By Nyariay Kic
A story is told of a hustling single mother and a son. One normal evening, at the neighborhood’s playground, the seven-year-old son, along with his friends, was cycling.
As dusk approached, this son took off with one of his friend’s bicycles. The next morning his mother was awakened by a thunderous door knock. “Who is this troubling me so early?” She furiously questioned while heading to the door. “Misses Williams, what brings you here so early?” “Your son took something that wasn’t his last night.” In shame, she apologized, and being a hustling single mother, her son was pardoned. “Its fine, you can keep the bicycle too,” Misses Williams added in pity. The son was watching from a distance; immediately the door was shut, and he earnestly ran to his mother in tears, requesting forgiveness. “It is okay, son,” his mother comforted.
When he joined middle school, he was expelled for sneaking into the printing room with the intention of getting his hands on the exam paper when all the staff was off for a lunch break. After a thorough investigation by the principal, his mother was asked to come. In despair she pleaded once again, being a hardworking single parent; the principal pardoned her son, and the expulsion was instead lifted into a two-week suspension. When they arrived home, the son apologized, “It is okay, son. Everybody makes mistakes,” she concluded.
At the age of 19, he was jailed. When he was asked for his last wish before persecution in prison. He said, “I wish my mother never neglected my first crime. Every time I committed a crime, she would tell me it was okay, yet it never was! Otherwise, I would not be sitting in a queue waiting to be persecuted for a murder and a bank robbery.”
What do we learn? “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” the Bible warns. However, on an individual level, what moral lesson can you grasp here? What are you ignorant about in your life? Wait, is it even ignorance? Or perhaps negligence? Perfect! It is negligence, neglecting what seems to be subtle yet profound. If we could only take seriously every aspect of our lives, only then could we prevent misfortunes and also stop blaming the situations we are in, but work to revoke any negative standing circumstances. Go out on an adventure, Generation Z and Alpha; take keen note of every opportunity, because, in the end, it’s worth it in the journey towards progress.
When I mention progress, I think of our beloved motherland, South Sudan. Perhaps as a young nation saying no to negligence for progress, one of us wouldn’t have drained the well because they weren’t thirsty or stirred the air with bullets to eliminate one of us. Violence comes from failure to act with the prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the same circumstance: negligence!