Before you break a leg… By Laju Arenyeka

You’re passing through the verandah of a classroom, and you recognize a uniform. When you look closely enough, the face comes to you. It’s the cleaning staff that took out your trash yesterday now solving a major physics problem on the board.

from the author's view...

Stunned, you look at the rest of the class. Sitting in the audience are renowned professors that you know well, taking notes like their lives depend on it. Just then, you hear your phone ring. But suddenly you realize that it isn’t your phone ringing. It’s your shoe. When you pick it up, it’s your two year old son asking you to check the stock market report so that he can decide what stocks to buy or sell. He reminds you to pick his father up from the Montessori. You try to pinch yourself to wake up from the night mare but it’s your skin that pinches your fingers and not the other way round.

The scenario above just represents many people and things playing the wrong roles.
I don’t think Shakespeare knew how close he came to the truth when he said: “The whole world’s a stage and men and women merely actors”. Or perhaps he did. But the thing is everyone plays different roles every day. The same person who gets teary eyed when she sees her son take his first steps is the devil that wears ‘Prada’ in the office. It’s so weird that sometimes if you didn’t know yourself well enough, you would think you were pretending. The important thing is to understanding the roles that we are to play in the lives of the different people we interact with every day.

Many of the problems this world faces are simply as a result of “role misunderstanding”. Hitler thought of himself as God and of the Jews as dogs. Gay and lesbian issues exist because some women think of themselves as men and some men think they are women. Seriously, why are people considered mad? It’s because they think of themselves in roles that aren’t theirs. Pretty extreme huh? Don’t worry. I’ll bet you’ll find something that pertains you soon enough.

Simply nod your head if you agree.

Have you ever mistaken a friend for a future spouse? Or a future spouse for a sister? Ever thought of someone who was supposed to be a brother as a boy friend? Ever mistaken a mentor for a protégée? How did that turn out? Let me guess: heart breaks and broken relationships? Even when the relationships are mended, people are most times too hurt to play the original roles that they should have. Tell me about it. Or rather let me tell you. 

If you let the right people play the wrong roles in your life, things will definitely go wrong and everyone involved would be affected. When you play the wrong role, the script, the action, the cues - everything goes wrong. Like square pegs in round holes, life gets so complicated when we mismatch our roles. Playing the wrong character in the script spoils our relationships for good. Most of the time, even after we get our lines right, we may never have the chance to repeat the scenes on stage.
It is necessary to ask ourselves why this is so.

One of the reasons may be that we seek to replace the characters that seem to be missing in our lives. For a child growing up without a father, the closest available person may be the perfect candidate. If that person fails to live up to expectation, he spoils the picture of a father for that child. Maybe the “father candidate” would have been perfect for another role. For a woman looking for a husband, the next unattached man is Mr. Right. When things don’t work out, she’s frustrated, the guy is frustrated and the original Mr. Right doesn’t stand a chance. A widow with an only son may treat him a lot like the husband she lost. This doesn’t mean that every problem you have in your relationship with others is because the people are all wrong for you. That may be the case, but it isn’t always so. After understanding roles, you still need to take responsibility and work on your relationships with people.
I’m not saying that the next person that walks through the door cannot be your husband. I’m just asking you to exercise a lot of patience, take your time and find out. When someone new comes into your life, in all your excitement, pray about it.

Be sensitive enough to figure out the role both of you have to play in each other’s lives no matter how little or how big. Even if you don’t understand the person’s role all at once, don’t be aloof, cold and distant. As you make up your mind to define every relationship in love, treat everyone with respect, as you want to be treated. So that whether they turn out to be driver, director or darling, you’ll have no regrets. Review your existing relationships. Are you being a brother or sister to your siblings or merely just a housemate?

Just remember that the stage of the world would be less tragic if we took time to read the script and play our roles right.