Saving Today with Yesterday
Earlier today, a friend of mine had told me a story of how he sat outside last night with a lady who had just recently moved into our hostel. He seemed excited by the fact that the lady had been cool and a bit chatty with him so he had asked her why he barely sees her around even though it's been more than two weeks she moved in.
The lady had replied that she's mostly indoors pressing her phone because she has no friends here and no one to talk to if she came outside which is true because she's new here, but my friend had advised her that the only way she could make friends is if she comes to sit outside (where we all normally sit during the evening) so that everyone can socialize with her.
He also told her that one of the benefits of being known in your hostel is that if you find yourself in trouble outside tomorrow, someone from your hostel could see you and come to your rescue because they know you or because you look familiar to them. All of these things he told her made a lot of sense and it just made me remember the conversation I had with one of my friends when I first gained admission into the university.
Sometimes, giving to strangers, even people you see as dangerous or bad might help you in the future because there are some people who are bad guys or girls, but they never forget a good deed.
You see, if there's one thing higher institutions are being known for over here, it's cultism. A lot of students come here and end up joining one bad gang or another, either for protection or just so that they can oppress others by forcefully taking something that belongs to them.
Well luckily for me, the cultism in my school is kinda on the low so we barely have any form of encounter with them, but one thing we do experience though is some bad guys forcefully taking what belongs to other people from them. Though I've never had a personal encounter with any of them before.
There's this one guy in my area who everyone seems to have a bad story about except for me. And I've always wondered why I've never really had any experience with the dude until I remembered that there was a day (during the time when I newly got admitted in the university), there had been this one time he met me at a store and had asked if I could help him pay for some cigarettes he had bought, without even thinking twice, I told him it wasn't a problem and had paid for it. Ever since that day, whenever he sees me coming, he would nod his head, kinda like a silent greeting and I would do the same and walk past him.
And that is why I've never had an issue with him. When I was paying for that cigarette, if someone had told me that I was paying for something way more than cigarettes, I probably wouldn't have believed them but just because of that single act I did, I had indirectly gotten myself a life time of not being robbed or bullied by him or any his friends.
What I did yesterday saved me today.