain gives you. We take
offence by obeying our feelings and telling it ―Yes! You
can control me.‖ Don‘t take offence!
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Now this is where we get to see what Hakuin, the Zen

Master, knew that made him not to get offended: The
people, events and circumstances around him do not
offend him because they don‘t affect how he sees himself.
They don‘t change his sense of value. They don‘t
negatively affect his self-esteem. They don‘t diminish his
sense of self-importance. He doesn‘t make a big deal out
of it. Otherwise, he‘ll react without thinking.
In essence, he was detached from the need for human

approval. He was detached from getting value from how
other people thought of him or how other people saw
him. He isn‘t ego driven. He isn‘t narcissistic, thinking
like the whole world revolves around him.
If, however, you wanted to get him offended, you would

look for something he loves. Look for something that he‘s
emotionally attached to or something he‘s got a passion
for, i.e,. his children, his wife, siblings, etc. But, really,
you‘ll only be hurting his feelings, you wouldn‘t be getting
him offended, hence, his reaction wouldn‘t be based on
hurt pride but a need for justice, which is absolutely
different from a need for self-importance. Hence, there‘s
nothing on earth that can offend someone who doesn‘t
crave the approval of others.
Hurting someone is vastly different from offending

them. Most time, people would prefer you hurt them than
someone they love. This is the hallmark of a true leader. A
true leader is someone that is set free from the negative
effect of other people‘s opinion. Even if they mistreat
him, it doesn‘t affect his estimation of his value to them.
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So treating people well and esteeming them highly even

though they offend you happens when you are secure in
yourself.
Hence, Hakuin was a true leader. It‘s because he wasn‘t

offended that he was able to make a conscious decision
about the situation. If, however, he was offended, it‘ll be
difficult, not impossible, to make a rational decision
based on conscious thinking. The normal reaction will
rather be to just react emotionally and irrationally. But
processing negative emotions without exploding or acting
out is a trait of emotionally intelligent people.
When you engage your mind in seeing offence as an

enemy, you put yourself in a place where you want to
fight back. This is what produces instinct-based reaction
to offence. The pain you feel about the offence is as a
result of trying to control everything that happens, where
in fact, you can‘t.
When you personalise events and happenings, and try

to fight the occurrence of an inevitable reality called
offence, you become a victim. At this level of
victimization and self-pity, your reaction becomes
automatic.
4. The Reaction: You react with an

offensive attitude.
There‘s no conscious process of decision making when
someone reacts to life by stimulus, reflex and instinct. Let
me explain these 3 kinds of animalistic reactions:
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 Stimulus: This is an act to arouse action. It‘s

anything that causes someone to take action,
mostly by trying to manipulate thier feeling. For
example, when someone wants you to feel good,
they may say kind words. Or when they want you
to feel bad, they may say hurtful words all in an
attempt to stimulate your emotions so you
respond from that level.
 Reflex: According to Wikitionary, this is an
automatic response to a stimulus which doesn‘t
require mental processing. This involves no
conscious control from your part, i.e., a reflex
knee jerk, a reflex reaction to kicking back
someone that kicks you, etc.
 Instinct: According to Wikitionary, this is an
intuitive reaction not based on rational conscious
thought.
Now, tell me which of these 3 involves a rational

conscious thought or a conscious process of decision
making in terms of how to act; none. Hence, these kinds
of reaction (stimulus, reflex and instinct) is only befitting
for animals.
Of course, we can‘t live without stimulus, reflex and

instinct because they have them function in our
physiological system. But their function is for survival, as
Brene Brown pointed out in her book Daring Greatly.
She writes, ―Our fight or flight strategies are effective for
survival, not for reasoning or connection.‖
As human beings, we ought to go one step higher than

animals. As human being made in the image of our
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creator, we ought to be people that engage in logical,

analytical thinking to reach a rational conclusion as
opposed to an irrational emotional reaction.
Remember the dominant two-party system of reason

and emotion I pointed out earlier. These two-party
system controls our behaviour, as stated by Eagleman.
When emotions tip the balance of decision making, it
becomes extremely difficult to think clearly and make
logical decisions.
But, like Hakuin, you can choose to let reason overrule

emotions, thus reacting based on analysis and logic. This
might not easily happen at the point of offence if you
hadn‘t planned it beforehand. It happens when you make
a prior decision to detach yourself from human drama
and live at a higher level of consciousness.
It‘s at this point we choose whether to react like animals (

reaction based on stimulus, instinct and reflexes) or do
what humans do, which is to think.
People react to pain. When they take offence, they feel

pain. When pain is felt, a reaction is the result. If you‘re
reacting like animals, you wouldn‘t be making a decision
to react based on conscious thought. But if your
judgement of the situation isn‘t based on emotion but
logic, you‘ll be in control of your decision making process.
The result of whatever decision you make can be clearly
seen here.
If you let pettiness and immaturity overrule you, you

will find yourself engaging in thoughtless emotional
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reaction of name-calling, engaging in a fight, etc.

Sometimes, also, we‘re so emotionally worked up we can‘t
do anything but silently hate whoever has offended us.
2 Types of Reaction When You Get Offended:
1. Doing Nothing: Here you silently hate people and

start wishing the very worst things could happen to
them. Or just start tearing up. Or just check out
mentally and emotionally from everyone else.
2. Doing Something: You do stuff to people and say
stuff you would normally never say or do—or
perhaps, you‘re already used to doing those things
but they‘re so bad you would have to later apologise
for your actions. Although this might not have
happened to you, but sometimes, apology isn‘t
possible anymore because you‘ve come too hard on
people and death resulted from your actions. Some
other people just look for things around them to
smash on the floor or a wall to hit their fist against.
With this kind of reaction, a chain effect is started

where everyone thoughtlessly passes offence from one
person to another. The world will never be better for it.
Someone has to stop this madness of human drama.
Someone has to be mature enough to choose his
behaviour—let that person be you.
How Mature Vs. Immature People Process

Offence
Immature People: This class of people live by the

animalistic tendency of survival instinct. But they first
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feel the psychological pain of offence whether in form of

shame or hurt pride and they react based on that feeling.
Their problem is that they took offence. Perhaps they
didn‘t want to take offence; they were deceived or hyped
up by others into taking offence. Hence, their reacting
accordingly. For example, when people tell you to stop
being ‗weak‘. And what they are actually saying is that
you should start to act like a violent sociopath that‘s
controlled by the whim and caprices of other people‘s
drama—fighting everyone like a strong person. Listen:
That is total deception. That is not how to handle
offences.
Mature People: These people might feel something,

yet choose to not allow their feelings control their action.
Their decision making is on 2 levels. (1). They decide to
not take offence. (2). They decide to respond rather than
react instinctively. This is what characterizes humans, as
opposed to animals. They choose to not let offence
overwhelm them into irrational reaction. They don‘t take
offence. But immature people don‘t decide for
themselves—they‘re being controlled by others. Here‘s a
caveat: Separate yourself from your emotions to make
good decision. Focus on principles and truth, not feelings.
Make the Choice
So we see that Hakuin had a choice—to let what happen

get to his head or use his head. He had a choice to apply
logic and reason or to engage in emotion outburst totally
based on what he‘s feeling at the moment. Hakuin
showed us how to behave like human. He‘s a person we
should all copy.
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―Everything can be taken from man but one thing. The

last of human freedoms – to choose one‘s attitude in any
given set of circumstances‖ (VIKTOR FRANKL,
PSYCHOLOGIST).
That quote answers the question, ―Do we have a

choice?‖ With an emphatic, ‗YES!‘ Again, we might not be
able to control how we momentarily feel. The most we
can do about our feelings is either to numb or suppress
them, or lie to ourselves that we don‘t have them, but
that‘s quite difficult when you‘re offended.
Think of how you‘d act if you were told to not say

anything while someone came to call you all kinds of
names you could imagine for 1 minute, with the promise
that you‘d be given $1,000,000 afterwards.
Sure enough, you might feel you‘re being wronged and

mistreated. But the choice will still be in your hands to
not retaliate in the anticipation of receiving $1,000,000
as reward.
As simple as that analogy is, it explains that fact that we

do have a choice in how we choose to act and behave.
Being offended is like a game, not getting offended is the

goal. This isn‘t just any kind of game that we play; it‘s a
game of life. If we lose this game, we‘ve lost in life. For
example, you might have all the talent in the world but if
you have a terrible attitude, you‘re likely to not succeed in
the long run.
You might have the beauty of Lucifer, but if you‘ve got a

bad attitude you might end up as Satan. How we respond
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to offence determines our future. You ought to be a

master in the game of offence.
Feeling offended and acting in like manner is immature,

and as John Maxwell comments: ―If you choose to give
people a piece of your mind, sometimes, you lose your
own peace of mind‖—it steals your peace.
You surely cannot really control other people‘s words

and action toward you, but you can control how you react
to the situation. And that first starts by being aware of
your thoughts.
Training the Mind to Think Differently
Everything we do starts from the mind, with a thought.

You can neither feel nor act on what you don‘t think
about. However, does this mean we can consciously
control every one of our thoughts? No. All kinds of
thoughts come to us throughout the day. Sometimes
these thoughts come to us from what we see and hear in
the present or what we‘ve encountered in the past.
Research shows that the mind thinks about 60,00-

80,000 thoughts a day. Are all these thoughts controlled
consciously? Again, no. Sometimes, they just come to us
as the by-product of what we‘ve saturated our minds with
over the years while growing up and what our minds
picked (and is currently picking) from the environment.
As a matter of fact, a vast majority, specially, 95 percent

of what we do, we do without premeditation. That
includes our thoughts, attitudes, and actions.
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That must mean majority of the thoughts we think that

control our actions aren‘t conscious but the result of
ingrained thought patterns that we‘ve garnered overtime.
Case in point, the first time you tried to learn something
new, say, how to ride a bicycle, your brain was working,
trying to pick all the information it could about riding a
bicycle. You tried to determine with certainty, perhaps by
making an injury how one rides a bicycle perfectly. Then
after a while of trial and error, you mastered it, riding a
bicycle became second to none.
It‘s as though you could now ride it while answering a

call on the phone. What changed? Information. Through
practice, you gained more information that made you
become more adept at riding a bicycle. The more adept
you became, the less work your brain had to do. At this
point, riding a bicycle becomes automatic. You don‘t have
to necessarily ‗think‘ it before it happens, it happens
without premeditation. You‘ve saturated your mind with
all the information needed about riding a bicycle.
This means most of the decision that we make—95

percent—are based on not conscious thoughts, but sub-
conscious thoughts. This means to change your current
mode of reacting to a particular situation, you‘d have to
go through a process of education and training by
ingraining a different kind of thinking into your mind.
Educating and Training Your Mind
The process of education is already being achieved by

reading this book. However, the process of training your
mind would only be achieved by taking action. How do
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we train our minds? We train our minds by information.

The most profound way to go about this is acting out
what you‘re going to be learning in this book.
I think it‘s no news to say that the mind processes

information. If you want to train your mind here‘s the
key: Action. For example, Neurologists claim that every
time you resist acting on your anger, you‘re actually
rewiring your brain to be calmer and more loving.
So, let‘s assume you have an anger problem. Again,

perhaps it‘s an information problem. The knowledge or
information your mind possesses is your ‗problem‘, not
the anger, offence, situation or person—it‘s information.
The process of acting properly isn‘t automatic. The

process of resisting the urge to act on your anger isn‘t
without conscious thought. You have to choose it.
Perhaps, the easiest way to resist the reflex action of
acting on your anger is to wait and think.
Train Your Mind: Wait and Think
When you‘re offended by what someone does to you,

the best thing to do is to use your mind right; choose
what you think about or what you don‘t want to think
about. Choose mind management. Choose to wait.
Choose to think.
In essence, give them the benefit of the doubt; take

your mind off whatever is making you feel edgy; change
your focus; believe the best about them—these are
conscious actions to protect your heart from the poison of
offence. When next you‘re angry, calm down, then give
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yourself time to think before you irrationally pour your

heart out.
―Don‘t make permanent decisions on temporary

emotions.‖
(ANONYMOUS)
The process of waiting and thinking are the 2 powerful

ways to train your mind. The next time you feel offended,
here‘s just what you have to do: WAIT.
 W – What
 A – Am
 I – Thinking
 T – Thinking?
Why do you have to wait? Every event that you‘ve

experienced in the past passes a certain information to
your brain. If your brain can identify with or remember
that event, your brain then tells you the feeling and
reaction you should associate to that event whenever it
occurs again in the future. Hence, we have event and
association. For example:
 If you were heartbroken the last time you fell in

love, you‘ll probably associate love with hurt.
 If you were shocked the last time you touched a
live wire, you‘ll associate wire with fear.
 If you lost a loved one in a shipwreck, you‘ll likely
associate ships with grief.
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 If you were to win a million dollars while playing

the lottery, you‘ll likely associate lottery with
gratitude.
The human mind comes up with thoughts—positive or

negative—based on these past experiences. These
thoughts produce a certain emotion. And, if the
experience is negative, the emotions that are attendant
with these negative thoughts are likely to cause you to
respond in one of two ways: flight or fight. This is how we
live based on automatic survival instinct.
This way, you‘ve subconsciously trained your mind to

interpret every other future event associated with your
past experiences the same way. Hence, it‘s like you‘re
reliving the past again and again. This is why it‘s
important that you question your thoughts and emotional
tendencies. Training yourself to wait before reliving the
past means questioning your thoughts and beliefs about
the situation to see whether it‘s appropriate, true or
reasonable, thus re-conditioning your mind to consider a
new perspective about past events.
The problem is, when you continue to relive the past,

your thoughts, emotions and behaviour might all be
based on a mirage—all misconceived. This is why you
have to wait and question your thinking, emotion and
behaviour.
If we don‘t do this, we, again, end up like animals, living

by instinct. Living by instinct has its place in helping us
survive in our environment, but it doesn‘t help us live as
we should.
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The reflex action of closing your eye when an object is

about entering your eye or dodging a car careening
toward you is really life saving. But as humans, we ought
to go on step higher than this animalistic tendency.
Man Vs Monkeys
Consider this experiment psychologists performed years

ago. They started with a cage containing five monkeys.
Inside the cage, they hung a banana on a string with a set
of stairs placed under it.
Before long, a monkey went to the stairs and started to

climb towards the banana. As soon as he started up the
stairs, the psychologists sprayed all of the other monkeys
with ice-cold water. After a while, another monkey made
an attempt to obtain the banana. As soon as his foot
touched the stairs, all of the other monkeys were sprayed
with ice-cold water. It's wasn't long before all of the other
monkeys would physically prevent any monkey from
climbing the stairs.
Now, the psychologists shut off the cold water, removed

one monkey from the cage, and replaced it with a new
one. The new monkey saw the banana and started to
climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the
other monkeys attacked him. After another attempt and
attack, he discovered that if he tried to climb the stairs, he
would be assaulted.
Next, they removed another of the original five monkeys

and replaced it with a new one. The newcomer went to
the stairs and was attacked. The previous newcomer took
part in the punishment with enthusiasm!
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Likewise, they replaced a third original monkey with a

new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the
newest monkey tried to climb the stairs, he was attacked.
The monkeys had no idea why they were not permitted to
climb the stairs or why they were beating any monkey
that tried.
After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the

remaining monkeys had ever been sprayed with cold
water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approached
the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far
as they know that's the way it's always been around here.8
People do this all the time. How many times have we

chosen to live based on survival instinct, without
attempting to question our thoughts, reason and analyse
the situation before reaching a conclusion. Instead of
challenging these assumptions and engaging in logical,
analytical thinking, many of us, like the monkeys, simply
keep reproducing what has been done before. It's the
easiest thing to do.
―Thinking is difficult, that‘s why most people don‘t

judge.‖
(CARL JUNG).
Offence Is A Choice
I once put up an article on the internet about why

people get easily offended. In that article, I stated firmly
that offence is a choice.
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Getting offended is a choice. No one can get you

offended without your consent. The problem with a lot
of folks is that they are oblivious to the fact that they
have the prerogative to shrug off offence, and stay
rational in the midst of irrationality. Most people give
in to taking offences because they think there‘s no way
out—they believe once someone tries to taunt them
then that‘s it, they‘re offended. If people understood
that it‘s them who holds the power to get offended—
not the offender—then a great deal of offences will be
palliated.
It might seem like a mystery to many that it‘s possible

to not get offended when people try to offend us. But the
problem with such folks is that they‘re ignorant of the
required knowledge that‘ll help them live above offences.9
At the end of this article, I got a response from a

Canadian lady whom I‘ll call Katy. She didn‘t seem to
agree with my assertion that offence is a choice. She
comments, ―I do agree that we are too easily offended
overall, but I do not agree that being offended is always a
matter of choice. It takes years to get over some offences,
such as being a victim of crime or all types of abuse. You
do make some valid points, but overall, this article makes
a lot of general statements.‖
From her point of view, one can deduce that there are
events we could experience that could really hurt us
emotionally, thus causing some form of emotional
baggage overtime that makes us gets easily offended.
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Emotional Baggage
Possibly, there are some events that you‘ve experienced in

the past that seem to spontaneously stir up certain
emotion within you. Normally, the reason is that we tend
to associate an event to certain emotions, and that
emotion becomes a baggage that controls our future
responses to similar events, hence the word emotional
baggage. Emotional baggage sets off a domino effect of
eliciting certain emotions at any other time these past
experiences occur again in the future.
But does this mean we‘re now the slaves to our

emotions? Does this mean we have no ability to choose or
decide the emotion that we feel as it relates to certain
experiences? Although I‘ve answered this question
already In this chapter, Dr. Bradley Nelson also answers
this question in his book, The Emotion Code, thus adding
more clarity to the question:
Have you ever made the statement like, ―My husband

makes me so mad‖, or ―that made me so depressed‖,
or ―that put me in such a bad mood‖? If you stop to
think about statements like this, you realise they‘re
quite ridiculous. The fact is that nobody can make you
feel any emotion that you don‘t choose to feel. Things
that happen to you do not really determine the
emotions you feel. While you may not have conscious
control over all the events that affect your life, you do
have the ability to choose how you think, feel and act.
You may not believe you‘re in control of how you feel.
Negative emotion can appear so quickly, it may appear
as if you don‘t have time to choose a different
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emotion. The natural, negative emotion just seem to

come out of nowhere. If you‘re like most people
unacceptable things happen all the time. Unless you
take control of your emotion, you will simply react.
When you allow yourself to react, your subconscious
mind may offer up a negative emotion for you based
upon the emotions you‘ve chosen in similar
circumstances in your past. While you may have
always responded in a certain negative way to a given
situation, your past negative responses do not have to
be the same as your future responses. You can choose
to react how you‘ve always reacted or you can choose
differently. The past doesn‘t have to equal the future.
The next time you find yourself filled with a
negative emotion, stop and think about the
process you went through to arrive at that
feeling. It might seem like the emotions chose you
but you did choose the emotion. Making a conscious
choice instead of allowing old subconscious patterns
to run you is choosing to evolve and grow.
Dr. Nelson practically summarised all I‘ve been

saying all along. Apparently, waiting to think about
what you‘re thinking helps you keep your emotions in
control, and gradually, you begin to cut the cord that
connects you with past events through a process of re-
conditioning your mind. This can be achieved through
these 2 actions: waiting and thinking.
When it comes to thinking, what should you think

about? We‘ll consider this in a more detailed fashion in a
later chapter titled ―The Planner‖, but consider these 5
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points. The thinking process is outlined thus. Is your

thought…:
T – Truthful: Am I telling myself the truth?
H – Helpful: Is the information helpful?
I – Inspiring: Does it inspire and build me up?
N – Necessary: Do I have to hear it?
K – Kind: Does it make me action love and kindness?
Thinking like this help you to not only become

conscious and aware of the kind of thoughts that‘s behind
your feeling, it also helps you to administer a rational line
of thought and action to the situation that surrounds you.
For self-centred people, the idea of being more kind and

loving will mean they‘re giving away their ‗power.‘ They
don‘t want to appear weak before people. However, time
will tell again and again that the way to deal with negative
situations is never to be more negative in your reaction.
Here‘s why you need to adopt a positive, kinder approach
to life:
1. How you treat people determines your level of

mental and emotional health.
2. Choosing to hurt others so you can feel better about
yourself is irrational and immature.
3. Reacting to people in the same negative way they act
toward you isn‘t human, but animalistic.
4. The first wrung on the ladder of growth and
maturity is choosing to stop thinking about your
self-interest, but the interest of others.
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5. You‘ll never be able to influence people if you have a

militant attitude toward them.
In a further chapter, we‘ll talk about the importance of

questioning your thoughts and feelings in more detail.
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Chapter five
CHOOSING HOW YOU RESPOND
―Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will

direct your life and you will call it fate‖
(CARL JUNG).
In the previous chapter, we talked about how that we

don‘t have to let our emotions dominate our behaviour.
And how that we can choose to act different from how
we‘re used to. In this chapter, I will explain the tool we
employ in our decision to think differently: Willpower.
Our minds makes most decision for us, but on a sub-

conscious level. It‘s possible to live your entire life
replaying all patterns and habits of the past. But you can
make a new decision to live differently. To understand
what role the willpower plays in helping reshape your life,
you need to get a clear grasp of how the mind operates.
The mind operates on 2 levels of consciousness: The

Sub-conscious mind and the conscious mind.
1. The sub-conscious mind: This is like a large

storehouse where our brain stores large quantity of
information that we get from our environment,
through our 5 senses. The sub-conscious mind the
all-knowing part of the mind that teaches us how to
do things that we've previously learned. Everything
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we go through is processed and stored in the sub-

conscious mind. Here, everything runs on autopilot
and your willpower doesn‘t take part in the decision
making process. Hence, there‘s nothing like critical
thinking, analytical thinking or logical thinking in
the sub-conscious mind. Yet, most of our decisions
are made from this level of consciousness, without
conscious thought in the sub-conscious mind.
2. The conscious mind: We are usually unaware
that our behaviour is automatic until we recognise
the need for change. In contrast to the sub-conscious
mind, here, everything doesn‘t happen on autopilot.
If you want to create a new pattern, then you need to
harness the power of your conscious mind. This is
what characterises a thinking person and
differentiates him from an animal: He engages in
conscious thinking. He challenges the thoughts that
come to him, thus leaving nothing to chance. A
thinking person is like a farmer that cultivates his
land, uprooting the weeds that he finds on the
ground and plants the seed he wants to see
germinate. That is the art of conscious thinking.
When you think consciously, you pay attention to
every detail and apply your mind to conscious,
logical and rational thinking, which then alters the
patterns of old. All this starts with the use of your
willpower.
In his book Psycho-Cybernetics, Dr Maxwell Maltz

describes the sub-conscious mind as a machine that has
no ‗will‘ of its own. He explains that conscious thinking,
however, is the control knob that we can use to alter the
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processes of this machine that works only with past,

perhaps, outdated information. He writes: ―It is
conscious thinking which is the "control knob" of your
unconscious machine. It was by conscious thought,
though perhaps irrational and unrealistic, that the
unconscious machine developed its negative and
inappropriate reaction patterns, and it is by conscious
rational thought that the automatic reaction patterns
can be changed.‖
Emotions and Willpower
Do not assume that you don‘t have the willpower to

make certain decisions. Don‘t assume you‘re stuck forever
with a habit of negative thoughts and emotions. Don‘t
assume you can‘t change how you process offence. The
truth is you‘ve got the power—it‘s called willpower.
―Willpower is a learnable skill, something that can be

taught‖
(CHARLES DUHIGG).
The sub-conscious mind seeks to solve new problems

with old method. Like a mechanical rat unable to find its
way out of a maze, we might be reliving the reactionary
patterns of past events if we don‘t seek to recognise and
take control of our thoughts, feelings and behaviour.
Your feelings indicate your thinking. Case in point, if

you feel happy or sad, it‘s because your brain is receiving
signals from the negative event in your environment in
form of thoughts. And these thoughts make you feel
negative emotions. What thoughts are holding you back?
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When we become aware of the need to change, it only

takes a split second to make the decision. The moment
the decision is made; we could adjust things right there
by taking action. Consider how many seconds it takes to
take necessary actions when we make these decisions:
- Stop driving your car on the wrong lane

- Breastfeed your child when s/he needs it
- Read for a test
- Send your CV to a prospective employer
- Call a friend on the phone
It‘s a no-brainer. It happens the moment we decide to

let it happen. But the bane of man is that feelings have
been overrated. They believe their feelings should tell
them what to do even when it makes no sense. That‘s
immature.
Momentarily, you might not be able to consciously

decide the first thing you think about when something
happens, especially if the only thing to think about is
what‘s most obvious to you—the negative event you‘re
experiencing. And you might just be reliving negative
events from the past, thus automating how you feel and
react about the situation. However, this scripture show us
what to do when we feel angry.
Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon
your wrath:
(Ephesians 4:26).
Being angry is a feeling, while not sinning is deciding to

and taking action that goes against your feeling. This is a
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conscious decision to not act on your feelings. The

feelings might be a sub-conscious feedback, but the part
of acting differently is where we learn to use our
willpower effectively. Thus strengthening it for the future.
When you choose to become aware of your thoughts,

feelings and behaviour, you‘re harnessing the power of
your conscious mind because that‘s where there‘s a ‗will‘
and an opportunity for you to take control of your
responses to situations. What the above scripture is
saying is this: Manage your emotion of anger; engage in
mind management, so you‘ll be able to control your
action.
In other words, be aware of the thought in your mind

that‘s making you feel and act in an angry manner. When
you find that out, make the decision to act irrespective of
your feelings. This is the process of re-training or re-
conditioning your sub-conscious mind. This is how you
harness the power of willpower and engage your
conscious mind.
You are not just the sum of your experiences! Learn to

take a fresh look whenever you're stuck. That way you
begin to create a new pattern that is more useful for you.
Sometimes, after waiting and thinking, the decision you

might have to make is to swallow your pride. Other times,
you might need to just hold your breath, stay away from
that environment for a while—pretty much do whatever it
takes to palliate that anger, thus starting a new life right
away. And we make that decision in a second.
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However, the decision of not letting the sun go down on

your wrath might not be a matter of one second—it might
take longer. Feelings might linger but actions should be
immediately controlled. To eliminate your negative
feeling, choose not to ‗overidentify‘ yourself with your
thoughts and feelings. Separate yourself from the mire of
negative emotions. Don‘t take it overly personal.
The goal of handling offences using the principle of

mind management is forming a new habit in how you
process offence. You can turn will power into a habit by
identifying a behaviour or action ahead of time. Make a
decision, and when you follow through, you‘ve activated
your willpower. Doing this repeatedly consequently
strengthens your willpower.
Don’t Do What You Feel
Psychologist, Susan Jeffers, wrote a book titled Feel the

Fear and do it Anyway. This book was written on the
premise that we can think, and feel fear but still make the
decision not to act on our feeling. Fear is an emotion that
is felt, so is anger. If we can control fear, we can, as we
saw in the scripture above, also control anger.
Jesus, the Jewish leader of the Christian faith, gave an

order: ―Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do
good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
despitefully use you, and persecute you.‖10 I dare to say
that no one feels like loving their enemies or blessing
those who curse them. No one feels like praying for their
enemies or doing something good to them; if anything,
they feel hatred and anger for their enemies. They feel
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their enemies should be punished. But Jesus knew we

aren‘t helplessly under the control of how we feel. In fact,
he knew we can feel one way and still decide to do what
we don‘t feel like.
The Power of Decision
I had once pointed out that Neurologists claim that

every time you resist acting on your anger, you‘re actually
rewiring your brain to be calmer and more loving. That‘s
a decision to override a reflex action.
Decisions are powerful. You must have heard the

famous saying, ―A journey of a thousand miles begins
with a step.‖ This popular saying passes across a
fundamental truth that isn‘t obvious at first sight. For
those who don‘t really understand what the saying is all
about, they‘ll conclude that the first step that begins the
journey of a thousand miles is a physical step. They
believe it‘s the step you take with your foot stretched out
through a distance. But it‘s not. The first step is not
physical; it‘s mental. The first step is a decision. That is
the first step of re-condition your good ol‘ sub-conscious
mind‘s pattern.
The first step doesn‘t have to be to travel somewhere.

The first step could be anything. It could be a decision to
write a book; to read a book; to write a song; to call a
friend; to mow the lawn; to do your laundry. Doing these
starts with a simple decision, not the physical movement
of a foot.
When you make the decision to resist anger, you

immediately start a spiral effect that totally changes and
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re-conditions your thinking process and your life—you

train yourself to be calmer and more loving.
It doesn‘t matter if you habitually get angry and you

think you can‘t control it anymore. Well, I‘m glad to tell
you that habits are not destiny. Decision starts habit.
Decision stop habit.
Perhaps, to do what‘s right, we need to let ourselves

become aware of the ―need‖ to stop obeying our feelings.
Or we need incentives to motivate us to go beyond our
feelings. Maybe, it‘s the ―why‖ we need to know.
Whatever the case may be, it‘s important to note that if

you want to change your life, then you must change the
decisions you‘re making. The results you see in your life
are the sum total of all the decisions you‘ve been making
over the years. Hence, you can start a new life this
moment by changing your decision. Good decisions will
give you a good life. Terrible decisions will give you a
terrible life. If you want a life of success, then your
thinking and behaviour must naturally lead you toward
success. Once you make the decision, your thoughts and
behaviour begin to align with your decision. It might not
be an overnight change. But decisions are powerful
enough to override habits. With time, you‘ll begin to see
the changes you desire. It‘s all in your decisions.
Victor Frankl, in his book, Man‘s Search for Meaning,

writes: ―Between stimulus and response, there is a space.
In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our
response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.‖
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Really, whatever you do when you‘re offended isn‘t

under the control of anyone but yourself. It‘s your
decision that matters. The scriptures affirm, ―The
beginning of strife is like letting out water, so abandon
the quarrel before it breaks out‖11 It‘s always your choice
to either hold yourself in and abandon the quarrel, or
respond whimsically.
Making a change requires clearly defined priorities.

Sometimes we don‘t make rational decisions because our
priorities are irrational. Since it can be difficult to resist
what we feel, we choose not to. We take the road less
travelled; we follow the path of least resistance, which is
doing what we feel. But that‘s the road for the ignoble,
mediocre folks. You ought to make nobility and maturity
your priority.
Sometimes we know what to do but we haven‘t decided

to do it because we feel it‘s ―fun‖ to still engage in grossly
immature behaviour. We think it‘s fun because we‘re able
to get back at someone for what they did. We make fun
the priority. But what‘s the end result of all that? We end
up the same way we were before. There‘s no maturity,
nobility or advancement in our attitude. We think the
same way we used to and end up with the same results we
used to have. Don‘t be that way.
I‘m so glad that you‘re reading this book because it

shows you‘re all for self-education and self-development.
You‘re all for developing an attitude that pleases your
creator. By reading this book, you‘re making yourself
more responsible for your actions. Through the
knowledge you‘re garnering, you‘re being equipped with
the necessary information that‘ll make you know what to
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do. But here‘s another caveat: It‘ll be irresponsible to

know what to do, and then refuse to do it.
Love Is A Decision
The decision to love is similar to the decision to do any

other thing—the key word is decision. When someone you
love offends you, there‘s a possibility that you won‘t allow
your emotions get the better of you—you made the
decision to love. Your power lies in your decision.
I once stumbled upon a Facebook post titled, ―A Man‘s

Philosophy of Love.‖ Here the author of the post makes it
clear that offence is a choice. Notice how he uses the word
―will‖, thus emphasizing the role of willpower in decision
making:
A Man's Philosophy Of Love
1. When other women talk bad about the woman I love,

I will not listen.
2. When the woman I love needs to talk, I will pay

attention. If I cannot give her adequate time when she
needs to talk, I alert her and arrange when I can as soon
as possible.
3. If my mother, siblings or relatives try to speak

negatively about the woman I love, I will respectfully tell
them to honour my choice of love.
4. When God wants to teach or reveal to me how best I

am to love the woman I love, I will be a good student and
listen.
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5. When my friends talk ill about the woman I love, I

will not tolerate it. Friends don't break homes.
6. When the woman I love tell me what I am doing

wrong, I will be humble enough to be corrected.
7. When our child misbehaves to the woman I love, I

will teach our child how to show respect to the Queen of
the house.
8. If the woman I love speaks negatively about herself,

looking down on herself, I will stop her and counter her
self-pity with encouraging words.
9. When people who don't even know the woman I love

very well try to give an opinion about her, I will pay them
no mind or energy.
10. When my selfish nature and thoughts tries to make

me selfish, full of pride or insensitive towards the woman
I love, I will silence it and let love loudly speak.
11. I have no time for flirting with others, idle chats,

meaningless arguments, or retrogressive and destructive
engagements out to destroy the love I am building.12
Now, you might say, ―This is purely because of the love

he has for his wife.‖ Yes. But that doesn‘t eliminate the
fact that it‘s his willpower and the decision to not allow
offence come between him and his beloved wife that
controls his behaviour toward her. It‘s that decision that
helps us in our relationship with other people.
You might not have a reason to choose to not be offended

with other people, probably, because they‘re not your wife
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or husband or your relative. Nonetheless, there are

reasons why you still have to choose to deal wisely with
other people. Examine reasons why you shouldn‘t get
easily offended.
Why should I stop Getting Offended?
1. You’re not an animal.

We need to separate reacting like an animal (by
instinct) from responding like a human (from thinking).
When people can easily press your buttons, so to speak,
and decide when you get angry, then you‘re acting more a
less like an animal. Don‘t you want to be in charge of your
life instead of letting people control you?
2. Your feelings are not dependable.

Feelings are not dependable for 2 reasons: (1) Feelings
are fleeting. (2) Feelings are not always accurate. Feelings
are only indicators to what‘s happening in and around us.
It‘s nature‘s way of telling us about impending harm or
danger. But what if there‘s really no danger?
What if what you‘re feeling offended at is just a

correction, a honest feedback, a sincere advice, or
something that was just meant for your good. You sure
don‘t want to believe everything your feelings tell you.
There‘s a logical side to everything, as well as an

emotional side. The logical side always makes a lot of
sense; the emotional side is always sentimental. Choose
logic over emotions. When your actions aren‘t reasonable,
you‘ve fallen into reacting emotionally as opposed to
reacting reasonably. The former is selfish, while the latter
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is selfless. Your decision to offend, for example, someone

hurling harsh words at you is devoid of a logical
standpoint. The thing about immature people is that they
rate feelings and irrational behaviour over thinking.
Only a fool is permitted to be so small in their thinking:
A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man
overlooks an insult13
―Anger begins with folly, and ends with repentance‖
(H.G. BOHN).
The quote above explains what happens when we
choose to allow our emotions to become our sway. Even if
your feelings were accurate, and you thought your anger
was justified, then you let yourself get mad. You allow
yourself go berserk. You allow yourself say whatever
negative thing that comes out of your mouth. After a
while, you discover that you acted beyond what was
appropriate. You feel differently now; you feel a bit of
remorse for you action. Yet you never felt that way before.
How fleeting are feelings.
3. Your peace is stolen.

When you decide to stay angry, you put a weight on
yourself that‘s too much to carry. The best way to
frustrate yourself is when you selfishly expect people to fit
into your idealized view of what you want.
―If it comes, let it come. If it goes, it‘s ok, let it go. Let
things come and go. Stay calm, don‘t let anything
disturb your peace, and carry on‖
(GERMANY KENT).
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There‘s only one part of the universe that‘s within your

control—and that‘s you.
4. You need to grow.

David Brooks, in The Road to Character writes,
―Recovering from suffering is not like recovering from a
disease. Many people don‘t come out healed, they come
out different.‖ Believe me when I tell you—suffering is
necessary for growth and character development. If you
want to succeed, then you must learn to suffer while
maintaining a good attitude.
If you desire to come out stronger and better, instead of

weaker and bitter, in the midst of any situation, then you
mustn‘t let offence get the better of you. When offended,
a person of character desires to grow, not to gnaw in
anger. He is responsible for his every action and doesn‘t
live a whimsy life.
5. You need feedback.

You don‘t just need feedback, you need people, too. Not
phony but genuine people. People with genuine feedback.
People that won‘t be afraid you‘ll get mad when they give
you their sincere thoughts. Getting offended makes
people see you as sensitive and incapable of receiving
their sincere feedback, this might push honest people
away from you.
6. You need to understand their

situation.
Offence makes you protective and self-centred. You
don‘t want to give a damn what other people are saying
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or feeling. You just want to have your way. When you

understand the other person‘s situation, you get to know
if your anger is justified or not. Because we‘re not
omniscient, there‘s always a possibility that what‘s getting
us mad is our wrong view and inadequate comprehension
of the situation. Sometimes, we just don‘t have all the
information.
―If someone corrects you, and you feel offended, then

you have an ego problem‖
(NOUMAN ALI KHAN).
Sometimes, our feeling of being offended is unfounded.

The feeling is simply because we‘re insecure and
egotistical, not because they were wrong. In such cases,
we must embrace humility as opposed to acting sensitive
and immature.
7. It’s dangerous.
Offence breeds bad emotions. If you‘re offended, you
begin to see the other person in a negative light. You
begin to think all the bad, negative things you can about
them and even wish bad upon them. What‘s happening is
that your mind had been poisoned. You ought to protect
yourself from the unnecessary weight and emotional
havoc that offence can cause you. The toxicity of offence
breeds un-forgiveness, hatred, malice, resentment, etc.
You really don‘t need any of that poison as they‘re
dangerous to your emotional and physical wellbeing.
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The Antidote to Offence

When someone offends you and we say you shouldn‘t
take offence at their action, it‘s like taking a feeding bottle
away from a child. Some people enjoy acting on their
feelings like a child enjoy the milk in his feeding bottle.
The immature, natural reaction might be to settle scores,
but that‘s not the best way to handle the situation. The
best key is choosing to not get involved with human
drama. Manage your mind and choose to act nobly.
Understand that it‘s their offence, but it's your headache,
avoid it!
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PART II
YOUR APPROACH TOWARD HANDLING OFFENCES

AS A PERSON OF CHARACTER
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CHAPTER SIX
The Rational Man vs. the

irrational man
―There‘s a difference between a rational decision

maker and an instant gratification junkie.‖
The importance of thinking cannot be overemphasized

in today‘s world. As students in school, we must have
been taxed in some sort of thinking. Like everyone, I was
involved in a lot of thinking, starting from elementary
school. For me, one example of thinking that I was
required to do was in elementary school. This specifically
happened in Basic 5 class where our class teacher gave us
a textbook called Quantitative reasoning.
Our teacher gave us a section of the book and told us to

solve a problem. This quantitative reasoning was quite
taxing because it involved puzzle-like mathematical
problems that didn‘t just require good ability to calculate
and use numbers; in fact, that‘s the easy part.
The difficult part was the part where you have to rack
your brain to determine what particular number you‘re
going to be multiplying against another—perhaps adding.
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Personally, I always cherished these times of thinking

because I seemed to always have the hang of it. The
problem, however, is that we relegated the need for
critical and analytical thinking to school or science
related problems in the environment.
Through thinking, we‘ve been able to make all kinds of

inventions and achieve technological advancements in
medicine, agriculture, transportation and all other fields.
This is good and very commendable. But it‘s not enough.
Unfortunately, we spend so much time trying to sort out

problems with number and mathematical equations, yet
we spend none in sorting out problems we encounter
with people in form of offences.
Without thinking, we‘re blind. Without thinking, it‘s

difficult, if not impossible to understand situations,
people, their perspective or the essence of what they‘re
trying to communicate to us.
Thinking is not just important, it is very applicable in

dealing with others. Imagine if we never taxed our minds
in school, would we ever have been able to score high
grades in school? If not, then how would we be able to do
well with others without adequate thinking?
You don‘t have to take my word for it. Let‘s look at some
of the things that characterises one who chooses to not
think.
When a man doesn‘t think, he‘s decisions are illogical and

actions irrational. You might think you think but as we‘ve
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seen thinking is a conscious choice, not an automatic

action.
As a matter of fact, what‘s more automatic is the non-

thinking and non-reasoning tendencies that we have.
This way, our actions are based on mere reflexes and that
only gives expression to the animalistic tendencies in us.
Man is first a thinker before anything. Thinking is what

makes a man a man. Animals, on the other hand live by
instinct. They don‘t have the ability to plan their actions.
They cannot build houses, cars, and roads, like we
humans have been able to do. But, since we could do that
by thinking, we should then look more deeply at the ways
we could apply thinking in our lives.
First, let‘s consider the effect of doing the opposite; the

effect of not thinking. A non-thinking man is irrational in
my view; hence, I‘ll call him the irrational man.
Characteristics of the Irrational Man:
1. The irrational man is quick to blame others.
The easiest way to avoid the difficult work of thinking is

to look for someone to blame for whatever happens. For
example, you had a rift with a person that made you feel
some negative emotions. Of course, the emotions you feel
aren‘t enough basis for judging others, yet because you
feel a certain way, you choose to blame others for making
you feel that way.
People who are quick to blame others do so on the basis

of what they‘re feeling, not what they‘re thinking. They
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believe others are in control of their feeling and thinking,

hence they get the blame for whatever happens in their
emotions and thought life.
Others help them think, that‘s why others get the blame.
The height of immaturity is choosing to blame others
where you can handle situations for yourself and come to
a rational conclusion without letting others control you.
When you practice coming to a logical conclusion for

yourself, you‘ll find out that your tendency to blame
others reduces drastically. If at all you‘re going to blame
them, it‘ll be because you‘ve thought out your decision
and you‘re not just acting based on reflex or on a decision
to get back at them to spike up their emotions. But your
actions would be reasonable.
2. The irrational man tries to get into the

situation to prove a point.
The need for approval eats up 99% of your thinking

ability and that‘s why irrational people live to get the
approval of others. Proving a point is a subtle way of
seeking approval because you feel others will approve of
you if they see that you‘ve been able to prove to them that
you‘re better than they are. Imagine coming to approach
people with an already made up mind, whatever they try
to communicate to you wouldn‘t appeal to you because
you‘re not ready to relinquish your fantasised title as the
‗great one.‘
Do you really need approval from others? No. What if you

don‘t get it, would that be the end of the world? The first
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place where you need to get approval is from inside you,

not outside.
―Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years

and it hasn‘t worked. Try approving of yourself and see
what happens‖
(LOUISE HAY).
From the quote above, I can tell you the first thing that
will happen: Your relationship with people will be better
for it.
You won‘t get worked up if you don‘t get other people‘s

approval because you‘d have a tank full of approval for
yourself. As a result of this, you‘ll approach people from a
calm state of mind, able to think clearly and relate to
others rationally, not in fear and selfishness.
3. The irrational man takes things seriously and

personally.
Imagine living at the mercy of others because you are

prone to take what they say to you personally. You might
ask, ―is it wrong to take things personally?‖ Of course, it
is wrong if you‘re doing it on the basis of your selfish
needs and desires. For example, you don‘t want to look
inferior to others—that‘s selfish.
At the base of irrationality is selfishness, hence it‘s

practically impossible to be selfish and not exhibit some
form of irrationality. This selfishness is based on the
egotistical need to appear bigger than others.
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Hence, if you‘re taking things personally on this ground,

you‘re being irrational in your thinking. Irrational
thinking ultimately makes you act in irrational manners.
4. The Irrational man is egotistical
Ego is self. Now, imagine when someone tries to be

cruel to you and there‘s actually no ego to relate to what
they‘re saying, there‘s really no way they could get to you.
This doesn‘t mean the ego didn‘t exist, it rather means
the ego isn‘t attached to the need for their approval or
acceptance. But if the need for self-acceptance has caused
you to lose your sense of reasoning, and you decide to
satisfy your egotistical cravings, you‘ll ultimately lose
with others.
Hence, if you really want to win, you must forget about

feeding your ego and start thinking from a selfless,
rational standpoint. Thinkers don‘t live self-centered.
They live in such a way that they can fit into anywhere
and think things through.
5. The irrational man acts like others determine

his happiness; hence he tries to get it out of
them.
A perfect picture of an irrational man is like a baby that

act like his happiness is with others and they must be
responsible for it. Like a baby demands candy so does an
irrational man demand happiness from others.
We could also picture him like a baby that owns toys

that he‘s unwilling to let others have. That toy is the
source of his happiness and he‘ll never allow anyone take
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it. As a matter of fact, if he‘s unhappy, then it means

others have taken his toy (happiness) and he must fight,
cuss, and do whatever he wants to just to get his
happiness from others.
Without a doubt, he‘d not be thinking when he

approaches others. He‘s got a fixed, dysfunctional
mentality towards others and his inability to think
another way won‘t allow him have a pleasant relationship
with others.
6. The irrational man doesn‘t want to

understand others, but wants others to
understand him.
When you meet people that don‘t think, you‘d notice

that this is one of the biggest delineating features in
them. They don‘t understand others, largely because they
believe they‘re always right, and others can‘t be correct.
This way of thinking is quite disrespectful and needs to

be corrected. Now, it doesn‘t matter whether you think
others are wrong, you just have to hear them out,
especially because you don‘t have the monopoly of
knowledge and receiving information from others makes
your mind open to thinking.
The willingness to get what others are saying could be

the first step toward thinking because it invites you into
the world of other people that you‘ve perhaps been locked
out of all your life due to your refusal to welcome the
thoughts of others.
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7. The irrational man sees things his own way

only.
It‘s not automatic for a person to choose to admit he‘s

wrong or to apologise first. Yet, this is a great impediment
in our attempt to handling offences the right way. It
doesn‘t matter who‘s right. If you could just calm down a
little bit, get that little pride off your chest and decide to
see things from the other person‘s perspective, you‘d be
amazed how much you‘re able to see.
Sometimes, to your amazement, you might even find

out you were wrong, yet you never believed you were.
Being the first to say sorry before you explain you point,
whether or not you‘re at fault, is a sign that you‘re not
being manipulated by prideful thinking. The bottom-line
is give everyone the benefit of the doubt until they prove
otherwise. This doesn‘t mean you don‘t prove them, but
don‘t judge until you‘ve proven them. Otherwise, going
around with a suspicious mind certainly gulps 99% of
your thinking ability. A distrusting person might appear
to be a thinker at first, but when he‘s showed fact, he‘ll
still fight and struggle to yield. This is when you know
that his suspicion has really taken over his head.
Give Others the Benefit of the Doubt
We can‘t overemphasise the need to yield and let our ego

be suppressed. It‘s like they password for living on
earth—when you can come to the level of others and
relate to them like they deserve a hearing.
―We see what we believe, and to change what we see, it

is sometimes necessary to change what we believe‖
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(JEREMY NARBY, AUTHOR).
There is an often repeated saying – Is the glass half-full

or half-empty? We might start arguing our different
perspectives from sunup to sundown, but until I choose
to budge and come to understand things at your level, I
may never see and feel things the way you do, even
though I know my position is totally right.
This has nothing to do with who‘s right or who‘s wrong.

It‘s about being mature enough to throw off your dark
shades, called pride, that‘s clogged your thinking
capacity, so you can see from the other person‘s
perspective. This will help you see, think and respond
from a rational standpoint.
That‘s how you terminate disagreement. A man‘s ego

never lets him see his wrong. Sadly, where the mind goes,
the man follows. So, if your mind goes towards you seeing
things from an irrational standpoint, you become
irrational in your behaviour. Even when a man does
something wrong and he knows he‘s wrong, he‘ll still find
an excuse, i.e., playing the you-made-me-do-that blame
game.
I heard of a story that describes how people can really

be irrational when they refuse to think.
One day, Pam‘s cousin came to meet her at school.

After talking to him she returned to the class. At that
time, the teacher was writing something on the
blackboard. Pam didn‘t say anything and quietly went
inside the classroom and sat down on her seat.
After writing, the teacher went to Pam and asked her,

―Who was he?‖ Pam replied with fear, ―He was my
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cousin brother.‖ The teacher again asked the question

and Pam gave the same answer.
The teacher then shouted, ―I am asking who Galileo

was.‖ The whole class burst into laughter when they
came to know that both the teacher and Pam has
misunderstood each other.
You‘d agree with me that if Pam was thinking, he‘d have

asked the teacher who the person he was talking about
was. Because the questions ―who is he?‖ open the door to
a variety of people across the globe that fall into the male
category—he. Hence, the teacher, being not specific,
wasn‘t asking a question that had an answer.
Therefore, since Pam and the teacher were totally

convinced that they knew what they were individually
talking about, they ended up embarrassing each other
with confusion and egotistical alliance to their own
opinion.
On this occasion, the whole class burst into laughter

because they could see what the teacher and Pam couldn‘t
see. Perhaps, if the two of them had decided to think
things through and not avoid details so as to attain clarity
and unity of thoughts, they would have been some form
of agreement.
We might not notice it, but we‘re really making a fool of

ourselves when we react emotionally, without thinking, to
people that offend us. This defence mechanism planted
into all of us could really make us animalistic in our
reaction to people if we don‘t take time to think.
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Applying a Rational Approach to Life
Rational people show that they are rational in the way

they think and act. To be rational, the rationale or
premise behind their actions must be based on logical
approach rather than stimulus or emotional outburst.
This cannot be achieved without some level of thinking.
One important things to note is that when others offend

us, we must fight. It‘s not a fight of fisticuff or verbal
abuse; it‘s a fight of the mind. Handling offence is like
resisting the temptation to do something bad. We just
have to find a way to overlook it: ignore it, change your
focus, forget it etc. Fighting should be on yourself not the
other person. It‘s easier to change yourself than others.
You should understand that it's might be others offending

you but it's your headache if you let them get you into an
emotional reaction. Hence, don‘t budge; don‘t give in.
Don't take it personally—fight to not be seduced into
acting irrationally. Of course, it might be tempting as hell
but it‘s certainly not going to favour you in the long run.
The basis for irrational action is action that serves your

egotistical cravings. The power of ego in destroying
relationships cannot be overemphasized. You need to
examine yourself and ensure that your ego isn‘t the basis
for your actions.
How do you know when your ego is the basis for your
actions? First, you‘d notice that you‘re seeking to bring
down the other person in an attempt to make yourself
look bigger or better than them. Essentially, the goal of
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your action is to destroy the other person in some way

either emotionally or physically.
When destroying others and elevating yourself is the

reason behind your actions, then you know that you‘re
certainly being illogical—you‘re going the wrong way. And
there can be no iota of rationality in what you‘re doing.
The goal is to not be tempted to join petty people in

bringing one another down, you don‘t belong in that
league. You must fight to leave that league of
ignoramuses and join the league of conscious thinkers.
There are certain things that characterise the action of a

thinker. This is highlighted in the ensuing chapters of this
book. However, I‘ll like to emphasize in this chapter the
importance of thinking and reaching a rationale for your
actions instead of acting based on impulses.
Importance of Thinking
Most people today show a lot of sensuality and emotional

expression in their dealings with people rather than
acting based on rationale and rational conclusions. Sadly,
it is rare to find people who don‘t just think, but also
think about what they‘re thinking about.
Thinking about what you‘re thinking about is very

important because that will be a conscious choice to apply
sense to your action. In such scenario, where you are
thinking about what you‘re thinking about, you become
aware of yourself and what your biased, prejudiced
thoughts are so you can critique them and allow people
have the benefit of the doubt.
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It‘s actually a lot of fun to most people when they choose

rather to just display a high level of senselessness instead
of talking to people in love and sincerity. When their aim
is to deride and ridicule and the other person, it becomes
unnecessary for a person to think about his thought
because he‘ll never accept truth or a factual basis as the
premise for his words and action.
However, if we really want to start living and become

aware of ourselves, we must be aware of our thought and
ultimately we‘ll be in control of our actions. We‘ve already
identified the disadvantages of choosing not to think, the
main point of which is we said is that our actions will be
totally illogical and irrational.
Conversely, when we choose to think, we will act as

rational beings as opposed to impulsive, animalistic
beings. Hence, we become rational men, as opposed to
irrational men. These benefits of thinking describe the
features of a rational man.
Here Are The Benefits Of Thinking:
1. Thinking helps you to become the owner of your own

life
This might sound impossible, but research shows that

many people are not living their lives. This is mainly
because they don‘t think. As a matter of fact, 97% of the
world population live like biomasses and have no rational
basis for their action. They live like their emotions are
their gods, hence they‘re let other people control them.
When your emotions overrule you, then you‘re not really
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living your life, neither do you own your life but others
do.
When you cannot think through your actions and always

take informed decisions, then others own your life, not
you. It‘s not official, but you‘re a slave to everyone else
who is able to manipulate you into an emotional reaction.
This is bizarre and sad, but many people on the earth
toady are in this class of being.
When we begin to think, we become conscious and aware

of our thoughts and life, then we begin to live by design,
rather than by default. Living by design requires your
decision to choose to own and take control of your life.
Living by default is allowing others own your life and
control what you think and how you react to situations.
2. Thinking changes your personality.
Many people believe that your personality never changes.

Interestingly, some group of psychologists even believe
that personality doesn‘t exist, but nothing could be
farther from the truth. In fact, the whole essence of this
book is hinged around the goal of helping you attain some
changes in your personality. Thinking helps you to
improve yourself. And improving yourself will certainly
have some impact on your personality.
Although personality might not undergo a drastic, quick

change, yet it does happen. The seed of thoughts planted
into your minds time and time again will yield a changed
manner of thinking and response to situations.
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The process of practicing to choose to think makes

thinking a part of you in no time. You begin to come out
of the majority of biomass that exhibit emotion- and
impulse-based responses.
3. Thinking helps you to gain self-control.
―You will never have a greater or lesser dominion that

that over yourself‖ (DA VINCI).
Thinking helps you gain dominion over yourself. It‘s easy

to let others gain dominion over you, but when you
engage in analytical thinking with an end to reach a
logical basis for your action, you will see that others
aren‘t controlling you anymore, but you are in control of
your thoughts and actions. Thinking makes you less
dependent on feelings and emotions and you‘ll be able to
control yourself better. To avoid too much emotional
response, a thinking person will ask for facts to clear all
doubts.
People are not perfect. There are many things that will
happen that‘ll offend you. But you don‘t have to be at the
mercy of other people, especially when they‘re not being
the perfect person that you want them to be. Many people
find it hard to tolerate the failings of other people. But
through thinking, you‘ll allow others to be who they are
without them necessarily getting you emotionally
overworked or controlled by them. By thinking, you begin
to see that even you are not perfect and you become more
tolerant of people, hence, they don‘t trigger you whether
they are perfect or not.
4. Thinking brings clarity to you.

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Thinking makes you see—not with your eye but with your
mind. Indeed, many people are walking around with a
clogged mind and they can‘t really relate to other people
from an unbiased view, perhaps, they‘ve decided not to
engage in thinking. Thinking, especially, analytical
thinking gives you the ability to differentiate things. As a
result, you become more patient and enduring toward
other‘s action because you‘re less biased in your view. It‘s
easier to give someone benefit of the doubt because
you‘re allowing yourself to consider and see their
perspective rather than being irrationally blind to it. This
way you can avoid mistakes because you‘re not hasty to
take decisions anymore. When you think, you can
separate your emotions from the event that are being
presented to you thus bringing clarity to you.
5. Thinking helps you to become a more truthful person

to yourself.
Thinking helps you to become more objective; you base

your decision on facts, not sentiments. Thinking helps
you to judge yourself, your action, thought process and
emotions—rather than being quick to judging and
condemning others. By thinking, you are able to
challenge your beliefs to make sure it‘s the truth. A
thinking person wants to ask questions and get to the
source of things, looking to base his knowledge on facts
and truth. When it gets hardest, you just have to choose
to love or hate—by thinking objectively; you can decide to
choose love over hate.
6. Thinking makes you consider others.
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Many people don‘t value the opinions of others because

they never considered it in the first place. By thinking,
you begin to value others opinion and compare it with
yours. When judging a person‘s opinion, thinking helps
you focus on truth and fact rather than the personality or
individual involved. Hence, you become a more detailed,
meticulous and attentive person. You pay attention to
every detail and information that people bring to you.
Thinking helps you put others in consideration when

making a decision. You make sure you consider them so
as to not hurt them. And if you identify problems,
thinking helps you provide answers to the problems of
others.
7. Thinking increases your awareness
The process of considering others makes you aware of

them, yourself and your surroundings. If you are able to
see anyone that pays attention to and remembers details,
you‘ve seen someone that thinks and is conscious of
others, himself and his surroundings.
Such an individual doesn‘t leave his life to chance; he

cultivates a habit of being in the here and now, thus
applying his mind in a rational manner to everything that
he experiences with people and in his surroundings.
8. Thinking eliminates fear.
The refusal to think makes your mind vulnerable to

whatever information that comes to your mind—
especially the fear-based information. When you are not
sure of what you are thinking about, you end up with lack
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of clarity and this can really breed all kinds of negative

emotions of negativity, pessimism, cynicism and fear.
Low self-esteem, fear and a pessimistic mindset certainly

affects how you relate to people. Thinking helps you to
become more confident because you live by facts, truth
and principles. You don‘t live on unstable feelings and
untrue anymore and you have all the information for you
not to fear anymore.
You certainly can‘t trust all the thoughts that come to

you, but you can trust thoughts that are based on a logical
approach to life. You have clarity and you live a life of
purpose and intentionality.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
The Peace Seeker
―An eye for an eye will only make the world blind‖
(MAHATMA GANDHI).
What could be more important than a decision to live at

peace with people? Don‘t forget that we all have gotten
cranky at one time or another in our lives, and certainly,
we end up regretting our actions because it‘s either we
couldn‘t repair the damages already incurred or we have
to suffer for uncontrollable outburst of emotions.
The decision to be a peace seeker is crucial because

we‘re all unique people. We all have our prejudices,
paradigms, differences and sentiments and one way or
another, we‘ll end up clashing with others. However, if
you make the decision ahead of time, your decision to
maintain peace with people becomes bigger than your
desire to satisfy the craving of your ego.
The principal goal is for us to live at peace with others

in the little way we can – whether to learn to
communicate our feelings in a constructive and respectful
way or to remain calm and say nothing offensive. In the
long run, we end up thankful that we made the right
decision.
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Your ability to maintain peace in your relationship with

others isn‘t dependent on them, but yourself. Notice
again that you can‘t change others, but you can change
yourself.
Noble people who engage in thinking are the only ones

that manifest this habit of seeking peace often. When a
person is petty, selfish and irresponsible, he is not
disciplined with his thoughts and actions. He‘ll seldom
seek peace with others.
The Principle of Walking Away

You must realise that there are people that are flat out
toxic and you have to do nothing but walk away from
them. Avoiding certain people sometimes is pretty much
the only thing left to do. There are people that are sold
out to a life time of trouble making. They don‘t live on
earth as thinking beings and won‘t reason with whatever
you say to them.
You can‘t engage in a conversation or debate with them

because they‘re not mature enough to talk without being
unbiased or sentimental; they‘re not ready to reason or
think on the same level with you. Instead, they just get
personal and attack you.
When people offend you, it‘s not wise to stay there and
let them pour their garbage attitude on you. It‘s not wise
to be a doormat; it‘s also not wise to act like a violent
sociopath. Hence, you must respect yourself enough to
walk away from and avoid toxic people. This isn‘t out of
anger or resentment, it‘s just being logical enough to
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make a decision to separate yourself from people out of

respect for yourself, your values, morals and peace.
There‘s no perfect person in the world. But we can‘t avoid

everybody on earth because they‘re all imperfect.
However, there‘s a level of maturity expected in people
and if they choose to live without considering other
people‘s feelings, then the best thing is to avoid them.
The types of toxic people that you must walk away from:
- Narcissist
- Violent people
- Ignoble fools
These 3 groups of people represent those who have

chosen to live a life dedicated to irrationality and
thoughtless behaviour. Remember that everyone deserves
to be given the benefit of the doubt at first, and then we
let them prove their character before we decide on
walking away from them.
If we choose to give no one the benefit of the doubt, then

we automatically choose to avoid everybody. It doesn‘t
matter what you hear about someone. The truth is, you
must be very careful about allowing people poison your
mind toward other individual. If you believe the negative
thing someone tell you about another person. It‘ll cause
you to lose your own sense of rationality and taint your
mind toward them.
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Sometimes, you shouldn‘t be quick to believe what you

hear in the news about a certain personality until you get
the facts and evidence for yourself. Seeing and believing
the hateful side of people makes you become suspicious—
even though you may have never met them. Suspicion
leads to all kind of emotions like fear, hatred, anger etc.
Only love people and believe the best about them.
When you find out that certain people have sold

themselves out to a life of irrationality; avoid them.
People to avoid are:
1. Narcissists: Many unruly narcissists thrive

on the attention you give them. Your attention,
feedback and emotional reaction all feeds their
ego. They only seek to play their little mind game
with you, not reason with you. Their pleasure and
your pain is their goal. Therefore, you must decide
to not act in extreme level of seriousness with
people that are only trying to play with you—
whether they‘re playing mind games or playing
whatever kind of personal game, just don‘t be
serious with them.
When you get serious, your expectation of them

rises. At this level they get your attention, tax your
emotion, drain your energy and put you in a state of
self-pity. Not being serious with toxic people is a very
important way of walking away from them.
2. Violent people: These people don‘t even want

peace; they just want to do whatever they feel like
doing for that moment. If, in the next 5 minutes,
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they feel differently, they simply act on their

feelings in such a thoughtless, erratic manner and
then blame you for making them feel and act mad.
―Feelings are not supposed to be logical. Dangerous is

the man who has rationalised his emotions‖
(DAVID BORENSTEIN).
When you rationalise your emotions, you become a

dangerous person. When you accept and act on
everything you feel, you become dangerous. Instead of
you to control your emotions, your emotions control
you. Instead of being logical, you become illogical and
act as such.
Violent people are dangerous people. They justify and

act on their feelings. He becomes like an animal with
no conscience. He says and does whatever he feels
like. This is another kind of person you must avoid.
Again, this only applies when it‘s a habit. I mean if

someone does this as a norm. Inevitably, you‘ll come
across some form of physical violence in your life.
Sometimes, it‘s you that‘s being violent, other times
it‘s someone else. And that‘s because we‘re all fallible.
However, there‘s a quote that says if someone shows

you their true colours, don‘t try to repaint them. The
best you can probably do is to avoid them.
3. Ignoble fools: Ignoble fools are those people who

have no values. They use their words without care
or consideration for another person‘s feelings.
These people say whatever they feel like, and
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they‘re never ashamed of their ignoble behaviour.

Edward Murphy comments about these kinds of
people: ―Never argue with an idiot. They drag you
down to their level and then beat you with
experience.‖
My authority for calling them fools comes several

verses in the book of Proverbs, one of which is
Proverbs 13:16, ―Every prudent man dealeth with
knowledge, but a fool layeth open his folly.‖
Edward Murphy was right in calling such folks idiots.

These people just use words like they don‘t have a
thinking mind or an ability to think. You just have to
walk away.
There are other kinds of people that have the gift of

gabbing. They can talk to impress, but have no
rational or logical basis for their statements; neither
do they talk because they want to state truth. Their
focus is to spill out words in an attempt to manipulate
the emotions of those listening to them.
Everyone has got a level of sensitivity. Everyone has a

level to which they hear others speak without getting
offended. The goal is to not let them pull your legs or
get you emotionally worked up. That could make you
lose it and get you in a lot of trouble with people.
Instead of trying to feel the heat, it‘s better you calm
down and walk away from them.
Signs you’re surrounded by a toxic

person:
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Psychotherapists Jodie Gale and Amy

Tatsumi give us some pointers:
1. You‘re emotionally affected by their

drama
2. You dread (or fear) being around them
3. You‘re exhausted or you feel angry
while you‘re interacting with them
4. You feel bad or ashamed of yourself
5. When you‘re with them, you feel like
walking on eggshells
6. You feel like you‘re being controlled
Facts About The Peace Seeker
There are certain things that characterise a person who

is a peace seeker.
1. He Understands the Sovereignty Of Love
It might be the least followed path. It might be the

opposite of what the world believes. It might be seen as a
sign of weakness. It might be perceived as naivety. It
might be said to be reserved for the fainthearted, but love
is the most excellent way to handle offence.
Martin Luther King, the famous American activist and

the leader of the American Civil Rights Movement made a
profound statement about love: ―Love is the only force
capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.‖
When offences come, do we have a role to play? Are we

supposed to just keep looking like we don‘t care even
though we feel hurt? Are we supposed to be silent? Are
we supposed to speak up and express our grievances? Are
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we supposed to retaliate? What exactly are we supposed

to do? What should be our thinking?
Whatever you want to do, remember this: If your

actions are not within the ambits of love, then it‘s wrong.
Always ask yourself this question before you act, ―Is this
an act of love?‖
Of course, there‘s a kind of love that doesn‘t really looks

like love. For example, walking away from a toxic person
that you love. The truth is, when you stop someone from
engaging in hurtful and evil practices, that‘s an act of
love. When you stop being a doormat to a toxic person,
you cease to give him/her the opportunity to hurt,
manipulate and destroy you—that‘s an act of love. This is
called tough love.
For example, a young girl who is consistently molested

by her father decided to report him to her school‘s social
worker and to the police. Then he was sent to jail for his
shameful and traumatising behaviour. The difficult
decision to report her father stops him from continuing
his evil practice—that‘s an act of love.
Another example of tough love is mostly seen when a

parent disciplines a child or a trainer gives his trainee a
tough regimen. It might be painful momentarily, but in
the long run, it yields result.
When you have a heart that seeks to love people, you

begin to shatter their belief and you attract people to
yourself because you make them find security in you. One
of the reasons why people offend each other is because
everyone is looking for security, safety, assurance and
approval. And when they perceive that security is going to
be threatened, they begin to look for ways to defend and
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protect themselves. They perceive you as a threat to their

emotional security.
Remember, ‗injury‘ is one of the words that describe

offence. Hence causing someone emotional injury, pain
or displeasure is what describes offence. So when a threat
is perceived, when people feel you‘ll injure them
emotionally, they brace up to secure and protect
themselves, and that‘s the problem. Living this way
makes them self-occupied.
They‘ve been tempted into fighting to protect ‗self‘. But

when you go against the common trend of fighting and
cussing and injuring people with offensive acts—when
you show them love, you shatter their erroneous, fear-
based fantasies and beliefs and they become weak in their
knees knowing you‘re not what they thought. Without a
doubt, showing love when it‘s not expected is the best
way to melt a callous heart.
2. He doesn’t try to get even

Trying to get even is based on wrong thinking. You‘re
trying to solve a problem with the same level of thinking
that initiated it: evil thinking. You‘re trying to solve a
problem with another problem. Wisdom tells us that
hatred doesn‘t quench hatred. And that wisdom is gotten
by a moment of conscious thinking.
Here‘s the deal – we don‘t seek to settle scores; we

don‘t try to prove a point; we don‘t hate—we‘re supposed
to let it go and just walk in love. This is a scriptural truth
and it‘s God‘s way of dealing with people that offend us.
John Bevere, in his book How to respond when we feel
mistreated explained that we‘re not supposed to get even
when we‘re mistreated; instead we‘re supposed to allow
God to handle the situation. He comments, ―If we allow
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God to handle those who mistreat us, we‘ll mature and

reap great blessings.‖
Ever heard the saying ―An eye for an eye will only make
the world go blind‖? Yes it does. You need to be careful
how you react to offence. You can respond with a greater
power—love—and win, or you can retaliate with a lesser
power—hatred, and lose. Seeking to settle scores is not
God‘s way of handling offence.
When you understand this, you won‘t let people pull

your legs into unnecessary contention. You‘ll know when
to keep silent and let people display their fallible nature.
3. He allows people to be who they choose to

be.
Peace seekers understand that offence is a part of life.

They understand that pain is a part of life. If people are
going to be a part of your life, then pain is going to be a
part of your life. Don‘t be deceived to look at life from just
one side. There‘s always 2 sides to a coin and neither of it
is faked.
A peace seeker who‘s walking in love doesn‘t even care

about what wrong was done to him. There‘s nothing he
has to do with such information. It‘s pretty much
irrelevant nonsense to him. The truth is, we don‘t focus
on the wrong people do to us. We focus on what we do to
them. We don‘t care if they hate us. But we care if we love
them. Our reaction is more important to us than their
action. We don‘t let fools make act us like them. Ultimate
pain and chaos comes where you obsess about the actions
of others and try to change them or get even. Settling
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scores is only great in sports, not in life. When life

happens, we let it be.
Sometimes, life circumstances paint people bad where

in fact they never intended to offend you. Things just
happened by default. This story will teach us to allow
things and people to be, while understanding that we
can‘t control every event that happens.
There was this poor kid James used to work with—

Kevin. He was a juvenile delinquent and he was a few
years older than James. He was also a little bit bigger
than him. He had nasty tattoos on his neck and
supposedly was out of jail on work release. Kevin tried to
be a tough guy and bully James whenever they worked
together. Stuff like generally talking smack unprovoked,
getting really close up in James‘ face, and that stance
where you puff out your chest and pull your arms back
like you‘re going to swing. The most irritating was when
he would walk right up in James‘ face then flinch like he
was going to throw a punch at him, then just laugh and
say some rude crap.
James got along with just about everyone at work, and

Kevin did somewhat, but they both just did not fit
together. One day, the exchanges between them were so
apparent and obviously stressed, everyone working was
talking about James fighting Kevin. James dispelled these
rumours as he wanted to keep his job – but his destiny on
this day said otherwise.
First, was the backdoor incidence. The store had a large

back door with a peephole in it, and it could only be
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opened from the inside. There was a buzzer outside that

employees would push if they wanted to go back in. Well,
Kevin was locked outside and his patience, while awaiting
his re-entry, had run out. Instead of tapping the buzzer,
this guy was mashing it and holding it down while
everyone inside went nuts. Everyone was busy and James
was running to the back to grab some heavy boxes.
Holding these boxes James was going to open the back
door while he walked past. James tried to push on the
door but it wouldn‘t open. He leaned into it but couldn‘t
push much more because of the boxes he was holding.
James was in a hurry so he yelled, ‗GET BACK OR I‘M
GONNA KICK THE DOOR!‘ Kevin did not hear him over
the loud constant buzzing. James gave that door a swift
kick and it opened about 3 inches then bounced closed
again. He kicked it again and it opened, revealing a
bashed up and somewhat upset Kevin.
He had been trying to look in the peephole when James

kicked the door. James had just broken the crap out of
Kevin‘s nose. Like the tip was almost touching his cheek,
bright red-purple, swollen eyes, broken. Kevin was
pissed… Immediately James started apologizing and
backing away from him, but Kevin came at him like a
rabid monkey. Quickly, both of them were surrounded by
employees and separated. James was told to go up front
and manage fries and do not come into the back part of
the store until Kevin left to the hospital.
Then the final event, less than 10 minutes later. James

was working the fries which entails grabbing a metal
basket out of boiling hot oil and dumping the fresh fries
into an adjacent tray. James was doing this and everyone
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around him was talking about how James just broke

Kevin‘s face. On his way, leaving the store for the
hospital, he decided to come right up to James again and
try to instigate a fight while James was dumping some
fresh fries. Kevin pulled his signature move of flinching at
him like he was going to throw a punch. James retaliated
by returning his own flinch with the basket he was
holding. James didn‘t actually hit him with an incredibly
hot fry basket. But he forgot about the boiling hot oil still
clinging to the basket. When James flinched at him and
shook the basket, tiny flaming hot drops of grease
splattered his face and neck.
James had just broken his nose by accident, then threw

boiling hot oil on his face by accident. Instant fight. Kevin
was on the ground. James was a wrestler so Kevin‘s
freshly broken and burned nose got smashed and wiped
across a dirty floor for a few seconds before it was broken
up. Kevin was in absolute mess. He left for the hospital,
James got sent home. That was it. No charges. No
questions from his manager after. No more being
scheduled with Kevin. Not even any paperwork about 2
vicious assaults and fights on the same day. James felt
really bad but simultaneously kind of justified. Both
incidents were honest accidents which could have easily
been avoided if Kevin wasn‘t trying so hard to get even.
Perhaps, like Kevin, you‘re so bent on settling scores

and you feel there just has to be justice. Well, good
news—God is a God of justice and he‘s very much
interested in settling score. However, he‘s not interested
in you doing it, you must understand that it‘s not your
responsibility to provide justice for yourself – it‘s God‘s.
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Don’t Fight People

Jareck had always shown a good attitude at school.
Every year, he always received the award for the best
behaved student. He‘d grown a reputation and everyone
saw him as a noble and responsible person. But there
were some of his classmates that were quite unruly. These
folks decided that they were going to pick on Jareck
because he looked cold and wimpy.
During break periods, they would surround Jareck and

bully him. This went on for days and Jareck was really
offended at these folks but he couldn‘t defend himself
alone.
However, one day, Jareck decided that he‘d had enough

of this nonsense and he planned a strategy that would
make them steer clear of him forever. What was the plan?
He planned to carry a small kitchen knife in his pocket
and pull it out just to scare them when they try to come
close to him again.
This worked for some days because his bullies would

pull back whenever he brought out the knife. But one day,
things got out of hand when the bullies tried to get the
knife off Jareck—he wasn‘t going to budge. In the fight
and struggle for who‘s going to get the knife, Jareck
thoughtlessly pulled it out and stuck it in the neck of one
of those bullies. Blood gushed out and they all watched in
shock at what just happened But Jareck immediately ran
away in the fear of being caught. Unfortunately for
Jareck, the school management got to know about this
and decided to rusticate him.
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There was great surprise in the school about the fact

that it was Jareck, the calmest boy in the school that
carried out this horrific act.
Sometimes life can hurl less than preferable

circumstances at you that test your patience, morals and
values. Choosing to not fight back and be a peace seeker
in the midst of it all is what makes us winner ultimately.
As for the case of Jareck, whether things naturally

escalated or he was too emotional and irrational, the fact
remains that he chose a punishment that didn‘t fit the
crime. Peace seekers don‘t fight people. They rather
choose to be rational decision maker irrespective of the
situation they‘re engulfed in.
Sometimes choosing to report cases to appropriate

authorities instead of fighting or taking matters into our
own hand still remains the best thing to do. In F*ck
Feelings Michael Bennet and Sarah Bennet gives a
snippet on dealing with people we don‘t like. They write:
―Fighting battles with people you don‘t like and can‘t
change seldom makes sense, even if they‘re smaller than
you. The truth is fighting back isn‘t the antidote to
humiliation and intimidation. Instead, give thought to
values and consequences. Ask yourself whether the fight
is worthwhile and winnable by considering risks and
worst-case scenarios, and keeping your mouth shut to
give you time to think.‖
Distancing yourself from people that cause you

unnecessary problems, you choosing to control your
feelings and not taking offence is a trait of a peace seeker.
In the next chapter, I give examples of people who don‘t
let others choose how they react, neither do they fight
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people. These ones fought for reasonable causes, not for

selfish reasons, but for the benefit of others. Read on!
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Chapter EIGHT
The BossMan
―Self-esteem comes from being able to define the world

in your own terms and refusing to abide by the
judgement of others.‖
(OPRAH WINFREY).
Having already become a billionaire, Henry Ford

arrived in England. At the visitor‘s office, he asked for the
cheapest hotel in town. The office worker stared at him:
Henry had a well-known appearance and newspapers
from around the world often wrote about him. He stood
in the visitor‘s office, wearing his coat which looked even
older than its owner and requested information on the
cheapest hotel in town.
The worker asked with uncertainty: ―If I am not

mistaken, you must be Mr. Henry Ford? Doesn‘t your son
always stay at the best hotels and isn‘t he always well-
dressed? How can you ask for the cheapest hotel and
wear a coat that seems to be as old as you? Do you really
work to save your money?‖
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―I have no need to stay in a luxury hotel. Wherever I

stay, I am still Henry Ford.‖
―Even in the cheapest Inn, I am still Henry Ford. My

son is too young and inexperienced. He is afraid of what
people may say, he is afraid they will judge him if he stays
at a cheap hotel. As to this coat — yes — my dad used to
wear it, but it does not matter. Why should I have to have
new things? I am still Henry Ford whatever I am dressed
in! I made my name and I know my value. I am Henry
Ford, always and everywhere; all the other things do not
really matter.‖
Henry Ford is an example of whom I call the Bossman.

He acts like a leader—a boss. One that doesn‘t need to
gain value or approval from his followers, instead he
shows them that he values them and isn‘t affected by
what they think of him. He shows his maturity by accord
value to others from the wealth of values that he‘s
accorded to himself.
One of the signs of immaturity is irrationality; in other

words, stupidity. Do you notice that anger can make you
look dumb—devoid of good sense or judgment? Cunning
folks know this; they try to bully you into looking dumb
by pushing your buttons in an attempt to make you get
angry. But have you ever asked yourself why the word
―madness‖ is associated with the word ―anger.‖
―Anger makes us all stupid‖
(JOHANNA SPYRI).
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Someone who is angry can be said to be mad; literally.

As we‘ve seen, when you let yourself react emotionally,
your ability to make decisions based on rational
conscious thought is significantly reduced. Hence, we
don‘t have rational behaviour but irrational. That‘s real
madness. Little wonder many people get into a brawl and
hurt each other badly; they‘ve lost it.
What Offends a Bossman
How do you offend a Bossman like Henry Ford that

said, ―I made my name and I know my value.‖ If he
doesn‘t get his value from what other people think of him,
then you might need to find out what he loves— what he
values. What do we know about love? One of the greatest
authority on the subject of love can be found in apostle
Paul‘s description of love in 1 Corinthians 13.
 Love is not easily provoked (v.5): This totally

eradicates the tendency to react based on
impulse or stimulus. A Bossman isn‘t easily
provoked.
 Love is not self-serving (v.5): This means love
is purpose driven. He doesn‘t live for himself; he
lives for a cause—a goal—that benefits others.
 Love is not happy about injustice (v.6): This
means wrongdoing, injustice, falsehood are what
gets the attention of a Bossman.
Are you reacting from a selfless standpoint? If you get

offended for selfish reasons you‘re probably biased. If you
get offended at the right things, you‘ll be fighting for a
reasonable cause, otherwise you‘d be selfish and
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unreasonable in your approach. A Bossman is a selfless

person; hence, his anger can be described as righteous.
Tim Lahaye, in his book Why You Act the Way You Do
describe selfless anger as righteous indignation. He
comments: ―You experience righteous indignation when
you see an injustice perpetrated on another.‖ It‘s the kind
of anger that a Bossman displays.
Case in point, an unfair treatment of an innocent 5-

year-old or unlawful looting of public funds by corrupt
leaders or a man runs over a 7-year-old with his scooter,
etc. These events both evoke the emotion of anger and
sadness; but it‘s a righteous anger.
When a Bossman offends someone, he doesn‘t try to hide

the fact that he‘s guilty. The Bossman doesn‘t try to prove
his innocence.
―When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don‘t
get to decide that you don‘t.‖
(LOUIS C.K.)
When you offend or hurt someone—intentionally or un-

intentionally and they come to tell you, trying to make the
person see their faults by telling them you‘re right and
they‘re wrong isn‘t going to work. Rather, apologize to
them and tell them the part where you went wrong, if
any, before trying to explain your innocence.
1. People can‘t accuse you of what you already

admit.
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2. People want to be sure you‘re not just talking

from a defensive standpoint as against a rational
standpoint.
3. Even if you were not wrong, your attempt to
prove it would only come off as more offensive
than intended.
4. It‘s the least they‘re expecting given they are
in the victim position
5. You‘d come off as mature compared to when
you try to selfishly try to prove your innocence.
6. Perhaps you are wrong but you‘ve been
blinded by ego.
7. When you do it they‘d be convinced to listen
more to you than when you tried to force them to
listen.
Normally, the first thing we always want to do is prove

we‘re not in the wrong. This is because our ego makes us
blind to our faults. And trying to prove you‘re not in the
wrong make you appear wicked and insensitive. You
always think you‘re right until another person come to
prove you wrong.
The one who states his case

first seems right, until the
other comes and examines
him. (Pro. 18:17, ESV).
We normally see and perceive things differently. Our

individual perception controls how we react, and guess
what? – It‘s the reason we get offended and stay offended
- we don‘t see eye to eye.
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One person believes he‘s right. The other person

believes he‘s also right. The scripture says ―Every way of a
man is right in his own eyes14.‖ So we have 2 right folks
and no one wants to come down to the level of the other
person to see what they see. Differing perspectives is the
bane of blissful relationship. This selfish attitude the
reason why someone finds it hard to apologize first; he
thinks he‘s not the one at fault. Interestingly, that‘s
exactly what‘s being thought of about them.
The Strength and Boldness of a Bossman
A weak person is one that lives off the approval of

others. He doesn‘t hate people because of lack of
approval; he welcomes constructive criticism. If you can‘t
handle criticism without getting offended and throwing
away valuable relationships then there‘s need for growth.
―What makes people weak? Their need for validation

and recognition. Their need to feel important.‖
(PAULO CEOLHO)
When man driven by a need for self-importance is

offended, his weakness comes out in his displays of
immature behaviour. The product of weakness is
immature behaviour; meekness, calmness and good
comportment, on the other hand, is a sign of maturity. A
Bossman knows that his peace is valuable and doesn‘t try
to prove a point.
A parrot, for example, talks way too much but can‘t fly
high but an eagle is silent and has the power to touch the
sky. The Bossman is a mature individual. He‘s got inner
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strength and confidence in his value and significance to

the world. Hence, he‘s not perturbed by offence.
It is on this basis that he is able to show love and

kindness to those around him as opposed to him seeking
to get it from others. A Bossman is so strong that he‘s
able to lift others up, not bring others down. If necessary,
he brings himself low to lift you up. He doesn‘t mind
sacrificing himself for the benefit of others. The Bossman
is a true leader.
Because he‘s got confidence in his self-value, he‘s also

able to stand up for what he believes without fear of
offending others. Since he‘s not being kind and loving
because he‘s seeking approval from people, he‘s also not
afraid of going against the tide of popular opinion or what
the majority believes.
He respects and honours authority but is also

comfortable in its presence. He isn‘t afraid of defending
his cause and fighting against injustice no matter where
he is. This is a Bossman.
Offending a Bossman is a real struggle because he isn‘t

self-serving. Instead, he serves a cause beyond himself.
He pursues a purpose because he believes in his
significance to the world and ability to cause a change.
People Will Always Be Offended
The Bossman understands that people will always be

offended no matter how much you try not to offend them.
He doesn‘t try to be good in the eye of others because he
knows the world won't treat him better just because he‘s a
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good person. Hence his focus is on being a person of

sincerity, justice and truth.
Note that you‘ll offend people whether you‘re

melancholic or sanguine; good or bad; nice or nasty;
philanthropic or stingy; friendly or hostile; angel or
demon; Satan or God.
You know, sometimes, in order to be able to think for

yourself, in order not to be a zombie under the control of
others‘ false manner of thinking you have to risk being
offensive. Hence, don‘t be afraid of offending people that
are not thinking straight. Be a person of courage. Michael
Catt, in his book, Courageous Living writes: ―You can‘t
impact your generation if you aren‘t willing to have a
showdown and live with the consequences.‖
Your responsibility is to stay true no matter whose ox is

gored. Suppressing the discussion or sensitive topics
doesn‘t change the truth about it; it only hides it. You
must be bold enough to speak your mind, especially
about controversial issues that others would otherwise
not want to touch.
For instance, if you have a correction to make or a

statement that totally nullifies someone‘s erroneous belief
and you‘ve observed that the information is both
necessary and truthful, then you shouldn‘t care whether
they are offended or not. It‘s acts of love to go out of your
way to correct a wrong; it‘s a selfless act and it‘s highly
encouraged.
This isn‘t a book about leadership but I believe everyone

has a leadership capacity. Hence, they must behave with
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the standard of nobility and maturity, not pettiness and

immaturity.
We see these examples of such leaders like:
o Henry Ford who manufactured the first

automobile that many middle-class Americans
could afford.
o Martin Luther King Jr. who desired to see freedom
and equality in his country.
o Mother Theresa who became internationally
recognised for her selfless humanitarian work.
o Ronald Reagan who had a desire to eliminate
communism and lived to see the collapse of
communism.
o Abraham Lincoln who believe in the vision of a
unified country and threw off the yoke of slavery
with his Emancipation Proclamation.
Again, if you want to offend these kinds of people, then

you must brace yourself because they‘re not self-seeking,
neither are they driven by a need for self-importance.
Whatever you do to them doesn‘t bother them as much as
what you do to others. They don‘t live for themselves.
They‘re selfless individual that seek to make the world a
better place.
On the other hand, we have a narcissist whose sole aim

is to tear down others. He lives off the attention of others.
His need for self-importance is satisfied by making others
look smaller and more inferior to him. He enjoy seeing
others below him. Hence he wouldn‘t want them to leave
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him because he gets his sense of worth and value from

the people below him.
He doesn‘t have what it takes to add value to the lives of

people around him. He doesn‘t have the emotional
capacity to make others feel important. He‘ll rather make
others feel devalued by his denigrating and derogatory
remarks about them.
―Don't be distracted by criticism. Remember—the only

taste of success some people get is to take a bite out of
you.‖
(ZIG ZIGLAR)
You should be careful how much attention you give to

people like this. Their taste of success comes when they‘re
able to distract you. When you give a narcissist your time
and energy, engaging in emotional response, you‘re
making him feel good about himself. But when you ignore
him, he‘s dissatisfied. He enjoys tearing down others
while watching their emotional reaction to his
shenanigans. These narcissists are insecure, weak and
egotistical. They have an exaggerated sense of self-
importance. They certainly don‘t know their value
otherwise they wouldn‘t look to hurt and pull others
down to feel important. Instead, like the Bossman, they
would lift others up and seek the benefit of others rather
than their own.
―Character is how you treat those who can do nothing

for you.‖
(ANONYMOUS)
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Why We Need to Honor Others
1. There is something you can learn from

anyone: Everyone knows something you don‘t
know. Everyone has seen something you‘ve never
seen. Everyone feels something you don‘t feel.
Everyone sees something you don‘t see. It takes
patience and humility to listen to others and get to
know what they know.
―Everyone you will ever meet knows something you

don‘t know‖
(BILL NYE).
Of course, you might have read much more than others,

but if you don‘t live the kind of life they live and go
everywhere they go and feel everything they feel, then
you don‘t know everything they know. Hence, there‘s
something you can learn from everyone.
2. No one is better than others: This is the reason

why I believe everyone has the capacity to be
successful. Those who succeed only know some
secrets and work hard to achieve their goals. If
anyone learns the secrets and does the required
work, they too can become successful. Hence, no one
is inferior to another person. There are no born
leaders, they only learnt to develop their leadership
capacity. Hence, everyone is somebody.
3. Honour is what they crave the most: A lot of

time when someone is offended, it is a matter of lack
of honour on the part of the person offending them.
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They feel their self-image is being brought low and

they‘re seeking to compensate for that void or lack of
honour. People are always seeking to appear
important. Whatever you do, don‘t try to make
people feel less important. ―The desire for a feeling
of importance‖ Dale Carnegies says, ―is one of the
chief distinguishing differences between mankind
and the animals. This desires makes you want to
wear the latest styles, drive the latest cars, and talk
about your brilliant children.‖ If you honour
someone and make them feel important, you‘ll be
providing for them something they crave in their
innermost being. People would love you and want to
be around you when you make them feel important.
When you honour people we listen to them when they

speak. We respect their opinion. We respect them no
matter their age or sex, ethnic background or whatever
they‘re affiliated with. We value their lives. We don‘t try
to hurt them in any way. We love them. This is how we
ought to relate to people.
4. Humans are worth the greatest value: Gold is

valuable because of its constituent material.
Diamond is valuable because it‘s a rare gem. You are
valuable because you‘re uniquely made in the image
of God our creator to carry out a function on the
earth. You might be different from others, but you
aren‘t inferior to anyone because everyone came
from the same material—God material—by the same
manufacturer—God.
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This is why we shouldn‘t judge others based on the

frailty of their humanity. We shouldn‘t label others
based on their seemingly weird prejudices,
inclinations, affiliation, beliefs or even actions.
You‘re first human before you‘re lesbian or gay or a

robber or a rapist or anything at all. The colour of
your skin, age sex, height or beliefs do not change
the fact that you‘re human, and humans are worth
inestimable value.
Judgement prevents us from seeing the good about

others that lies beyond appearance. Let us choose to
value and honour people without being blinded by the
stamps, labels and stigmas that we put on them.
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Chapter NINE
The Forgiver
―The practice of forgiveness is our most important

contribution to the healing of the world‖
(MARIANNE WILLIAMSON).
Refusing to forgive is like drinking poison and waiting

for the other person to die. So, forgiveness is simply an
attempt to refuse the poison that someone is tempting
you to drink. Certainly, this has to be done repeatedly.
You don‘t get tired of rejecting something that‘s not good
for you—keep on rejecting the insidious drink.
The time when you forgive people shouldn‘t be far from

when they offend you. Immediate forgiveness is highly
recommended. Forgiveness at the early stage is much
easier because you‘ve not focused much on the hurt as
against when you let the toxic thoughts and feeling of
self-pity and resentment remain in your mind over a
protracted period of time. At that point, reasons to not
forgive become cemented in your heart like a monolith. If
you‘re not careful, you‘ll be piling up loads of offence and
un-forgiveness in your heart and it‘ll become increasingly
difficult to let go.
You must learn to forgive immediately. See it as a game

where the last man standing gets to win. The more you
forgive, the longer you stand. Don‘t lose; win! Jesus gave
us a target of 490 forgiveness daily. Remember: The
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tougher the battle, the sweeter the victory. Don‘t be

interested in the actions and feedback of those immature
folks that seek to offend you. Be interested in doing what
the master instructed.
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how

oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive
him? Till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say
not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until
seventy times seven. (Matt. 18:21-22).
Jesus did specifically state that our target is 490 daily in

Matt. 18:21-22, but in Luke 17:3-4, he tells us to forgive as
many times as we‘re begged for it in a day – whether 7
times or 490 times.
It should be noted that we‘re not encouraged to forgive

only when we‘re begged or asked for it; we ought to
forgive whether or not we‘re asked for it because of our
own spiritual and emotional wellbeing.
Jesus, the teacher, as he‘s normally called, encourages

conditional forgiveness in Luke 17:3-4, while also
approving unconditional forgiveness in Matt. 18:21-22.
We‘re to practice both. Sometimes, the person who
offends you might feel remorse and rethink his actions; if
he comes to apologize, you ought to accept and forgive
him. If, however, he remains adamant, cocky and never
comes to ask for your forgiveness, you‘re stilled
instructed to forgive.
You can‘t afford to put your life on hold because

someone hasn‘t come to ask you for forgiveness. You
ought to be big enough to move on and let go of the
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offence and hurt. There‘s a life and future ahead of you.

Don‘t let un-forgiveness stifle your growth and stop you
from moving forward in life.
2 times when you need to forgive:
Jesus has clearly stated that we need to forgive both

when the one who offends us comes back to ask for
forgiveness and when he/she doesn‘t. Hence, this brings
us to consider 2 critical times when we need to forgive
others:
1. When you’re not really hurt – it’s easy:

Forgiveness here can be easily done by choosing to forget
or not focus on what hurt was done to you. You can just
choose to forgive the person and you honestly don‘t feel
any feeling of resentment or hatred towards that person
anymore.
If you saw them the next day, you absolutely don‘t have
a problem hugging them and being nice to them.
2. When you’re really hurt – it’s hard: Have you

ever been in a situation where you genuinely want to
forgive but you find it hard to do; it‘s hard. Here, it‘s not
easy to forget or put out of focus. Whenever you see the
person who hurt you, the picture of what they did to you
keeps coming back to your mind and when it does you
feel resentment welling up in your heart towards that
person.
When next you see them, it‘s practically hard for you to
go meet them and greet them and be nice to them. In fact,
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you don‘t want anything good to be associated with that

person. All these are both signs of immaturity and un-
forgiveness. After all, it takes a lot of maturity to forgive.
When I’m Not Sure I’ve Forgiven Them
In such a case as this, when you‘re really hurt, you

might want to forgive but can‘t help it, what you do is you
train yourself over a period of time to love that person
you‘re having issues of un-forgiveness with. It‘s like
testing your forgiveness muscles until you are able to do
it with ease. Remember, if you‘re going to be doing
something hard, you have to prepare hard. Jesus gave us
recipe for forgiveness, but it‘s hard.
Forgiveness is about keeping your heart pure. One way

to examine your heart is to look for things that you find
quite difficult doing for them. If you think you find it
difficult to do certain things that will make them
absolutely happy, then you‘ve probably not forgiven
them.
Examine your heart with the Master‘s words.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love

thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto
you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do
good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may
be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for
he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good,
and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if
ye love them which love you, what reward have ye?
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do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute

your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do
not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect,
even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
(Matt. 5:43-48)
Do you find it difficult doing the following?
- Loving them with your heart

- Blessing them from your heart
- Doing good to them from your heart
- Praying good things upon them from your heart
Notice, the emphasis is on ‗your heart.‘ This is how

you examine your heart. Do you feel like revenging?
Then you‘ve absolutely not forgiven them. Train
yourself to forgive them wholeheartedly.
You can tell it takes a lot of maturity to do what Jesus

said to do in that verse above. As the saying goes – no
pain no gain. No matter how hard or painful it seems
on our flesh, the truth is God wants us to have genuine
love for one another (Rom. 12:9). If you‘re struggling
with really loving anybody in sincerity, then you have
to train yourself to. Again, there‘s no better training
than Matthew 5:43-48. You‘re currently badly
disposed toward that person hence what you need is
to train yourself to be favourably disposed toward
them. When you‘re favourably disposed toward them,
that‘s a sign that you‘ve forgiven them. Remember: If
it‘s not genuine love it‘s not genuine forgiveness.
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Imagine praying for someone you don‘t like or doing

them some sort of good or buying them a very expensive
gift, at first it‘s hard, then in the process of time it gets
less and less difficult until you reach a level where you
absolutely don‘t have any feeling of hatred or dislike for
that person. At that point, your training is complete and
you‘re perfect.
2 Reasons to Forgive
I once wrote a blog post about 8 reasons why you

should forgive. The 8 reasons are:
1. It‘s a divine command

2. It benefits you more than it does the other person
3. It doesn‘t mean you accept the other person‘s
action
4. It frees you and makes you happy
5. It shows your level of maturity in dealing with
offence
6. We all need forgiveness
7. Un-forgiveness is toxic to your mental and
physical health
8. Your decision to not forgive will affect your
future15
Apart from the 8 reason above, I‘ll state 2 important

reasons here.
1. You’re also not perfect:
Forgiveness is a statement of the fact that you are also not

perfect and you wouldn‘t refuse to forgive another person
also not being perfect. Everyone has the freedom to do
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whatever they want, but that doesn‘t mean they have the
right to do whatever they want. You might have the
freedom to kill someone, but the fact that you‘d be
eventually punished shows that you never had the right to
do so. The same goes with forgiveness: You don‘t have the
right to not forgive. It might sound unorthodox but it‘s
the truth.
If you‘ve got your own imperfections, then you don‘t

qualify to not forgive anyone. Un-forgiveness is another
way of showing false sanctity. It‘s you trying to project
another person as a devil, while you‘re the angel. And
because you‘re the angel, you‘ll never let the devil go
without punishment. As a matter of fact, you hate the
devil without restrictions. That‘s the image played in the
mind of one who chooses to not forgive.
Un-forgiven is like choosing to punish an offender for

his wrong when you could leave the matter into the hands
of God. Like Jesus said to those Pharisees and religious
mob from the temple who wanted to kill the woman
caught in the act of adultery, ―He that is without sin
among you, let him first cast a stone at her‖.16
Again, they were really free to do that; Jesus wasn‘t

holding down their hands or begging them to not hurl a
stone at her—he let them do it. However, he also proved
to them that they weren‘t perfect enough to point a finger
of accusation at anyone or punish them for their fault.
This is because we‘re all fallible. Everyone‘s got a
weakness, hence we can‘t hold on to un-forgiveness.
Choosing to not forgive is like saying you‘re perfect; that‘s
not true.
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We might have the liberty to do whatever we want but

the Bible warns:
For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty;

only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh,
but by love serve one another. For all the law is
fulfilled in one word, even in this; thou shalt love
thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and
devour one another, take heed that ye be not
consumed one of another (Gal 5:13-15).
Perhaps, one of the biggest reasons why you must

forgive is because it‘s an affirmation of the fact that
you‘re also not perfect. Anyone that doesn‘t forgive is
indirectly saying they‘re perfect and that‘s a wrong
affirmation. More so, God forgiving us proves that we
have no right to not forgive others. Having received
God‘s grace, we ought to respond in the same manner
toward others.
2. God also forgave you—Copy Him
The hallmark of God‘s children is that we copy our

father. Since it‘s God‘s character to forgive, then we
have to emulate him. It doesn‘t matter if you think
you almost never sin or offend anyone. There‘s
someone who had to clean up your mess, and he‘s
asking that you clean up the mess of others, too by
forgiving them—Jesus. Having received God‘s
forgiveness, your decision to not forgive is never
justified. Your forgiveness was hinged on Jesus‘ act of
self-sacrifice. He needs you to pass on that kindness
and forgive others, too.
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Joseph Prince, in his book, The Power of Right

Believing, comments: ―Jesus himself fulfilled all the
righteous requirements of the law on our behalf and
took upon Himself ever curse and stroke of
punishment for our sins on His own body at the
cross. We are forgiven because He was judged. We
are accepted because He was condemned.‖
Therefore, when you forgive, you admit the

humanity of the human race that makes them fallible.
And, like God, you forgive men for being the
imperfect people that they are.
4 Facts About Forgiveness:
1. You will always need to forgive: If you‘re

planning to still remain on planet earth, then you‘ll
be offended sooner or later. This is why it‘s best to
choose to forgive someone ahead of time because
they will invariably disappoint and offend you
sometimes. If you‘ll always be offended by people,
then you must always forgive. Your response
ahead of time should be forgiveness. People will
always remain people. Put another way: Imperfect
man will always remain imperfect. Knowing this,
you can decide ahead of time that you won‘t expect
perfection from people, hence, you forgive them if
they prove to be imperfect. God doesn‘t‘ forgive
after you sin, he forgives before you sin. Hence,
you should do the same toward people.
2. Forgiveness doesn’t always mean giving
them another chance : Imagine you had an
employee that display bouts of schizophrenic
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action. One time, he got beserk and took a knife

and cut the ear of his fellow employee. You might
forgive him for doing such but it‘ll be unwise to let
him continue as an employee, especially because
he‘s not even fit to be an employee while still
suffering from schizophrenia.
Well, not everyone is schizophrenic but everyone is

fallible at best. Hence, you would have to forgive
them, however, if they become increasingly
abusive or threatening, you might have to let them
go.
3. Forgiveness doesn’t always mean not
allowing the offender to be punished: If a
man comes to rob your family and he kills your
son. Fortunately, he gets caught by the police
before he escapes. Surely, you might forgive him,
but that doesn‘t mean he shouldn‘t serve his jail
term and undergo the necessary rehabilitation
methods that are put in place in prison.
Of course there are situations where you can allow

certain people back into your life and also let people
go unpunished, but that decision should be well-
thought out. Ultimately, the best decision you could
make would be relative to how the whole situation
goes.
4. Your decision to forgive isn’t based on your

feeling but your feeling is based on your
decision to forgive: Many people argue that
they cannot forgive someone that hurt them
because they don‘t feel like they could ever forgive
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them. Well, life isn‘t about letting our feelings

decide for us, but we deciding for our feelings.
Feelings, like love, are very obedient; they go in the

direction of our focus. If you make a decision to focus
on hate, your feelings would also hate. But if you make
a decision, difficult or not, to forgive. It‘s only a matter
of time before you begin to see your feelings doing the
same.
The truth is, even the strongest feeling can be

assuaged—hate or love. Yet, it all starts with a
decision. Our feelings get stronger with time, but we
have to start by making a conscious decision on what
we want to feel about a certain person.
It might be that a negative feeling is triggered

whenever you remember this person, but you‘re the
one who can change that. And like we saw in chapter
5, it all starts with a decision.
When You’re Being Hurt But You Still Need

to Forgive
Due to the widespread clamour to forgive, it‘s easy to

get caught up in the fog of deception and confusion
pertaining to the subject of forgiveness. The scriptures
says to love. And one of the characteristics of love is that
it covers a multitude of sin. Also, forgiving those that
offend us is a scriptural rule. But where do we draw the
line? Should we forgive someone that want to hurt us?
Does forgiving them mean we allow them hurt us again
and again?
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The story of Anna shows a typical example of someone

that was being hurt numerous time in an abusive
relationship but she loved her husband and wasn‘t sure
how to deal with the situation.
Here’s her story:
My husband was mentally and physically abusive and

had a sexual addiction problem. I knew before we
married about a family history of abuse. Once before our
marriage, he threatened to kill us both in the car. I
thought his behaviour would change once he moved away
from his family, and for a very short time it did.
Before I gave birth to our first child, twice he again

threatened to kill us in the car. After I gave birth, his
mental abuse of manipulation, questioning my fidelity
and stalking me escalated. After the birth of our second
child, his sexual addiction was ignited and he began a
series of affairs. Depression robbed me of my ready smile.
It was like walking on eggshells, but I loved him.
His continual physical abuse ceased the day he belted

me so hard I lost partial hearing in one ear and then he
raped me. Afterward he felt remorseful and I was grateful
for the cessation of physical abuse. Within months, I saw
my children withdraw from their father.
In the final futile weeks I remained with him, I narrowly

stopped him from a sexual advance on our daughter, and
watched in horror as he threw a knife at our son.
The Turning Point For Anna
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Anna continues, I spoke up for myself and pointed out

that his behaviour was intolerable. I began undertaking
activities to relax myself such as going to the gym,
swimming and learning meditation techniques.
My children and I all survived and undertook

counselling after I demanded my husband leave the
house for good and I began divorce proceedings one year
later.
I spoke with a psychologist who was a work colleague at

the time. He encouraged me to understand that I had a
lot to offer, and that I should no longer accept
manipulation, physical abuse, and intimidation.
Anna’s Word to Someone Who Is Being Abused
It‘s easy to say ―GET OUT‖, but I know what it feels like
wanting to give a fifth, sixth, and seventh chance. There is
a song that Brian Cadd recorded in the 70s and its
integral words were: ―If it hurts to say his name, then
baby let go.‖ It‘s as simple as that. You deserve to be
happy, loved and fulfilled.
It took me a lot of false starts, but eventually I stepped

out of an abusive relationship. I am now re-married and
enjoying every minute of what a real marriage should be.
Don‘t waste another minute of your life trying to change
an abuser.
Please, anyone out there presently in any form of

abusive relationship, once a guy behaves in an abusive
way more than a few times, it‘s not just a mistake brought
on by his own stresses. Take that step and move on before
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it‘s too late. Such a decision can be hard but taking a

positive step to free yourself is certainly worth it. You will
need time to heal the hurt, but over time you will feel like
yourself again. Make sure you go out with friends after a
break up, as this will only do you good.17
Anna says you could go out with friends after a break up.
But you must know who your friends are. Going back to
your past, i.e., your ex, the abusive partner or any form of
unhealthy relationship in the guise of ‗just being friends‘
will only increase your pain and compound your agony.
After a dating relationship ends, and you‘re badly missing

your ex, that isn‘t a sign that you should go back to them.
It‘s only a sign that you still need to distance yourself
from them as far as possible. Your ex cannot be your
friend. This is because you‘re not in the emotional state of
being able to just see them as a friend. Hence, you
shouldn‘t hurt your feelings even more by going back to
them. You can forgive them but never keep
communication or close contact with them. Remember,
forgiveness isn‘t always the same as allowing a person
back into your life again. Forgiveness is a state of the
heart toward a person, not what you do to them.
Forgiveness Is A State of the Heart
I spoke a little bit about tough love in chapter 7. Tough

love is love that looks harsh, unfair or in some cases, hate.
It‘s the love that‘s behind the stern or harsh treatment
that we notice sometimes in parent-child relationship.
For example, when a parent disciplines a child either for a
wrongdoing or because they just want the child to grow
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and be a better person, that parent is exercising tough

love toward that child.
When Michael joined his high school football team, he

noticed that no one in the entire team received the level
of harsh treatment that he got from his coach. You might
think it‘s because Michael was the worst player in the
team, but there were many other players that always
performed worse than he did. Nonetheless, he always got
the worst treatment. At times, he was punched and
physically abused.
One day he finally asked the coach why he was so mean to

him and not to the others. The coach replied that he had
asked the parents of every player for permission to do
this, and his mother was the only one who agreed.
Michael was mad at his mother for a while, but now he
knows that he would have never been the player that he
became without her wisdom in allowing the coach to
make it harder for him. She knew that the temporary pain
and embarrassment would make him much better, and it
did.
Tough love could be misunderstood as a sign of hatred or

un-forgiveness. You could see an action that looks unfair
but in reality, nothing could define love better. It‘s
possible to forgive someone and still not communicate
with them or report them to the police. In the case of
Anna, she had to divorce her abusive husband. That is an
act of love because the man isn‘t fit to be a husband, and
Anna staying would only help him exercise more
irresponsibility and maltreatment toward her, which isn‘t
befitting for a responsible man. She stopped her husband
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from living his life in evil and shameful practices. Hence,

letting him be left alone might actually be the best thing
Anna could do for him. That is an act of love.
Love doesn‘t like injustice. Love fights for righteousness

and purity. Love stop evil. When you love someone who is
toxic and abusive to you, you still have to stop them from
spending their lives committing the crime of evil.
Forgiving someone or loving them doesn‘t always have to

show in your actions. Tough love could look like hatred,
but it‘s still love anyway. Forgiveness is a state of the
heart. If anyone thinks staying in an abusive relationship
is the sign of love or forgiveness, they‘re wrong.
You could certainly forgive someone while:
- Reporting them to the police

- Letting them suffer punishment for their actions
- Refusing to have close contact with them
- Ending all form of communications with them
- Letting them go to prison
- Refusing to let them hurt you again
- Asking for a divorce
- Walking away from an abusive relationship
Notice that you might not take action immediately, like

Anna, you can give people a benefit of the doubt for some
time before finally making a decision on them. However,
when the situation requires immediate action—then take
action.
Forgiveness could be a 100% while taking any of the

above actions. However, wishing, praying, or cussing evil
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to fall upon a person is far from loving or forgiving them.

Real forgiveness never wishes evil upon a person. The
motive of your action will be to help you stay away from
their abusive behaviour and help the other person
undergo the necessary means of rehabilitation whether in
prison or not.
You must understand that un-forgiveness doesn‘t

alleviate the perpetrator of his crime he committed nor
does it excuse the offender of his offence. It only
alleviates you of the unnecessary emotional responsibility
of having to hate, resent and hold grudges against
someone who doesn‘t even care. It means you‘re not
going to let it stop you from making progress in your life.
If you‘re sure you forgiven someone you won‘t feel any

hatred or resentment for them. The feeling is in your
heart. Whatever action you take must be because you
don‘t want to let the hurt and evil practice continue, not
because you hate them. The motive of your actions could
only be examined by you.
Turn the Other Cheek?
Turning the other cheek is a phrase that many people

have misunderstood. The phrase is from Jesus‘ teaching
in Matthew 5:38-40 and Luke 6:29. The teaching is
contrary to how our society responds to offence.
However, our priority should be understanding it and
picking out the truth out of it—whether it‘s politically
correct or not.
Many people interpret this principle as meaning that we

should always acts as wimps that continually take abuse
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from others. This is not what turning the other cheek

means.
The subject of his comment is retaliation. The words

used in Greek writing of that time was often related to
legal disputation in court. So in context, the verse begins
by advising us not to engage in legal disputes and
quarrels with people even though they may be wrong. The
focus is the refusal to stand in contention against people
that offend us. We see this in Paul‘s admonition to the
Corinthian church:
Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for

you that you go to law against one another. Why
do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not
rather let yourselves be cheated? (1 Cor. 6:7,
NKJV).
Here Paul gives a similar admonition to Jesus‘

instruction. His statement presupposes turning the
other cheek in terms of accepting wrong and choosing
to be cheated rather than retaliating. Clearly, those
who take each other to court aren‘t doing it in love.
But if you‘re doing so because you, perhaps, want a
divorce from an abusive marriage, then you doing the
right thing. The goal is doing so from a pure heart as
opposed to wishing or causing evil upon someone.
Come to think of it, what would be the opposite to

turning the other cheek? Retaliation. And that would
mean we‘re trying to hurt those who hurt us, thus going
against what the scripture teaches. Hence, the motive of
whatever action we take shouldn‘t be to retaliate but to
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stay away from anything that causes physical and

emotional abuse. Again, if staying away requires going to
court, then do it. Because your action isn‘t based on
retaliation but staying away from abuse. Many time,
when you refuse to retaliate, it give the offender an
invitation to do more. Jesus is saying, don‘t let the evil
being done motivate you to join them. Instead of
retaliating, stay away from them.
Therefore, do no turn the other cheek in the literal

sense of the word, you might not survive it depending on
how painful it is. But, make sure you neither retaliate nor
engage in multiple contentions with people—legal or not.
If your intention for taking a law suit is to get
recompense, that will be different from going to court to
get back at someone.
Joyce Meyer says, ―Choosing to not forgive is being

stupid on steroids.‖ Why? You go around carrying a
heavy burden of hatred and animosity in your heart,
while the person you‘re hating on is totally free and
probably doesn‘t even know about the metal weight
you‘re carrying. You need to free yourself by forgiving.
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CHAPTER TEN
The Selfless Man
―There‘s only one rule you need to remember: laugh at

everything and forget everybody else! It sounds
egotistical, but it‘s actually the only cure for self-pity‖
(ANNE FRANK).
There are events that we encounter in life that could

make significant impact in how we see ourselves and how
we relate to others. Sometimes, when your hurt someone,
it might be because you‘re hurt on a subconscious or
conscious level. You might act in certain ways that you
wouldn‘t be sure what made you do that. The truth is,
certain events in your life have shaped you and made you
into who you are today.
Some people have found out that causing pain for

others sets off a good feeling in them; hence they try to do
it repeatedly, even at the expense of another person‘s
comfort.
From a very early age, Sarah had always felt inferior and
disadvantaged. Her parents were drug addicts and never
raised her well. She was molested many times by her
father who was supposed to be taking care of her, not
raping her. Her parents never really got along with each
other, let alone with their daughter. They never showed
her the love she needed; hence she developed a
psychological state of mind that numbs her ability to love,
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yet craving it deeply. She became emotionally distant

from people.
She neither felt accepted nor worthy of acceptance by

anyone—neither did she accept anyone herself. She
became notorious in school for fighting with her
colleagues and bullying those who seemed easily
intimidated by her. Although she needed love, she was
never able to keep a relationship past two weeks.
She had mastered the art of numbing the pain of her

own trauma by causing pain for others too. This seemed
to be the only way she could satisfy her emotional needs.
She never gave herself time to think about her action
before executing them.
When she turned 17, she‘d be sent out of high school

twice for fighting and bullying. She carried a lot of hurt
and resentment toward others on her soul. Through the
years, she found out that her feelings made her make
wrong and regrettable decisions again and again. At 23,
she lost her uncle, who seemed to be the only one that
cared for her.
This made her hate life, herself, and other people even
more. She was hurt. And she hurt others. She hated
herself and hated others, too. She was never happy, and
tried to kill the happiness of others, too.
She constantly reacted to issues that bothered her with

impulse; she never gave a second thought to the idea of
offending other people. Hence, offended people offend
other people.
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The reason for this is insecurity. When you meet people

like Sarah, don‘t be quick to judge them or get offended at
them. Instead, understand them. Sarah feels threatened
and insecure. What she needs isn‘t more threats or more
offence or more hate or anything that threatens her
emotional security.
Sarah needs to be loved, approved of, accepted and

affirmed. She is already going around with a false belief
that she‘s unlovable and unwelcome in anyone‘s life.
She‘s been offended so much it‘s affected her sense of
self-worth. It‘s easy for her to feel shame, insulted and get
offended. Hence, she doesn‘t mind offending people
without caring.
When offended, sometimes, it‘s like being hit below the

belt. Sarah feels hurt on the inside the only way she
believes she can get better is to transfer the same hurt to
others. This might seem to be the solution, but it‘s not.
Of course, controlling, hurting or manipulating others

sort of gives a soothing feeling to people who are hurt and
insecure. But this is just a fleeting feeling of gratification.
It makes you feel good in the present but it ultimately
hurts in the long run.
It‘s like taking pain killers to numb your pain as

opposed to treating the pain itself. You might feel good
momentarily, but it might be too late before you notice
that you just can‘t take it anymore. The feeling of
dissatisfaction and frustration might just make you
realise that you‘ve been making the wrong decision all
this while. But the good news is: You are not your feeling.
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Just because you feel something doesn‘t mean that

feeling is you.
You can learn to live above your feelings and be

strengthened emotionally and respond to events rather
than give an emotional reaction to them.
Selfishness is a thief that steals joy. It brings satisfaction

momentarily, but it steals joy in the long run. The joy,
comfort or self-preservation that we‘re seeking ends up as
a boomerang effect that comes back to haunt us in the
long run.
A wise man once said, ―choose your suffering: The

suffering of discipline or regret.‖ Those who choose the
path of least resistance; the path of self-preservation at
the expense of doing what is right—these people will,
ultimately, end up suffering. This is because life isn‘t lived
by choosing comfort; especially when it‘s based on
irrational or wrong grounds. Life is lived doing the right
things—painful or easy—based on logical reasoning and
right thinking.
Living your life on purpose means choosing not to be

controlled by things that are appealing to the ego. There
are 2 things you don‘t want to be controlled by:
1. Other people
This means letting other people choose your reaction

and press your buttons at will.
2. Your egotistical cravings
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Egotistical cravings are your self-centred inclinations

and desires i.e., comfort, self-preservation, survival
instinct, irrational reflex action, the desire to pull other
people down so you can feel good, the desire to revenge a
wrong doing, etc.
Feelings are Subjective
Most times we want to do something because it feels

good. But the truth about feelings is that they‘re
subjective and baseless. Sometimes, they are very useful,
but they can‘t be trusted. Hence, they aren‘t useful all the
time.
If a man feels like putting off a work that he ought to do

today. And tomorrow he repeats the same. The next day
he does the same again all because he feels lazy. That
man will be wrongfully controlled by his feelings.
However, if he feels afraid while a bullet is careening

towards him in the warfront, that feeling can be lifesaving
because it will help him dodge the bullet. Sometimes, it‘s
even instinctual to dodge that bullet. That‘s a reflex action
that‘s literally saving his life.
If this man decides to let himself to be controlled all the

time by reflex action, he‘ll certainly won‘t be qualify to be
a human—or among humans. Ultimately, he‘ll be
incarcerated because of the havoc that he‘ll caused by
deciding to be controlled by his feelings and reflexes.
Feelings are like moody friends that aren‘t dependable

or trustworthy; especially all the time. One feeling that
normally hunts us when offended is the victim feeling. It
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makes you feel your ego have been pricked and you‘d like
to get back and make things even. This feeling cannot be
trusted.
How about seeing offence as a game that we all must

play while still on earth. You don‘t have to get mad about
everything that happens because afterwards, emotions
calm and your thinking is clear again. But the deal of the
game is this: While emotions are high, we‘ll like to see
how you‘re able to control yourself and constrain your
egotistical craving. It‘s those who are able to master this
that wins with people.
You need to learn how to break the negative cycle of

self-pity. Your feeling of pity is going to make you react
like a wounded animal—you‘ll react like a loser when you
pity yourself too much. In this game of life—the game of
offence—the weak never wins. Be tough.
What you should be after isn‘t emotional responses

that‘s coming from a weakling; you should be after clarity
and truth. So, ask for facts rather than putting up a
sensational display based on your subjective and fickle
feelings.
It’s Your Selfishness
When you‘re selfish, you can only see yourself. In other

words, you‘re blind. You‘re blind to others and even your
thinking is clouded with irrational assumptions and
sentiments. Hence, when you let how you feel determine
how you react, it‘s your selfishness that blinded you and
caused you to act that way, not reality.
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You see, pain is important. It‘s unpleasant; yes, but it‘s

very important. If you‘re offended and your feeling is
unpleasant, the wise thing to do sometimes is to feel
those unpleasant feelings of pain and shame. This is what
they world always run away from, but if feelings are
important and pain is important; then it‘s also important
that we stop being self-centred, prideful people that can‘t
afford to feel offended, but we should choose to feel the
hurt and then we‘ll see the wisdom behind our actions
later—when we‘re less selfish and our minds are clear.
Never say, ―Okay, it‘s my turn to have a bad attitude.‖

Sometimes, we‘ll never be able to recover from the
damage and loss incurred by the unreasonable reactions
that follow our emotion-based actions.
I heard a story of how a woman who was a public figure

went to the restaurant with the husband to eat. On
getting there, they waited for the waiter to come give
them the menu for them to have a glance and decide what
they wanted to eat.
But something happen while they were both waiting for

the menu: A waitress walked across them a poured a cup
of hot coffee on her husband. Of course, her husband was
gentle and didn‘t take offence at what they waitress did to
him.
But she, the public figure was really angry at the

waitress but she didn‘t say anything. She was seething
and even thinking of something she could do to hurt the
waitress. Yet, she kept totally quiet and said nothing.
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Moments later, after they‘d had their meal and were

ready to go, the waitress rushed toward them to apologise
stating that she got nervous when she saw them because
she used to see the woman on TV preaching. She said she
got so nervous around them that she mistakenly poured
the coffee on him.
Then the woman, who is popularly known to be a

preacher began thanking God on her inside saying, ―Oh,
thank God I didn‘t mess up. She already knows me as a
respectable person and I‘m glad I didn‘t disappoint.‖
Patience is the wisdom we need to imbibe in certain

situation. Being eager to do what satisfies our ego is really
not the way to go.
Don’t Take Yourself too Seriously
In life, we have to be serious. But we shouldn‘t take

ourselves seriously. Taking yourself seriously is
tantamount to selfishness and that breeds a lot of trouble.
Taking your life seriously is living of a purpose that serves
to better the lives of people. If you take your life goal and
purpose seriously, you would be living for something
beyond yourself, while placing priority on serving others.
The good thing about taking your life seriously is that

you focus on others, not yourself. Making others feel
valued and important, not just yourself. Rick Joyner
understands this idea when he said, ―If you seek to be
great, you‘re probably self-centred. Your focus, instead,
should be to seek to make others great.‖ In his book,
Leadership —The Power of a Creative Life, Rick Joyner
further comments:
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Those who just seek greatness are self-centred. When the self-
centred and self-important gain influence or power, they become
the tyrants and scourge of history. The self-centred and self-
important inevitably become petty and insignificant. True
greatness only comes when a person concentrates his love and
attention on something beyond himself.
You should take your life seriously but don‘t take

yourself too seriously, otherwise, you'll be a selfish, toxic,
dissatisfied and frustrated person. Apparently, an
arrogant. self-important person becomes un-teachable
and gets offended when you try to let him know what he
doesn‘t. Whereas, a humble person will be a ready
learner. A self-centred person will find it easy to take
things personally. When you find it hard to receive
correction, check it, you‘re probably being too serious
with yourself.
When you take things personally, you become angry.

And anger increases because you only see your side of
things and you can‘t consider another person‘s
perspective. Hence, everything they say and seem to only
corroborate the fact that you‘re right. This is why you
should accord some value to others and consider their
perspective. You should learn to see the other person‘s
side of the situation. When you stop taking yourself too
seriously, it becomes easier to do that.
If you don‘t take yourself seriously, consequently, the

negative opinion of others would drop off you like water
off a duck‘s back because you‘re not in the centre of your
life. Hence, making you less vulnerable and less
susceptible to being hurt by their criticism and wrong
treatment.
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I once saw a photo that stated 7 quick happiness tips:
 Design your life

 Ignore what people say about you
 Look for the goof in every situation
 Develop an attitude of gratitude
 Once it passes, let it go
 Don‘t listen to gossip
 Laugh more
If you check closely, you‘d observe that the central

ideal of these 7 tips is this: Don‘t take yourself too
seriously.
An insecure person that takes his ego or himself too

seriously stores up emotional garbage based on his
selfish, opinionated thoughts and will ultimately respond
like a violent sociopath when his pride is hurt—probably
killing someone. Being ‗me-me‘ is the road to a life of lots
of struggles with people because his thinking about
people will be contaminated and he might even end up
hating people.
Understanding the Road to Hatred
Hatred is a strong emotion—same as love. And hatred

occurs when you have negative thinking—and then
negative feeling—about a person. When you love
someone, you give yourself reasons to love them even if
they‘re not as perfect as you might project them in your
mind. Hence, your opinion about them might just be false
and blown out of proportion—yet you focus on the
positive things about them.
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On the flip side, when you hate someone, it could be

because your thoughts are really biased, sentimental, and
blown out of proportion—in the negative. This negative
thinking about this person could be because they did
something to you which offended you and then, because
of how bad you feel about what happened, you start
storing up thoughts about this person that first makes
you dislike them.
Subsequently, your thoughts lead you to the strong

emotion of hate. At this point, you totally proved to
yourself that this person is hateful. Just imagine, if you
never took yourself too seriously, you wouldn‘t care too
much about what they did to offend you, let alone use
that to judge them and make fallacious assumptions
about them.
The truth is once you harbour hate, you become

susceptible lies and bigotry. And it doesn‘t matter how
intelligent you used to be. Since your mind is clouded
with bias, there is left no room for truth and rational
thinking.
Rise Above Hate
John Cena is a WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment)

superstar that built an empire while wearing an outfit
that wouldn‘t fly on most causal Friday. He is famously
identified with his trademark outfit that featured a T-
shirt and jean shorts.
For a decade, he had achieved great success in WWE by

living the three virtues he preaches — hustle, loyalty and
respect. As he built on his record-breaking career,
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however, he became one of the most polarizing figures in

WWE history. By late 2011, the WWE Universe
highlighted this fact in arenas across the world with
battling chants of ―Let‘s go Cena!‖ and ―Cena Sucks!‖ At
Vengeance that year, the Cenation leader debuted a new
T-shirt that expressed his feelings on the divide among
the WWE Universe.
Highlighting his American pride in red, white and blue

lettering, Cena‘s new shirt featured the phrase ―Rise
Above Hate,‖ and was intended to serve as a creed for
anyone who felt bullied. The Cenation leader encouraged
his fans to live by those words before he faced the
burning hatred of Kane who was another WWE superstar.
In the months before his epic battle with Dwayne ―The

Rock‖ Johnson at WrestleMania XXVIII, Cena was
targeted by The Big Red Monster whose sole mission was
to make Cena ―embrace the hate.‖ Kane taunted the 10-
time WWE Champion, going as far as attacking the
Cenation leader‘s friend, Zack Ryder. No matter how
depraved Kane could be, though, Cena lived by the motto
on his shirt and rose above hate. True to himself as
always, Cena finally overcame The Big Red Monster in an
Ambulance Match at Elimination Chamber 2012.18
Imagine if Cena got negatively impacted by the ―Cena

Sucks‖ chants sung by thousands of people in the
wrestling arena, he wouldn‘t have been clear-headed
enough to face his dreams. Rising above hate isn‘t just
about not taking offence; it‘s also about not letting others
stop you from moving on with your life. Hating others is a
weight too much to carry. It‘ll stop you from living your
188
own life. You become distracted by the hate of other

people. Choose to rise above hate, self-centredness and
pettiness. Don‘t let the pettiness of other people make
you petty.
The Shame of Offence
One reason offence pricks the ego is because of the

shame that it can causes you to feel. But Internationally
renowned psychologist, Albert Ellis in Feeling Better,
Getting Better, Staying Better comments about shame,
―nothing is really shameful.‖ He further explains, ―I
realized that feelings of shame or embarrassment is the
essence of much human disturbance.‖ What he is really
saying is we‘re the ones painting a situation as shameful.
We associate shame with a situation or event, not
necessarily because it‘s shameful but because of our
thinking and perspective about the situation per se. When
you do this Albert Ellis says you‘re disturbing yourself.
How about a little caveat: ―Stop disturbing yourself!‖
Really, you don‘t have to make a big deal out of that

little, sarcastic comment that was said about you. Yes,
when they said those hurtful things to you, it looked like
they were pouring shame on you. However, shame, like
offence, has to be taken. If you don‘t take shame you can‘t
be shamed.
Shame like offence makes you lose your sense of

reasoning; for instance, when you‘re angry, you‘re not
thinking straight anymore, instead, you‘re thinking of
how you can be vindicated. The same goes for shame.
Shame makes you forget everything to focus on how
189
badly you were treated and how you want to settle scores
to compensate for you hurt pride.
Have you ever asked yourself why you get emotional

when you‘re in a tense conversation with someone? Have
you ever tried to explain your innocence and you just
found out that you‘re tearing up? Sometimes, you even
get angry. In essence, your emotions begin to pour out
because you think you‘ve been treated in an unfair
manner. The feeling of shame and self-pity makes you
want to either defend yourself or cry crocodile tears. It‘s
the feeling of shame that makes you emotional and
unreasonable as opposed to staying calm and reasonable.
In essence, you‘re giving too much attention to the

immediate thoughts and feelings you‘re having about the
situation. This makes your mind crowded and clouded
with irrelevant assumptions, conclusions and deductions.
However, when you let the thought remain just a thought
without associating it with any unnecessary conclusion or
giving it any irrelevant label or associating it with any
fallacious assumptions, then you‘ll let the shame pass and
you‘ll be untouched. You can‘t approach life emotionally.
You have to be exact and accurate in how you respond to
events. You ought to choose reason over emotions. Look
for and think in regards to the facts about the situation,
not how you feel about the situation.
There‘s really no shame in being offended; we‘re the

ones that give events the label of shame, which in turn
evokes a shameful feeling that causes a shame-based
reaction. How about thinking like this: ―He said I was a
dummy. That doesn‘t mean anything to me, after all, I
190
know I‘m a very smart person. What‘s more, I don‘t care

what he thinks about me because they have a right to
think whatever they want to think.‖
That‘s how you give yourself power to think for yourself

instead of giving others your thinking power. When you
think for yourself, you feel what you want to feel and you
react the way you ought to. Just because someone thinks
you‘re a dummy doesn‘t mean you should also think, feel
and act like a dummy. When you accept their negative
label, you bring shame on yourself. You must learn to
think for yourself. Don‘t think shame. Think excellence,
awesomeness and beauty. And damn what anybody
thinks.
191
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Planner
―Most of the problems in your life are due to two

reasons: you act without thinking, or think
without acting.‖
Toby is a 15-year-old boy that told the story of how he

acted impulsively and ended up hurting his cousin:
My bother and cousins were walking home from school. Well, my
brother and I were walking and my cousins were on bikes. They kept
circling us and making fun of us because we didn‘t have bikes. One of
my cousins then spits on me. Out of reflex, I blasted her with my
trumpet case and she went flying, landed on the concrete and broke
her arm. I felt awful, it was the first and last time I ever hit a girl.
Here‘s the trap of acting based on impulse or reflexes:

It feels so good when you do it. It feels good, right and it
seems there‘s nothing better in the entire world that you
could‘ve done. But, in the long run, that is always not the
case. We must be people that engage in pleasure while
having a bit of conscience, engage in actions with intent,
speak words with meaning and live lives with purpose.
―I wish I had taken a second to think about what I was

doing‖ are the words of a young man whose girlfriend
died from that fire that he set on her because she cheated
on him. This is why thinking before acting must be
192
emphasized in our world today. And that is what I‘ve

tried to do throughout this book.
The Art of Thinking and Decision Making
This woman was allegedly caught in the act of adultery.

She was yanked from bed and thrown into the street by
the religious men from the temple. She was exposed to
ultimate shame as people from all around look at her with
disdain and gave a smirk look at the thought of such a
shameless woman she was.
The woman was going to be dragged to the outskirts of

the city to be stoned. Capital punishment was the price
for adultery. But before the ultimate punishment—
stoning to death—began, the mob of religious fanatics
that were supposed to execute her decided to stop by to
enquire the opinion of a man they called ―Teacher‖ about
the matter at hand.
Hence, they threw her at the feet of the Teacher and

asked him: ―Teacher, this woman has been caught in
adultery, in the very act. ―Now in the Law Moses
commanded us to stone such women; what then do You
say?‖19
The teacher knew what these men were up to. He was

smart, he knew they wanted to find something to charge
against him so both he and the woman caught in adultery
would be stoned together.20
The Teacher decided he wasn‘t going to rush through

this one. Of course, he being a loving person would never
193
want the woman to be killed, but he also couldn‘t go

against the law otherwise he himself might be killed, too.
He looked at the matter and decided to say nothing but

spend adequate time thinking about what he was going to
say to these blood-thirsty mobs waiting to hear him say
the wrong thing.
He stooped down and began to write with his finger on

the ground. He spent that time doing what we discussed
in chapter 4—waiting and thinking—till he began to
irritate those men with his stoic silence. After constant
pressing by the Pharisees, and the teacher spending
adequate time of thinking, the Teacher stood up and gave
the famous, well-thought out response, ―He who is
without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a
stone at her‖ (v. 7).
His words totally bewildered them. One by one the

woman‘s accusers all left until she was left with the
Teacher. The Teacher asks her where everyone has gone.
When she replies that no one is left to condemn her, the
Teacher indicates he also doesn‘t not condemn her, then
he says, ―Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.‖ (ff.)
The Teacher literally did the impossible. He saved the

woman‘s life while saying nothing against the Law that
instructs her immediate execution. How did he manage?
He was thinking.
One thing a thinking person does is that they consider

the future implications of what they say or do. A thinking
person plans his thoughts and consequently, his actions.
Imagine if he just said something impulsively or based on
194
emotional outburst all in an attempt to save the woman‘s

life. Certainly, he would have achieved the opposite. The
woman would have been killed and he, too wouldn‘t be
spared.
There are some things that could be observed from the

teacher‘s response to those religious fanatics.
- He was a Bossman: He honored and valued the life

of the woman.
- He was a Thinker: The Teacher was considerate;
He was sensible and logical enough to know that
any law that doesn‘t esteem value for human life is
wrong.
- He was a Forgiver: He forgave the woman for her
actions.
- He was a Selfless man: He wasn‘t after his ego. He
was willing to take sides with the shameful
personality.
- He was a Planner: He thought about and was
aware of the implication of his thoughts and
consequences of his action.
All these are derived from being slow to speak;

choosing to think before you respond and everything
we‘ve discussed so far.
Go Higher
The Law that instructed the death of the woman caught

in adultery is one kind of thinking. The Teacher,
popularly known as Jesus, chose not to base his thinking
on what the Law says, instead he based his thinking on
what was the right thing to do for that time.
195
Like Jesus, we must choose to go higher. Most people

aren‘t logical in their approach to life. Many are
sentimental, emotional, irrational and illogical in their
approach to life. Really, when dealing with people, you
must remember that you‘re not dealing with creature who
are mostly honest with themselves. Dale Carnegie opined
that people aren‘t creatures of logic but are creatures of
emotions. Most people are creatures of emotions bristling
with sentiments, personal prejudices, motivated by vanity
and driven by ego.
As a result of this, you must choose to be different;

choose to be logical. Cultivate a habit of thinking things
through. Of course, we cannot do without emotions, but
we can consciously and deliberately accord a logical
approach to how we emote. Tony Robbins comments,
―Take control of your consistent emotions and begin to
consciously and deliberately reshape your daily
experience of life.‖
Taking a conscious decision to control your emotions is

―going higher.‖ Since most people choose to be illogical
and irrationally emotional, you can choose to go higher
by being a logical thinker like the Teacher. Albert
Einstein comments: ―Education isn‘t about learning facts;
rather it is about training the mind to think.
Training Your Mind to Think Right
A man once saw a snake in a fire and decided to pull the

snake out of the fire. But as he reached out his hand to
grab the snake, it bit him and hurt his hand. The man,
while sulking in the pain of a gruesome snake bite,
196
quickly took a stick and used it to pull the snake out of

the fire.
Passers-by noticed this and decided to ask the man why

he chose to save the life of the snake that bit him. He
replied, ―It is the snake‘s nature to bite, while it is my
nature to love. I shouldn‘t let the evil nature of the snake
change my good nature.‖
That‘s the essence of being a man that‘s not controlled

from outside, but from inside. Such a person has got self-
discipline. Self-discipline is self-imposed restraints. This
doesn‘t come from outside. Unlike slaves that aren‘t free
to think for themselves, their discipline and/or restraints
come from outside forces, which is usually by their
owner.
But a thinker is free; he isn‘t a slave. He isn‘t a slave to

the opinion of others. He isn‘t a slave to the wrong
actions of others. He isn‘t a slave to whatever is said or
done from outside. This is the freedom to be who you are.
Freedom is not the right to live as we please, but the

right to find out how we ought to live in order to fulfill
our potential. The measure of a man is in his moral
choices and will power. A thinking person is one that has
chosen to use his will power to do what is morally right.
How to Judge Right Thinking
The first step in right thinking is choosing to restrain

your thoughts. You restrain your thoughts by capturing it
with questions. If you don‘t do this, you‘ll be living
haywire. Imagine if you chose to live without restraining
197
your thoughts. Everything begins to fall out of order and

you wouldn‘t be able to live intentionally like a truly free
man.
Judging your thinking is akin to thinking about what

you‘re thinking about. There‘s no telling how our
thoughts could fly and lead our mind to unpleasant places
if we don‘t learn to capture it quickly.
Ways A Planner Captures His Thoughts:
A Planner is someone that plans his thoughts, words

and action. He calculates the future implications of his
present actions and lives his life fully planned. He plans
everything and is fully aware of everything that he does.
Let‘s consider how a Planner captures his thought.
1. Your feelings aren‘t always dependable. When you

find yourself having a negative feeling about a
situation, you can separate yourself from that
feeling and ask yourself why you‘re feeling that
way: Is this feeling justified? What am I thinking
that‘s making me feel this way?
2. Anytime something happens and a thought comes

to your mind telling you to react by whim, ask
yourself what the end result of your actions could
be?
Every thought has an implication and every action a

consequence. Implications are the product of thoughts
and consequences are the products of actions. What your
thoughts are telling you are implications of your
198
thoughts. The consequences of what is done are results of

one‘s actions.
When your mind tells you to act a certain way, think

and ask yourself about what possible consequences could
be derived from such action. Bad actions lead to bad
consequences, while good actions lead to good
consequences. If the action is bad, sure enough you‘ll
have bad consequences.
3. Is this good for God, people and me? Your priority

shouldn‘t be yourself, but what‘s good for God and
others. This is how mature people think. Life
teaches us that pleasure seeking will end in tears.
4. Ask yourself what people are implying by what

they‘re saying. Afterwards, go a step further to ask
them what they implied by what they said or did.
You need facts and evidences to prove that
whatever you‘re assuming about an event is really
true. You ought to make decisions based on facts,
not assumptions. False assumption breeds
suspicion, cynicism, and even hatred.
Here‘s the story of Nona Jones that explains the

importance of asking people what they imply by their
actions:
Early in my faith walk, I was easily offended by

people and I walked around with a chip the size of Mt.
Rushmore on my shoulder that made me take
anything and everything personally. Until I got so
tired of always being upset about everything that I
199
decided to start asking people why they did what they

did.
And I was always amazed by the answer. They didn‘t

realize they had hurt me. It wasn‘t their intent and
they didn‘t even know I was walking around upset.
It‘s amazing how one‘s perspective shifts when you

get new information. Imagine taking 2 hours to get to
work every day, only to learn that there is a faster
route that takes 30 minutes instead. Only pride (and a
bit of idiocy) would make you continue to travel for 2
hours despite the new information. So, adopt a heart
posture that seeks to validate (or negate) assumptions
about others‘ intentions.
Nona’s Advice:
If we‘re honest, we judge others by their behavior

and judge ourselves by our intentions. But what if we
choose to believe the best about another person until
we validated the worst? What if, instead of taking
offence, we made a call and got clarity?
Your peace is far too valuable to allow assumption

and innuendo to steal your jot. Be mature enough to
ask before you judge. Because you would want the
same of others.21
5. Should I discard this thought? Or use this thought

in my mind? If yes, do they align with the
scriptural rule of what we should think about? This
is Philippians 4:8.
200
The Scriptural Rule—―Think on These Things‖
There are some thoughts that we ought to discard.

Letting your mind muse and think on unwholesome
thoughts for too long will make you carry out the actions
embedded in those thoughts.
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever

things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever
things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever
things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if
there is anything praiseworthy—think on these
things. (Philippians 4:8)
There‘s no telling what results you‘ll get when you allow

certain thoughts to stay in your mind for too long. This is
why we‘re given thoughts to think about, and any thought
we can‘t find harmonizing with the scripture above
should be discarded.
When you imbibe the pattern of thoughts that make you

separate yourself from the masses that live a low level life
based on low level thinking, you would notice a huge
difference in the outcomes of your lives.
―We can‘t solve problems by using the same kind of

thinking that we used when we created the problem‖
(ALBERT EINSTEIN).
When 2 people are thinking on the same low level, then

there‘s going to be a display of immaturity and pettiness
because no one is choosing to be noble; neither of the 2 is
201
choosing to go higher, thinking noble thought that

characterize noble people. Choose to be different.
202
CONCLUSION
―If you plan on being anything less than you are capable
of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of
your life. You will either step forward into growth or
you will step back into safety.‖
(ABRAHAM MASLOW, PSYCHOLOGIST).
Dear reader, we have reached the end of this book. It is

my sincere desire to see you stepping forward into growth
through the principles that you‘ve learnt in this book.
Let this book be your go-to point for wisdom in dealing

with offences and teaching others what they might need
to know when people offend them.
I have been able to write this book based on what I‘ve

observed, researched and discovered about life and
people. I‘ve been concerned, as far back as I can
remember, about the wrong approach I see people take in
handling offences—even adults and respectable
individuals.
However, in over 2 decades of close contact with people

and having to face multiple offences and even getting
offended myself, I‘ve come to discover that I can choose
to be different; I can choose to handle offences the right
way. You can also do the same. Start today!
203
Notes
INTRODUCTION
1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/object_(grammar)
CHAPTER ONE – WHAT IS OFFENCE?

2Luke 6:26
3 Ncib.ccom, ―Feeling Offended: A Blow to Our Image
and Our Social Relationships,‖

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC577632
5/
CHAPTER TWO – THE FACT ABOUT PEOPLE: WHY

PEOPLE OFFEND US
4 How to Win Friends and Influence People (Pg. 1-ff)
CHAPTER FOUR – OFFENCE AND EMOTIONS

5 (Psalm 141: 5, NIV).
61000-Word Philosophy, ―Descartes‘ I think, therefore I
am.‖
https://www.1000wordphilosophy.com/2018/11/26/des
cartes-i-think-therefore-i-am/
7 Exodus 3:14-14.
8 Psychologytoday, ―What Monkeys Teaches us About
Human Behaviour.‖
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.c
om/intl/blog/games-primates-play/201203/what-
monkeys-can-teach-us-about-human-behavior-facts-
fiction%3famp
9Hubpages, ―Why We Get Easily Offended.‖
https://www.hubpages.com/relationships/Why-We-Get-
Easily Offended
CHAPTER FIVE – CHOOSING HOW YOU RESPOND

10 Matthew 5:44
204
11 Proverbs 17:14
12© Dayan Masinde and Akello Oliech. Facebook post
13 Proverbs 12:16, NIV
CHAPTER EIGHT – THE BOSSMAN

14 Proverbs 21:2
CHAPTER NINE – THE FORGIVER

15 Hubpages, ―8 Reasons Why You Should Forgive
Others‖ https://www.hubpages.com/relationships/8-
reasons-why-you-should-forgive-other
16
John 8:7
17 DVRCV, ―Anna‘s story.‖
https://www.dvrcv.org.au/stories/true-stories/stories-
women/annas-story
CHAPTER TEN – THE SELFLESS MAN
WWE, ―John Cena‘s Career in T-shirts.‖

18
www.wwe.com/classics/john-cena-career-in-t-shirts
CHAPTER ELEVEN – THE PLANNER

19 John 8:4-5
20 John 8:6
21 © Nona Jones, Facebook Post.
205

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WHEN

Definitions of Greek words are taken from Strong‘s Exhaustive Concordance.

WHEN PEOPLE OFFEND YOU: PRACTICAL KEYS ON HOW TO HANDLE

Kindle Direct Publishing

1200 12th Ave. S., Suite 1200, Seattle, WA 98144-2734

Copyright © 2020 by Matthew Joseph

MY DAD AND MUM

All your efforts to give me the best possible life is duly

PART I: UNDERSTANDING OFFENCE, EMOTIONS AND THE

1. WHAT IS OFFENCE? ......................................................................... 16

PART II: YOUR APPROACH TOWARD HANDLING OFFENCES AS A

6. THE RATIONAL MAN VS. THE IRRATIONAL MAN ......................... 111

CONCLUSION .............................................................................. 203

This is one of the most thorough and elaborates books on

I will like to recommend this book to everybody that has

I would recommend this book to everyone who is looking

May the Lord bless Matthew Joseph for a great work he

Dr. Sunday Adelaja.

Founder and Senior Pastor, Embassy of God,

People might offend you but you don‘t have to take

What makes people offended is their ego. A Cognitive

We are the pilots of our plane and the captains of our

In reality, we are supposed to quit expecting people to not

and values that will not be compromised no matter what

Through offences, life will test the quality of the strength

There is always a reaction to offence. And that reaction

Offence is a test and what you do with the test

Offence has a causative effect; it never leaves you the

From scriptures, Jesus, as precious as he is to the world,

Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture,

confounded. Unto you therefore which believe he is

We need to develop a different approach toward offence

There‘s really no shame in being offended. Once that is

You don‘t want to remain at the lower plain of life,

above the world like a king where difficulty becomes your

You can‘t legally prevent offence because offence is not

Of course, legally, there are already laws against

This book seeks to brings clarity to these questions and

o Being falsely accused for a crime you never

All these and more are examples of situation that can

Handling offences isn‘t about giving a better or smarter

This book will help you reach a level where people do

Again, everyone will get their fair share of offences.

Being Offended, Getting Offended

It‘s not possible to make anyone offended. They might

Hence, in the history of the world, no one has ever

Understanding the terms ‗subjective‘ and ‗objective‘ will

In linguistic, traditional grammar defines object in a

But in the more general understanding of the word,

Subjective: According to wikitionary, (Philosophy)

Hence, there must be a clear distinction between the

So, Offence is the act of provocation that is done in an

Knowing this gives you the power to choose for yourself.

You might offend someone, hence, we can say that

Again, you can‘t make or get anyone offended; you

The power still remains with them to decide. If you keep

UNDERSTANDING OFFENCE, EMOTIONS AND THE

―Our response to an offence determines our future‖

Offence is a word that was borrowed from old French

 The act of displeasing or affronting.

So anytime you break a law or breach a particular code

expectation of everybody and satisfy their individual

The word ―offence‖ can be represented in a number of