By Uchechukwu Ogah
“The Pathology of Innocence” by J.S. Wolfe (great book from a great author) is a must read. It is a memoir of a girl, living as a sensational victim in a hateful, back-stabbing and unforgiving clime. Death became her only gateway to experience love, she thought.
It took a psychopath, a plant, and a dog to teach her the art of dying properly,
but first, she had to surrender everything, including her mind.
One mistake you should therefore, never make is to allow yourself to be recruited just to hate another person who hasn’t wronged you. Character assassination is pervasive and destructive. It is common these days. When you take maximum delight in ruining other’s reputation, it says a lot about you. I can tell a lot about a person by what they choose to see in others.
Again, the book went further to state, “never judge someone’s character based on the words of another. Instead, study the motives behind the words of the person casting the bad judgment. For instance, an honest woman can sell tangerines all day and remain a good person until she dies, but there will always be naysayers who will try to convince you otherwise. Perhaps this woman did not give them something for free, or at a discount. Perhaps too, it could be that some bitter women are envious of her, or that she rejected the advances of some very proud men. Always study the motive behind the words by naysayers.”
Often times, jealousy makes a person to embark on voyage of character assassination and jealousy originates from Limitation. A jealous person sees you as having a gift, skill, charisma, talent, or ability that they don’t have. The mindset of a jealous person is manipulation because they control a group’s wrong perception of you.”
Equally, when people can’t kill your dreams and purpose, they assassinate your character because, (just as a writer penned), there are some people that your spirit will always irritate their demons! Once they realize hating isn’t working, they start telling and spreading lies about you. People are assassinated once but ‘Character Assassination’ kills daily! Character assassination is a form of emotional violence against others.
In conclusion, just as Sijdah Hussain penned: “the saddest thing you can do as a human is to discuss one person with another for the sake of it. The unkindest thing you can do to a human is to tarnish their reputation in front of others just to make yourself look good. An unfortunate thing that you can do to a person is to be unapologetically direct and not understand their side.”
Notwithstanding, the book referred to: The Pathology of Innocence summarizes it this way: “backstabbers and malicious people are not worth your attention but you can thank them for deeming you worthy of theirs.”
Have a great day but refrain from character assassination. It does no good.
*Dr. Ogah is the Hon. Minister of State for Mines and Steel Development.