From ‘Waka Pass’ to ‘Run Along’

In the social media age, it is easy for people to hide behind the screen whilst saying and doing things they wouldn’t normally do or feel comfortable doing in real life. Rather than keep quiet, people vent our their frustrations and share ill-thought opinions with many being very vindictive to the point of toxicity.

I love how some people fight back by simply not playing along and bringing themselves to the levels of their accusers.

Recently I saw an Instagram post from a local coffee shop posting a harsh review from a customer who chose to compare them with another shop and accusing them of copying it. Rather than respond to her harshly, they shared her response on their page and thanked her for her feedback; they also made sure to let her know they would continue to be their authentic self.

Of course, this garnered a lot of attention and support for them which I am sure wasn’t the intention of their critic.

Another incident followed with a popular UK author being criticised by a reader for her book being about what the title suggested. Again this publisher posted the harsh review with many of her supporters joking about what else the reader expected.

A third incident happened to a chef I know whose restaurant sent a reminder of a reservation to a potential diner who chose to send an abusive response to them. His response was shared as a reminder of what some people appear to enjoy doing and how bullish behaviour is some people’s default setting. They cancelled the diner’s reservation as a proof they were not desperate for his business and would not stoop low enough to put up with his bullish behaviour.

Growing up in Nigeria, I remember being constantly told ‘words are raw eggs’. Once egg shells are broken they can’t be put back together again and in the same way, spoken words can’t be unspoken or unheard. You can take it back all you want but no one is fooled that words are truly taken back in the same way that we know broken eggs can’t be unbroken.

This brings back a popular phrase in Nigeria which says, ‘waka pass’ which can mean a lot of things but one of the simpler meanings is simply to walk by and let things be. A very British way to put it is to say, ‘run along’.

If you’ve got nothing good to say, run along or waka pass. Go on and mind a business of your own rather than subject the world to something vile, rude or unwelcome. The world can do without many offered opinions or shared posts.

It doesn’t cost much to play nice or play dead by letting certain things be. Just because you are protected behind a screen, you don’t have the right to be abusive towards others. Things are already hard enough for most people to then end up being on the receiving end of the wrong kind of words.

We can learn to offer compliments rather than harsh criticisms and we can disagree with others without being disagreeable. We can offer a different opinion or advise without destroying bridges and above all, we must learn to put ourselves in the shoes of the intended recipients of our written or spoken words.

‘Waka pass’ or ‘run along’ must be part of the mantras that we use to let things slide. There are far too many who have an opinion on matters they know nothing about, never having being in someone else’s shoes. And many times we don’t have the full picture of situations that we want to wade in to or debates we wade in on.

It’s time to live and let others live, hold back our tongues when we feel like lashing out in anger and it’s time to think about the impact of our words on others. Stop hiding behind your gadgets as your words remain a true representation of who you are even when your identity is hidden.

Thanks for reading my post and sharing it with others. Knowledge is best when shared to make a difference in people’s lives. See you next week.