When Two Elephants Fight: How Not to Be the Grass That Suffers

Cornelius NdubuisiLeave a comment
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We’ve all heard the proverb: “When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”

It’s poetic, but painfully true. Whether in politics, workplaces, marriages, communities, or even church groups, the real casualties are usually the bystanders, the people with the least power, the workers, the ordinary citizens, and the well-meaning friends.

But what if the “grass” refused to be helpless?

What if, instead of being trampled, the grass learned to reposition, reinforce, or even remove itself before the stampede begins?

But the grass can’t move. Yes, literally, the grass is transfixed and can’t help but be trapped, the idea is to think differently beyond the immovable grass and learn how not to be collateral damage in other people’s battles:

1. Know When The Fight Is Not Yours

It’s not always your business. The first rule of surviving elephant battles is recognising that not every conflict requires your participation.

In many workplaces, team members get dragged into the ego wars of senior leaders. Suddenly, someone is forced to “choose sides.” That’s exactly how grass gets crushed.

What To Do:

Become professionally neutral. 

It is easier said than done when you’re caught between your COO and CEO’s “display of authority” but if you fall into that trap of picking one side, you set yourself up for life.

Why?

The person you went against will have it out for you one way or the other. The person you went with may not even care about you that much and was only in need of a representative office pawn to prove a point. 

You’ll need to learn diplomatic tact. Support policies, not personalities. Let your reputation be built on competence, not alliances.

2. Stay On The Edges, Not The Centre

When big forces are clashing, impact is highest at the centre. In political seasons, for example, citizens get emotionally invested in rivalries that they cannot control. Meanwhile, the actual political actors shake hands after elections and move on, while ordinary people are the ones left with fractured friendships and bitterness.

What To Do:

Maintain emotional distance. The unraveling of hate during political turbulence is a case study of grasses getting between something that was not theirs to get into in the first place. Aspirants plant disturbances in the form of people and soon, friends of 20 years are mad at each other so much so they can’t repair the bond even after all is done.

No one is asking you not to care but you have to care without carrying fire for anyone. Air your views. Defend your opinions. Cast your vote and at the end of the day, no matter how the tides flow, you learn to live in peace.

3. Build An Identity Stronger Than Any System

Grass suffers because it is rooted in one spot. Elephants, on the other hand, roam. If your livelihood, status, or confidence depends on one boss, one political party, one organisation, or one relationship, you have placed yourself directly under the feet of elephants.

What To Do:

Diversify your identity: skills, networks, mentors, and opportunities. Be flexible enough to move. Many people lose promotions because their direct supervisor is clashing with upper management. They themselves are excellent, but their identity is tied to the wrong champion.

4. Learn Early Detection; Elephants Don’t Start Fighting Suddenly

Before elephants clash, the ground already begins to vibrate. In organisations you’ll notice it: at first it could be mild tension between the two heads. Not having the same coffee stand, refusing to attend each other’s stand up, rebuffing ideas flagrantly, closed-down meetings, etc. The actual tussle you witness is the culmination of the tension not the start of it.

What To Do:

Develop political emotional intelligence. Learn to observe power shifts, pay attention to mood, and prepare alternatives before conflict goes public.

This is what agile grass does: it bends before the storm, not during it.

5. Don’t Inherit Other People’s Enemies

One of the quickest ways to become trampled is to inherit the quarrels of people who will forget you tomorrow. Imagine this:

A colleague becomes hostile to you because their friend has an issue with you, an issue you aren’t even aware of. Or in families, siblings inherit grudges their parents had with relatives from 20 years ago.

Does it make sense? There are cases in our personal lives where the enmity is inherited because of the ghastly nature of what was done, but in the professional context, you need to watch how you bear the brunt of what is otherwise none of your business.

What To Do:

Respect everyone. Treat everyone with your own eyes, not someone else’s lens. You owe loyalty, but you don’t owe inherited hostility. If you decide to be hostile, let it be based on your convictions and findings not on hearsay, themsay, shesaid, theythought.

6. Choose Your Elephant Wisely

Sometimes you cannot avoid being connected to someone powerful. If you must align, choose wisely.

Young professionals often attach themselves to charismatic but controversial managers. When the manager eventually gets into trouble, their entire “camp” falls with them.

What To Do:

Align with people of integrity. They may not necessarily be the loudest or most influential, but the fairest.

7. Create Your Own Escape Routes

Grass suffers because it has no exit strategy. People, on the other hand, can create options.

If senior leaders are fighting and your department becomes ground zero, begin preparing: update your CV, strengthen your portfolio, expand your network. This isn’t you being disloyal, it’s having common sense. If the quarrel lightens up and some of you get to stay, that’s great. If you happen to be part of the some, even better. But in worst case scenarios, the last thing you need is to wake up one Monday morning and find yourself jobless because two people just couldn’t get along.

8. Never Let Fear Make You Still

Frozen grass gets crushed first.

Movement is your greatest protection. If politics at work gets hot, become more visible for your competence, not your opinion.

If chaos rises in society, stay informed and proactive.

What To Do:

Learn to adapt. To pivot. To flow with the tide. There are times when staying at a place is the best option and times when it’s not. 

9. Grow Thicker Not Harder

There’s a difference between the two. Growing harder makes you brittle. It means you stop trusting, become cynical, withdraw from people.

Growing thicker means you become emotionally resilient without losing your softness.

What To Do:

Stay compassionate, stay open, but protect your peace. Thick grass bends but doesn’t break.

Elephants Will Stop Fighting, But The Grass Must Live On

Elephants fight, and reconcile tomorrow. But the grass that got crushed doesn’t magically spring back. Your long-term well-being is more important than temporary peacekeeping. Don’t sacrifice your future on the altar of other people’s wars.

Yes, elephants will always fight. Politicians, bosses, family members, influencers, even nations have a propensity together into it at times.

But the grass does not have to be passive. You can be a wise grass: aware, strategic, emotionally intelligent, and mobile.

Because the truth is this:

Survival is not just for the strong. It is for the aware.

The Burden of Discretion

Cornelius NdubuisiLeave a comment
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We live in a world where the walls between the personal and the public have become astonishingly thin.

The social media age has created an environment where information, those true or false, noble or ignoble, travels at the speed of desire not fact.

People share, forward, forward multiple times, screenshot, and upload with little thought for consequence.

In a culture increasingly shaped by individualism and competition, information has become a currency. And like all currencies, it can be traded, weaponised, or squandered.

Yet beneath the glitter of curated feeds and polished appearances lies an uncomfortable truth about the human condition: we are all fragile, contradictory creatures. Every one of us carries private failures, hidden struggles, and stories we would rather not have shouted from rooftops. 

We often use the “skeletons in the cupboard” adage, and in reality, that’s the human reality.

The difference between the exposed and the unexposed often boils down to who was in the room, who held the camera, who had access, and, crucially, who exercised restraint.

This is where the burden of discretion emerges. 

What is discretion?

Discretion is not merely the act of keeping quiet. It is the discerning ability to know what to share or not share about what we know or in many cases, do not know.

  • It is the grace of protecting others even when exposing them might benefit us. 
  • It is the recognition that privileged access to someone’s personal life is not a right but a trust.
  • Whether in the workplace, in friendships, within families, or in positions of leadership, discretion is an essential ethic.

In the Career Space

Many professionals today handle sensitive information like financial details, confidential memos, internal conflicts, and even personal matters colleagues unknowingly let slip during stressful seasons.

Some people stumble upon a coworker’s mistake, overhear a conversation not meant for them, or witness a moment of vulnerability.

The easy path is to leverage such knowledge for advantage: to gossip upward, score points, or thwart their growth on the corporate ladder.

But the burden of discretion calls for something higher. It invites professionals to be guardians of dignity. To understand that a colleague’s unguarded moment is not a stepping stone.

It’s not your “one opportunity” to get back at them if they have been in your bad books. Sure, leveraging the information may favour you, but it speaks poorly to your quantity as a person and the weight of your trait. 

In the Family and Community

Our most intimate relationships grant us VIP access to the unedited parts of people’s lives, their fears, flaws, tempers, anxieties, emotional wounds. Families, friendships, and close-knit communities thrive when discretion is exercised with maturity.

Speaking carelessly about a sibling’s past, sharing a partner’s weakness in public, or revealing a friend’s private struggle to score humour points may seem trivial, but it erodes emotional safety.

“It was only a joke” is not an excuse to ridicule another irrespective of the bond.

“But it was funny.” Funny to you, not them. It may be funny when they discuss it with you, because it’s you, but sharing that intimacy with people they don’t know or care about is gutter behaviour.

Healthy families and communities understand that love is partly expressed through silence, the type that protects, not the type that conceals wrongdoing.

The burden of discretion does not mean covering evil; rather, it guards the humanity of those who are imperfect but trying, flawed but growing.

In Positions of Trust

Clergy, counsellors, employers, mentors, and leaders of all sorts often stand at the crossroads of extraordinary personal confessions. People entrust them with their raw truths, which are sometimes messy, sometimes painful.

These truths can be mishandled, sensationalised, or retold as personal trophies. But to do so is to betray the very heart of leadership. True leadership understands the sacredness of private information.

Discretion is silence in the service of human dignity. It is the posture that says: I will not weaponise what was shared in vulnerability.

The Positive Call

In the end, the burden of discretion is not a weight but a gift, a gift we offer others, and a gift we hope others will offer us.

It is an act of compassion in a world hungry for scandal. It is a discipline of love in a culture saturated with exposure.

It is a strength that allows relationships, careers, and communities to flourish because people feel safe to be human.

We cannot stop the world from being noisy, competitive, or invasive. But we can choose who we become within it. And perhaps the most countercultural choice we can make today is this: to be trustworthy custodians of the things we see, hear, know, and hold.

How to Read More (and Better) in a Busy, Scattered, ADHD-Driven World

Cornelius NdubuisiLeave a comment
Source: Canva

We live in an age where attention is the new poverty. A world of endless tabs, endless notifications, endless opinions, endless noise. Reading, deep, meaningful, nourishing reading, has become a luxury skill. Not because books are scarce, but because attention is.

Yet reading remains one of the few habits that can expand your mind, deepen your thinking, sharpen your identity, and give you an inner life strong enough to resist the chaos around you.

But most advice on reading is predictable and painfully unhelpful: 

  • set goals
  • schedule time
  • buy books
  • join a book club 

Lovely. But insufficient in a world engineered to splinter your focus. 

To read in today’s society, you need strategies that are rebelliously different. 

And here are some of those strategies to help you read more, and read better, when the world is exhausting your mind.

1. Stop Reading For Quantity; Read For Identity

People try to read more by chasing numbers: 20 books a year, 50 books, 100 books. It backfires, because numbers create anxiety, not depth.

Try this instead:

  • Read as a way to become someone you’re proud of.
  • Identity fuels discipline in a way goals never can.

Say to yourself:

“I am the kind of person who reads.”

2. Have Two Books: One For Your Brain And One For Your Mood

ADHD tendencies make it hard to stick with one book consistently. So work with your psychology, not against it.

Choose:

  • A deep book for when your mind is calm, and
  • An easy book for when your brain is noisy.

Switching strategically keeps you reading, even on days when mental fog tries to sabotage you.

3. Read Before Your Phone Wakes Up

Your phone wakes up earlier than you do, and the moment you touch it, your attention belongs to the world.

Try this

  • Read something before your first digital interaction of the day.
  • Even 2–5 minutes rewires your brain. Consistency beats duration.

Begin your morning with your mind, not the internet. 

“But, I have to get ready for work.”

“My work is my phone.”

“The internet is my work.”

All valid concerns but if you’re serious about rewiring your reading journey, you would spare your mind just five minutes before bouncing into the chaotic digital world.

4. Use The “Two-page Commitment”

The hardest part of reading is starting. Instead of trying to read for 30 minutes, commit to just two pages. Anyone can read two pages and 90% of the time, two pages become 20. This bypasses resistance and gets your brain into motion.

5. Carry A Book As If It Were Part Of Your Outfit

Don’t leave your reading to “when you have time.” Time rarely appears but pockets of time do. Waiting rooms. Queues. Train rides. Bus trips. Lunch break. These are all pockets of time between your daily tasks. If your book is physically with you, these pockets can turn into chapters. 

6. Ruin The Perfectionism That Stops You Reading

Many people don’t read because they think reading must be solemn, organised, or aesthetic. You don’t need the perfect chair, perfect tea, perfect bookmark, perfect silence.

  • Read in chaos.
  • Read in noise.
  • Read in fragments.

Books are not sacred because of the atmosphere but because of the transformation they offer.

7. Let Your Curiosity, Not Guilt, Choose Your Next Book

Don’t read what you think you “should.” Read what pulls your attention with the slightest gravity. Curiosity is nature’s motivator; obligation, its enemy. Follow your curiosity, and reading becomes easier than scrolling.

8. Don’t Finish Every Book; Graduate From Them

  • Some books are meant to be finished.
  • Some are meant to be tasted.
  • Some are meant to give you one brilliant idea and nothing more.

Finishing a bad or unhelpful book may look like discipline to you, but all you did was waste time you don’t even have with a book that you’ll probably never remember and will probably never impact your life. Let go without guilt. A book you don’t finish still made you wiser than a feed you scrolled.

9. Make Reading Your Anti-social Media Ritual

Every time you’re tempted to scroll, pick up your book instead. Over time, your brain starts linking books with comfort and scrolling with noise.

  • Your impulse rewires.
  • Your attention heals.

Reading becomes your refuge, not your homework.

10. Remember: A Reading Mind Is A Liberated Mind

In a world ruled by algorithms, reading is one of the few places your thoughts remain your own. Books stretch your attention span, deepen your empathy, stabilise your emotions, and give you access to people’s entire lifetimes of thinking, all without the chaos of the crowd. To read today is to reclaim yourself.

My Books Are In My Phone

Yes. With many areas lacking access to physical stores, and other personal preference, it is understandable that a majority of your books will be pdf-based or epubs. In cases like this, turn on airplane mode and clear all notifications from the top of your screen. Unless you’re fine deceiving yourself then you must do the hard thing and force your mind to go beyond wanting to scroll every time it sees your phone. 

Reading more is not about discipline but about rebellion. 

  • Rebellion against distraction.
  • Rebellion against mental clutter.
  • Rebellion against living life in fragments.

If you want to read more, don’t force yourself. Craft an inner life so rich that books become your oxygen. In a society drowning in noise, scrolling, and short attention spans, the person who still reads is rare, powerful, and  unstoppable: and that can be you.

10 Commandments for Friendship in Today’s World

Cornelius NdubuisiLeave a comment
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Everyone talks about friendship as if it’s simple: be loyal, be kind, be honest. 

But friendships today are more complex than ever. They are stretched thin by distance, distorted by social media, and pressured by the emotional demands of adulthood. The old advice is wholesome, yes, but insufficient for a world where connection is both easier and more fragile.

What’s one to do then?

Not have friends? Of course not.

There’s always a way out and here are 10 unconventional, outlier commandments of friendship.

The kind that actually builds depth, security, and long-lasting bonds in a noisy, fast-paced world.

Commandment #1

↪Thou Shalt Not Compete With Thy Friends

Comparison is the silent killer of friendship. Celebrate your friend’s wins without turning them into a mirror for your insecurities. Your friend’s success is not your failure but evidence that good things are possible. If you need to “keep up” with your friend, you’re a rival, not a companion. And if their success triggers anything in you, it should not be comparison but an earnest sense of happiness and maybe hope that your congratulations are also around the corner.

Commandment #2

↪Thou Shalt Give People Space Without Taking It Personally

Modern friendships fail because people interpret space as abandonment. Adults have schedules, stresses, ambitions, and seasons of silence. A healthy friendship can survive being put on ‘Do Not Disturb’. But, that does not mean allowing yourself to be taken for granted, either.

Commandment #3

↪Thou Shalt Not Demand Emotional Perfection

Your friend is not an emotional vending machine. They will disappoint you. They will misunderstand you. They will have days when they have nothing to give. Friendship thrives not because people are perfect, but because they are safe enough to be imperfect.

Commandment #4

↪Thou Shalt Practise the Discipline of Low Maintenance

Good friendships don’t require constant conversations but  consistent truth. You don’t need to talk every day. But you must be real every time you talk. Depth beats frequency.

Commandment #5

↪Thou Shalt Be Loyal in Silence, Not Just in Speech

It is easy to defend people when they are watching. True loyalty happens in rooms where your friend’s name comes up and they are not present. If you won’t protect your friend in rooms they cannot enter, you don’t deserve access to their trust.

Commandment #6

↪Thou Shalt Tell The Truth Even When It Risks the Friendship

A real friend is not someone who agrees with everything you do. They are someone who refuses to let you self-destruct politely. If you feel slighted that your friends are calling you out, maybe it’s time to ask if what you want is a friend or a yes man.

Commandment #7

↪Thou Shalt Respect Boundaries, Even The Ones You Don’t Understand

You may not understand why a friend asked for what they asked for, but if they tell you they need boundaries, respect it without interrogation. You need to stop seeing boundaries like obstacles and more like fences. Fences protect the home, same as boundaries.

Commandment #8

↪Thou Shalt Not Treat Thy Friend as a Dumping Ground

Venting has its place, but friendships collapse when one person becomes the emotional landfill of the group. Share your struggles responsibly and  don’t confuse friendship with therapy. Your friend is a human being, not a cushion for your chaos.

Commandment #9

↪Thou Shalt Not Make Everything About Thyself

A shocking number of friendships die because people forget to ask, “How are YOU?” Self-centredness is subtle. It starts slowly with interrupting stories, builds into hijacking conversations, and soon lands at minimising others’ pain. And when you ask, “how are you?” mean it? Don’t rush over or hope they simply say “fine” so that you can go on to discuss you. Ask and be intentional about getting into their responses.

Commandment #10

↪Thou Shalt Grow or Thou Shalt Drift

Friendships don’t last because of time; they last because of growth. You cannot remain connected to someone if one of you is evolving and the other is committed to stagnation. The rarest friendships are those where both people rise, learn, mature, self-reflect, and expand. 

True friendship isn’t built on constant closeness or similarity but on trust, maturity, emotional intelligence, and mutual evolution.

These commandments are like principles that elevate you. In a world full of shallow connections, the people who follow these principles become something rare: friends who feel like home, not like weight.

Minding Your Business: The Forgotten Skill for Growth in a Nosy World

Cornelius NdubuisiLeave a comment

Somewhere along the road to hyper-connected living, we normalised a strange cultural habit of treating other people’s lives as public property. We zoom into their relationships, career choices, parenting styles, mistakes, joys, holidays, wardrobes, emotions, and even the tone of their captions.

In a world where everyone is watching everyone, minding your own business has quietly become a radical act, and paradoxically, one of the most powerful drivers of personal growth.

Most people think “mind your business” is about rudeness or indifference. Or that it means not calling out something wrong when you see it. It’s not. It is the posture that frees the mind from comparison, frees relationships from tension, and frees society from unnecessary friction. It is a discipline, a wisdom, a worldview, and quite honestly, a survival skill.

So, how do we mind our business the right way? Here’s how:

1. Assume You Don’t Know the Full Story Even When you’re Convinced you Do

Human beings see surfaces. We infer stories. We fill gaps with our anxieties, biases, and projections. The ability to pause and say, “I don’t know enough to have an opinion” is a hidden superpower. It immediately dissolves judgment, softens the ego, and restores compassion. Most conflicts, gossip cycles, and unnecessary emotional reactions come from the illusion of total knowledge. The truth is, many of us don’t want to miss out on dropping our “one cent”, so we fuel our replies and biases on the offhand, incomplete information we have and work with it. It’s even worse when such people still stand their ground after tangible information that disproves their take is released. You don’t know the full story.

2. Treat Other People’s Choices Like Locked Drawers

You wouldn’t walk into someone’s bedroom and start opening drawers, yet this is exactly what we do emotionally and mentally when we dissect people’s decisions. “But they brought their drawers to social media space. It’s not my fault if I look into it.” I hear you. They brought their matter forward, so you lose all sense of courtesy, right? When you see a choice you don’t understand, tell yourself: “This is a locked drawer. Not my property.” A couple announce they never want to have kids. That does not mean they hate kids, are child haters or bad people; they don’t want to have. It’s simple. You love kids, that’s fine. That drawer is not your property. You’ll be shocked by how much peace this unlocks.

3. Comparison is Emotional Theft; Stop Stealing From Yourself

Every moment spent analysing someone else’s path is a moment stolen from your own. You cannot grow and compare at the same time. Comparison is not admiration; it is distraction dressed in jealousy. It keeps you stuck in observation mode instead of creation mode. When your eyes are too busy on other people’s lives, your own life becomes blurry. The most successful, fulfilled people are not necessarily the smartest. They’re simply the most focused. They refuse to live life sideways. You can admire and not compare. You can infer and draw lessons without belittling your worth. They are them, and you are you. If there are decisions you have to make to adjust your life, make them, but do so with respect to your journey, not someone else’s.

4. Curate Ignorance Intentionally

The world tells you that you must be informed about everything. This is a lie. You need to be informed about what shapes your purpose, not what fuels your curiosity. Selective ignorance is a mental health strategy.

You don’t need to know who broke up with whom.

You don’t need to know what the neighbours bought.

You don’t need to know why someone quit their job or moved houses.

Curate ignorance like a minimalist curates furniture: keep only what adds value.

5. Celebrate People Without Studying Them

It is possible to admire someone’s success without performing a full autopsy on how they got there. You don’t need to decode their happiness, reverse-engineer their profits, or investigate their marriage. “Wow, they’ve only been active for three years and now have their own mansion.” “Can’t believe it’s digital products that gave him his wealth.” Why can’t you believe it, dearest inspector? Celebrate and move out of that space. Admiration becomes toxic only when it turns into analysis.

Try this: “I’m happy for them.” Full stop. No second sentence. No silent comparison. No psychological detective work.

6. If it Doesn’t Concern your Purpose, Goals, or Peace, it’s Noise

A simple filter to live by: “Does this information help me grow, help me love, or help me heal?” If the answer is no, it is noise, no matter how dramatic, juicy, or enticing. Confusing noise for relevance is one of the biggest growth-killers of our time. “But, I still need the information.” For what exactly? To gossip later on and distract yourself from your goals? Stay focused!

7. Your Attention is your Life, Protect it Like Property

Imagine your attention as a house. Every time you poke around other people’s business, you leave your own door wide open. You abandon your responsibilities, delay your dreams, weaken your confidence, and clutter your mind. Minding your business is ultimately about owning your mental estate. Personal growth accelerates when attention stops leaking.

8. Let Maturity Replace Curiosity

Curiosity is natural; maturity is chosen. Maturity tells you:

I don’t need to know everything.

I don’t need to verify rumours.

I don’t need to scrutinise strangers.

I don’t need to have opinions on lives I don’t live.

Freedom begins where unnecessary curiosity ends.9. Silence is sometimes the highest form of intelligence

In a loud world where everyone thinks their opinions are indispensable, silence is elegance. Choosing not to comment, especially when you can, is a sign of internal strength.

You don’t need to join every conversation or enter every digital argument. You don’t need to offer takes on issues that drain you.

You don’t need to drop hot takes on every subject matter. Sometimes the wisest thing you can say is nothing.

Minding your business is self-mastery.It is choosing depth over noise, focus over distraction, and growth over gossip.It is refusing to let your life become a spectator sport while you analyse everyone else’s highlight reel.In a world obsessed with watching, dissecting, criticising, and commenting, becoming a person who minds their business is transformational. It clears your mind, strengthens relationships, and makes coexistence not just possible, but beautiful.And best of all, it frees you to finally, fully, live your own life.