I could hardly contain myself. I’d actually passed
the test?! I still couldn’t believe it. I was sure- no, I was certain I’d
flunked it. I literally screamed into the phone when i called my best friend of
20years to break the news.
“I got it! I got it! I got it! I go....”
“Hello to you too young lady”
I giggled nervously as I waited for her to ask the
million dollar question.
“So what did we get madam?”
“Avinu just called me! I have an interview in a few
days”
“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Are you serious?
But I thought you said...”
“Yeah I
thought I flunked it too, but I guess I didn’t. I could hardly believe it when
the HR chic called me, I was tempted to tell her she made a mistake”
“Hmmmm”
“What?”
“Nothing. You really have to prep for the interview”
“I know. I’m gonna spend the next few days doing research
and...”
“That’s not what I mean”
“oh?”
“Babe this is one of the most coveted positions of
our generation Avinu is not one of the - but THE most desirable employer. You
can’t afford to be anything less than what they expect. Apparently they have an
‘unwritten’ spec of the people they hire.”
“Hmmm”
“I was talking to Valerie from research, you
remember her right? Anyway she said that her cousin applied 3years ago but didn’t
get in because she didn’t meet their specs. Anyway, I’ll come over after work
today and we’ll talk”
As I entered Avinu’s candidate waiting area I could
tell that everyone else had gotten the ‘unwritten spec’ memo. I could even have
sworn that I saw at least 3 other girls wearing outfits identical to mine. There
was however one lady who stood out, she looked like ‘me a few days ago’. She
had on an outfit similar to what I would probably have worn to this interview if
Nnenna hadn’t intervened. I was still musing over her outfit when I got called for
my ‘face to face’.
I could tell from the rapport I had with the head
of the department that it went brilliantly. So imagine my shock when I got the ‘we
are sorry email’. I really thought the job was mine. Even though it wasn’t popular
practice and I fully expected to get brushed off, I went out on a limb and
called the HR Rep, I was surprised that she agreed to speak to me. What she
told me shocked me. Even though I was the most qualified in terms of education
and work experience out of all the candidates they’d interviewed, I didn’t have
the image they were looking for. They wanted someone ‘different’- the lady she
thought I was during my telephone interview, not the member of the ‘unwritten
spec’ posy she met during the ‘face to face’. I whispered a barely audible
thank you as she advised me to apply again in 3years.
*****************
In May 2008 I cut my hair and went natural. I loved
it! It felt like me. Which thinking about it now is strange because all through
secondary school even though I had natural hair, I yearned for the relaxed
tresses everyone else had- because that was the generally accepted perception
of cool and sexy.
I didn’t face any opposition to my choice to go
natural until I moved to Nigeria in 2010. I wasn’t surprised that there was
opposition, what shocked me was its intensity. At a point it became a constant
flow of rejection and criticism. A few people actually asked me if I was ‘SU’,
others implied I wouldn’t find a husband as long as my hair was natural. I began
to dread trips to the saloon because it meant I’d either have to endure people
talking behind my back about the state of my hair or I’d receive a lecture
about why I should relax it. I finally gave in to all the pressure in July 2010
and relaxed it. Since then I’ve harboured secret thoughts of going natural
again.
A few months ago I saw pictures of the friend who
started the natural hair journey with me and WOW! Is all I can say. Her hair
looked wonderful, and I couldn’t help but think that would have been me too if I
hadn’t succumbed to the pressure of changing to suit other peoples idea of how
I should look.
So in August of this year, I cut my hair again. The
criticism is back, if anything it’s worse than before. However, I’m not the
same person I was in 2010. I’ve realised that a lot of those who try to shove
their opinion down my throat actually believe they are doing it for my own
good. They really do not have any ill intention. To them a woman’s glory is her
nicely relaxed hair and her beauty is found in her made up face. This may be
true for some people (and that’s ok for them), but it isn’t true for me.
There have been those who want me more extroverted
while some think I’m too in your face. Some
want me to lose weight; others want me to gain some. It goes a lot further than
my hair, or even my appearance. Everyone has an opinion, but at the end of the
day it’s only Gods opinion that counts.
Imagine you buy a DVD player that in your opinion is
identical to that of a close friend, only to get home and find out that it doesn’t
play any of your DVDs. You call your friend, because well he has an identical
one. Your friend advices you to do all sorts of things that don’t work. You try
all the advice you find on Google. Still nothing works. After about 2 weeks you
decide to check the operator’s manual and you find out that this particular DVD
player was manufactured to play only Indonesian DVDs. When you tell your friend
this, he gives you the contact details of a technician that can ‘fix’ it. You
call the technician. He ‘fixes’ it. But the DVD player stops working within
7months. You call the technician again, who informs you there is nothing he can
do as it’s the side effect of ‘fixing’. He says if you’d contacted the
manufacturer initially they would have been able to help you and you wouldn’t have
to buy a new one, like you have to do now.
Something similar happened to a friend of mine and
got me thinking that as humans this is how we generally behave. We decide
people/ things should be a certain way and try to hammer them into the mould we
have carved out. We don’t ask God- the manufacturer what His intentions are for
them or for ourselves. Usually due to the fear of rejection by others we try to
conform to their blueprint of who they think we should be. The danger with that
is we find it difficult to fulfil the purpose God intended for us. Like the
young lady in the story who followed the well meaning intentioned advice of her
friend and changed her appearance from who she was to who she thought the
company wanted, and ended up having to wait 3years for another chance. A lot of
times people give advice with the very best of intentions, but good intentions don’t
mean God intentions. What God says about you should ALWAYs trump what everyone
else says about you. It’s who God says you are that you are.
I remember a sermon I heard in which the Pastor was
talking about how different he is from his brother. They are both Pastors but
he is by far less out spoken and introverted than his brother- they are almost opposite
both in appearance and personality. Yet are both doing fantastically well in
their various ministries. There is no one size fits all coat that says to be
successful in a chosen field you need to be like everyone else in that field.
We need to be who God made us to be and stop trying
to be someone else. The first step to fulfilling your purpose is to know and be
comfortable with who God says you are- regardless of what the crowd says. Only
God can give you the image of who He has called you to be.
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