Red flags and Green Lights
The third verse of Proverbs 22 says that ‘a sensible person sees danger and takes cover, but the inexperienced keep going and are punished’ (Christian Standard Bible). I read this verse and think to myself — Story of my life.
It is perhaps the story of all our lives. How many times have you seen red flags and yet press on ? How many times have you been attracted to someone or drawn to a thing or habit that was clearly bad for you ? How many times have you beaten yourself for what you later admitted was poor judgement ? If you are like me, your answer is probably — too many times and you’ve lost count.
So clearly this is something we all do. It could be toxic relationships that are obviously not good for us yet we stay in them; a bad habit like junk food that puts our health at risk; Covidiot tendencies like ignoring social distancing despite several warnings not to, or just simply running the red light at a traffic spot thereby risk being trapped by hungry LASTMA men. We see a red flag but our brain also gives us a green light that says do it anyway. Its not like we like making mistakes but yet we make poor judgement, sometimes over and over again. The question is why?
I think the place to start is to first understand how attraction works. For example, why do men love bad bitches ? Attraction i believe works on the premise of benefit or the potential of it. So when you find yourself attracted to something or someone, it is usually because there is something in that person or thing that you can get some sort of benefit from, now or in the future. In other words, there is something good about that thing and that is what draws you to it. So a bad bitch is a freaky-freaky that is doing well! She might have a nasty attitude but she is still a freaky-freaky and a part of you wants to freaky her up. So, you slide into the DM!
Let me paint a different scenario . Imagine that you find a treasure map that directs you to a place where a cool million dollars is waiting for anyone who can find it. So you get into your car, put the address on google maps and off you go. Then you reach this junction where the traffic light is on red. So you stop for a while, you look at the map and see that you are almost there. 60 seconds later, the light is now on green but just before you press the throttle, you see a little sign that says ‘fatal ditch ahead, please turn back’ — green light red flag. There are no alternative routes! What do you do? (This is where you pause and think :)
First you can’t see the ditch yet, only this unfortunate sign that is trying to prevent you from being rich; second the traffic light has given you permission to drive on; third, if you don’t go for the million bucks, who will? We can’t just let it waste there. Or can we? Surely God won’t be pleased with us if we do. After all, souls are perishing and we can use a million bucks to do a lot of good at such a time as this!
Naturally, you just might go ahead. I think most of us do so in hope that we will get to the million bucks before we reach the ditch, that we will be able to make a u-turn just before it kills us. We do so hoping that we will survive the consequences of our bad actions. The promise of a million dollars will always try to hide/suppress our fear of a ditch ahead
Attraction i believe works on the premise of benefit or the potential of it
To conclude, i think the thing is that most things that are bad for us are not completely bad in themselves. Junk food is also tasty and convenient to get; the toxic guy is also good looking and rich; doing 180Km/hr on Lekki-Epe is as thrilling as thrills can get! It is not the bad in these things that draws us to them, it is the good(or promise of it) ; its not that we don’t see the red flags, only that we ignore them because of how bright the green light is. Sometimes we get lucky and escape the consequences (which sometimes reinforces our tendencies to make bad judgement in future cases), sometimes we don’t.
A sensible person sees danger and takes cover, but the inexperienced keep going and are punished.
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Please let me know what are your thoughts on this. Do you have any experience that I and others can learn from? Do share in the comment section below. Also like and share this article with other people.
I look forward to your feedback. Cheers
