When they go low, we go high

A friend recently asked me to watch Michelle Obama’s speech at this year’s democratic convention. After what seemed like forever to her, I finally gave in and watched it and guys it was amazing like seriously it was amazing. Please if you haven’t seen it, you need to see it; it is worth all 17 minutes.

There were so many key moments in the speech but none stood out to me as much as this statement “When they go low, we go high”. I am not sure why this stuck or why I was able to relate to it very much but I just do. The more I think about it now, I think it is because as you get older the things of the world do not seem to matter as much.

As usual, I will give you an example when I was younger quite a few things used to bother me. Let’s say I text you and you never text back or I allowed you to use my cooking spoon but you did not return the favor. All these things seemed so shocking to me and this led to many arguments. Fast forward many years later and it isn’t as bad as I thought I can comfortably deal with all these issues without even raising an eyebrow.

But what about the bigger ones, you know the ones that actually leave you speechless sometimes. The ones that make you question everything you thought you knew about the person. How are you able to go high when they go low? How are you able to turn the other cheek when it didn’t feel like a slap but more of an uppercut to your perfect jawline? How do you move forward?

I weirdly found the answer when I was being unfairly treated. It was on my recent trip to Mexico, Mexico is a beautiful country, with some of the loveliest people in the world. I recommend you all visit. So I and my sister were driving trying to get to our destination when we got stopped by the police. Apparently, we were speeding, now before we left we had asked about the speed limit, we were told nobody obeyed the limit and there were no cameras. And the way people were driving, let me just tell you I was the slowest person on the road. But there was this police officer telling me otherwise.

To cut the long story short, we had to tip the police officer to let us go with a warning. Normally I would not condone this but I did not want to be stuck dealing with the Mexican Police, so when in Rome do as the Romans do. As we were about to leave, the police officer in question asked us where we were heading and we found out that we were miles off our destination and gave us the correct directions.

This whole incident left me torn, should I be mad that I was wrongfully stopped and had to part with my precious pesos or should I be grateful that I got the right directions got to my destination and stopped $300 worth of activities go down the drain.

Yeah, I can feel you all being torn. I will help you out a bit remember that say “In every disappointment, there is a blessing in disguise” well I was able to see my blessing. That is probably why I can relate to Michelle’s words, the way I see it is rather than let the attitudes of others bring you low and turn you into something you are not, why not raise above it, look for the blessing in it and go high. Remember in every setback there is an opportunity.