A young man once caught a river current in a clay pot.
Oh, such a beautiful thing. He would show it to visitors. "See my river," he would say proudly. And people would come and marvel.
But a river is not made for clay pots. A river is made for mountains, valleys, and the sea.
So slowly, quietly, the river began doing what rivers do. Pressing, pushing and testing the walls.
The young man noticed small cracks forming on the surface. He would patch them and smile. "My river is just restless today."
His old uncle, INALEGWU, visited one afternoon, looked at the pot, and said nothing for a long time.
Then he spoke.
"Nephew, the river is not angry at you. The river doesn't even know you exist. The river is simply remembering what it is."
The young man laughed. "But uncle, I feed it daily na. I have cared for it for years."
The old man picked up his walking stick to leave and said:
"That is the most dangerous part. You have confused gratitude with domestication. The river did not choose you. You chose the river. And the day it remembers its nature fully, no amount of care will stop it from becoming what it was always meant to be."
The young man patched the cracks again that evening.
By morning, the pot had burst.
The forest does not forget its animals, and no matter how long a lion sleeps in your parlour, the jungle is always dreaming through its eyes.
Story don....
INALEGWU.
A man can be deeply in love with you and still walk away without looking back. Why? Because to a sensible man, peace is more valuable than love.
People hate hearing this. They want to believe that if a man loves you, he will endure your chaos forever. That is a lie.
Take the story of David and Simi.
David was a perfect definition of real man.
He was the kind of man who did not just date you, he upgraded you. When he met Simi, she was struggling with her final year project and battling depression. David stepped in. He paid for the research, he stayed up nights proofreading her work, and he got her a job at his friend’s firm after graduation.
David loved Simi with a quiet, intense fire and was planning to propose in April.
But Simi had a problem. Simi believed that a peaceful relationship was boring. She grew up watching toxic movies where passion meant fighting, screaming, and breaking things, only to have makeup sex later. To Simi, David’s calmness looked like weakness.
She started testing him. She would pick fights just to see if he would yell. She would threaten to break up just to see if he would beg. Every time she acted crazy, David would calmly apologize, hold her, and reassure her. She told her friends she had him wrapped around her finger and he could not leave her because he loved her too much.
It happened on the night of David’s biggest career achievement. He was receiving an award at a gala in Victoria Island. All his investors were there. David asked Simi to be ready by 6 PM. Simi decided to test him again. She wanted to see if he would wait for her. She did not start dressing until 7 PM. She ignored his calls. When David finally came to pick her up, he was sweating, anxious, and late.
Instead of apologizing, Simi flared up. She asked him why he was rushing her and if the award was more important than her. She screamed that if he wanted to go, he should go. She expected him to beg. She expected him to say No baby, you are my world.
Instead, David looked at the time. He looked at her, sitting on the bed in her robe, scrolling on TikTok while he stood in his tuxedo. The light in his eyes went out. He wanted to argue but paused and He simply said Okay.
He turned around, walked out of the apartment he paid for, got in his car, and drove to the gala alone.
Simi was shocked. She called him 50 times that night. No answer. She sent texts saying she hated him, then she sent texts saying she was leaving, then she sent texts saying she was sorry. Silence.
The next morning, she woke up to a credit alert. David had sent her two million naira. The narration on the transfer readforr your rent and upkeep. Take care of yourself. She rushed to his house, but the gatekeeper told her Oga had traveled. She called his friends, and they told her to let him go.
Simi spent six months waiting for him to come back. She told everyone he loved her and he would come back because they had a bond. But this time, David was done.
One year later, Simi saw pictures of David’s wedding on Instagram. He married a lady who was not as pretty as Simi. She was not as fashionable. But in every picture, David looked rested. He looked like a man who could finally sleep with both eyes closed.
Simi fell to her knees in her room. She realized too late that she had treated a husband like a fan. She thought his endurance was infinite. She did not know that a man’s tolerance has a breaking point, and once it snaps, not even God can glue it back together.
Do not mistake a man’s patience for stupidity.
I am reminded of the famous words of her Lordship, Honourable Chief Justice Odogwu Nwanyi @Odogwunwanyii J.S.C, in the landmark case of X vs Ebube Livinus, where she stated thus:
"Asking a stranger to bankroll you for a first date is wrong. While you’re out here monetizing mediocrity and calling it feminism, some of us have jobs, self-respect, and the ability to call an Uber without starting a GoFundMe.
I’d take you more seriously, but it’s hard to respect financial advice from someone who needs a sponsor just to leave her house."