Just to go ahead and state the obvious: I hate ticking time bombs.
In more ways than one.
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I have always abhorred confrontations. They make me uncomfortable, and just …no.
An incident from six years ago comes to mind when I think about confrontations.
Let me set the scene: I’m in my last year of secondary school, I’m taking the WAEC G.C.E Exam, and I think I’m all that.
​On this particular day, a group of us were on our way to take the Mathematics portion of the examination in a school bus. There were not many students from my secondary school who were assigned to take the exam at my center, so the bus was not packed.
But the expressway was. I am not sure what was happening that morning, but there were cars everywhere and I don’t think they were all facing the same direction
After sitting in this gridlock for a few minutes, and moving maybe a few feet, our bus driver got out of the vehicle to plead with the drivers of the vehicles nearest to us to make way for us.
“These children are on their way to take an exam,” he said… probably. (It’s been six years!)
One thing led to a disastrous other because next thing I recall, our bus driver was recieving (and maybe, giving) blows.
I tell you – watching a physical altercation in person versus through the screen is a vastly different experience.
Looking back now, my reaction seems kind of dramatic, but I burst into tears.
I shouted at the boys in the bus to go out and help in some way. I think they did. At least, I remember one of the more mature boys in my class at the time (y’all know who I ‘m talking about) standing outside the bus.
I don’t really remember much else, traumatized as I was.
We did, however, get to the exam center before the exam started – Praise God!
As you can probably tell from this rendition, my reaction to the altercation is probably one of the only things I fully remember.
As Maya Angelou famously said, “people will … remember how you made them feel.”

So what’s the moral of this story and the blog? Don’t be a ticking time bomb.
Don’t be someone who goes around creating tension. Don’t thrive in conflict.
It’s a lose-lose situation.
​You lose. People around you lose. And you are remembered as the “ticking time bomb.”