Proverbial #8: Evil communications corrupt good manners

Welcome to my blog fellow steemians!

Today, I will be looking at another African proverb on the importance of picking friends rather than making friends. This is a Yoruba (a tribe in Nigeria) proverb that says: Aguntan to ba baja rin a jegbe. Literally, it means a sheep that mingles with dogs will eat faeces. To translate it, it means if you move with the wrong set of people, you will end up acting like them.

Parenting is one big task that not many parents adequately understand. I have read some articles on Steemit about what good parenting is all about. What I ask myself is, is there any modus operandi on how parenting should be?

Some parents will agree with me that it takes God’s grace to adequately train a kid. No matter how lucky you were to be trained by good parents, nothing says you will be a good parent to your children.

It is important to always use examples and sometimes experiences to teach kids about certain things they need to know and those they need to do away from.

As kids, I had funny ‘friends’ then. Funny friends because all the supposed ‘bad’ things are things they want to try out. If you try to say anything contrary to what they think is right, they will tag you ‘local’ or someone that does not know what is in vogue.

When I was in Secondary school, a friend came to school with alcohol. He brought out the alcohol when we were on our way home. He opened it and everybody started sipping it. I was wondering what it was but for him to have hid it in his bag, it means it is not a good thing so I quickly walk away from them.

That is how some people got influenced. This is why Yoruba people believe that evil communications corrupt good manners. We can be influenced. No matter how we try, whether consciously or unconsciously, we are often influenced by some things.

The best we can do is to pick positive influences and do away from the negative ones. It is also possible not to know which one is good or bad but we know that stealing is bad and an act humility is good. We can let this guide us.

Since we know that alcoholism is an illness and smoking is also dangerous, we can try doing away from them by not keeping friends that do these things. We should rather pick friends that think about future, friends that challenge us, that always make us feel we are in a race to succeed by all positive means. 

So in all you do, pick friends, don’t make friends. Try to look for good qualities in people before calling them your friends because a friend can help or kill.

Thanks for reading. Your boy @smyle the philosopher.

Image is mine