The Flow is Waiting for You – Start Already!

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Recently my assignments have been piling up. Ill health, laziness, plenty of distractions, loss of interest, etc, have gotten in the way of doing the things I ought to do and really wish done. A lot of the pending jobs are very important and some are also urgent. In all honesty, I have lost a lot of zest and enthusiasm.

As my wife complained to me about how the boy is giving her trouble with bathing, it dawned on me what to do to solve my lingering problem. Perhaps you too will be encouraged to pick up the slack that you have. 

You see, to get the boy to get into the bath is usually a big challenge especially if he's busy with his devices or other schemes.

Why do some children not like to bathe? I was a bath hater as a kid too. As I think about it now, I am inclined to believe that a lot of factors contributed:

  • Bathing was the end of play and if you soil your clean clothes after bathing, then ‘yawa go gas on top your head’. (There would be a lot of trouble for you).
  • Bathing meant work; we had to walk from about 500 meters to sometimes over 1 kilometer to fetch water to bath.
  • Bathing was suffering. You either bath cold water or made fire to boil water.

(What was your excuse for resisting bathing? I know say we plenty. Lol) 

But my son has none of those impediments – 'Na just to leave that play waka enter bathroom & take a shower! Yet you go talk tire before him go gree'.

Now the interesting part about this fiasco is that when you eventually succeed to get him into the bathroom to bathe, to peel him out of the bathroom is a bigger wahala.

‘My son you no go farm or do 'Ogu Aja'* work’ his mom would bellow to get him out when she realizes he’s been in there far longer than necessary. (Some mornings she will add that he didn’t do it in his dreams o).

Getting him out of the bathroom wouldn't be a bother if it was a cold shower, or before AEDC (Electricity Company) went crazy with the Bills. Left alone this kid will run down an 80-gallon water heater. But ‘e get how hot water dey sweet for cold morning anyway, abi no be so?'

When I think about how difficult it is to get the boy into the bath and even more difficult to get him out because he’s having a most wonderful time I cannot help but find a correlation about how adults hate to do some meaningful thing but when they get started they often begin to enjoy it.










This morning I resolved to use the same method. Regardless of how I felt initially, I will throw myself into what I need to do. You know the great part of it, the flow started and after a while, I just begin to enjoy the activity – just like the making of this article was. ‘E don tay since I say I go write am, but I no fit just start’. But right now I am almost done & I just love the flow.

When you have work to do, draw up a schedule of when you want to tackle the assignment; determine the how, and then do it. Try to stick to your schedule even if you do not feel like doing it; yeah, even if you have no interest, or you have 'more interesting' things to do.









Ride the flow and see as time ebbs when you engage in worthwhile endeavours.

When you start, you may be shocked at how easy it is to finish the assignment, as it happens on some days with my son. One minute he rushes into the bathroom and the next he’s out. If his Mama confronts him as she oft does when he does his 'sharp sharp runs', he’d reply ‘I didn’t go to the farm, swim in the mud, mummy, or did ‘Ogu Aja work' in my dreams', smiling mischievously.

*Laborious work of digging the ground.

Pix Credits: https://www.redbubble.com/i/canvas-print/Go-with-the-flow-by-theArtoflOve/9388111.5Y5V7; https://dropofcompassion.org/cause/water-wheel/children-carrying-water-on-their-head/

 

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